A hot summers day in July, 2011.
Maybe one day I'll be the author of one of the books for sale in Shakespeare & Co., a famous English-language bookstore in Paris.
T minus 30 seconds until my interview with the largest newspaper in France and I was squinting into the mirror in my childhood bedroom in Lawrence, Kansas, trying to make sure my eyeliner was even.
Luckily, interviews aren’t what they used to be. I had a rendez-vous with my potential employer… on Skype. Which meant that I could be sitting in the attic bedroom painted in pastel colors and also, be interviewing for a very high-powered internship.
Earlier, I had joked with my sister about the interview… « I mean, I could wear a blazer and pajama pants, right ? Or no pants and no one would notice. »
But, somehow, that felt like a bad choice (Visions of me forgetting and accidentally standing up to get something clouded my mind) and as I arranged myself onto the couch, I was rather surreally dressed in full-on business professional.
I knocked a few stuffed animals out of the way, took a deep breath and clicked on the little green phone button that would connect me.
Floating the gig economy
I guess I should explain what this interview was all about. My interview was with the web staff of Le Figaro in English, a new initiative of France’s biggest newspaper. A while back, their competitor, the centrist Le Monde had launched an English language service and now, Le Fig wanted to catch up.
This internship was basically ideal for me. I graduated a little over a year ago with a BA in French and a BS in Journalism.
As with the rest of my peers, I found that graduation basically burst the happy bubble of university life… we left a world of opportunities and entered an economy in recession.
I have heard the current climate described as a « gig economy » and I couldn’t agree more—everyone seems to be hopping from one short-term job to another. Post graduation, I had been lucky enough to find some pretty sweet gigs. Last summer, still clinging on to my university connections, I led conversation groups for international students learning English. Then, I became a nanny and spent two months in Amsterdam and Senegal.
After that, I was lucky enough to get the best of all ESL positions—an assistantship in France. Unlike many ESL teachers who work with NGOs or smaller organizations, assistants are employees of the French government and enjoy benefits like free healthcare and lots of vacation.
I was assigned to my first-choice location, La Réunion, a volcanic island off the coast of Madagascar. Basically, it is France’s equivalent to Hawaii. So I spent all year « assisting » English teachers in an elementary school (which basically meant telling the kids about Thanksgiving and Michael Jackson and initiating fierce « Simon Says » competitions), made a cushy salary, and profited from the volcano and beaches that were my backyard.
One very real benefit of my séjour there (besides a tan) was that my grasp of French soared to new levels.
And then came May 1st. And unemployment. My contract with the French government ended. I waved goodbye to the island and moved back home to Lawrence, Kansas to start sending out applications.
It wasn’t all that bad. I mean, I didn’t have a car and was living at home, but I was surrounded by friends and family. Summers are filled with picnics and lake swimming. Plus, I had a phenomenal summer internship in public radio and was working daily with incredible journalists in a field I love.
I was luckier than a lot of people.
But there was a heavy cloud over me. As much as I would have loved to stay at my internship forever, it was unpaid and, in that way, unsustainable. My savings were drying up.
None of my applications were getting accepted anywhere. I got deflating rejection after deflating rejection. Even my attempts to get a part time job at a grocery store or clothes shop didn’t work.
Desperate, I saw an ad for a gardener and followed up on it… Anyone can garden, right ? The ad had been posted by my university advisor. Swallowing my pride, I pulled weeds in ninety degree heat and thought about the happy days when I sat in her office and plotted my future.
Pretty sure manual labor wasn’t on the list.
Is it a date ?
In a sea of rejection, I did have one possibility… this internship with Le Figaro. An aquintance in Paris had forwarded me the ad, filled me in on the employer, and told me to give it a shot.
I sent out a friendly email, a resume, some clips.
My potential employer seemed young and fun and in the few emails we had exchanged since I had heard she was hiring, she told me that she had once interned in New York.
And then came the email : We should speak on Skype.
I wasn’t sure if this was an interview or not, but it was a lot better than I had seen for a while.
An accent… grave
A peppy voice came out of my computer, speaking in English. We chatted, she asked me a few basic questions and then she asked if we could speak in French.
I gulped. I had only been away from France for a few months, but I could already hear the American accent making itself annoyingly present in my French.
« Ok », I said, in French. « But I have to warn you, my accent is pretty rotten. »
She laughed, « French people think it’s cute. »
Literally, two seconds later, she said, « Well, you’re hired if you want to come. »
I did not expect that.
I stumbled out… « Oh, wow, I don’t even know what to say… »
« You don’t have to say anything, » she assured me, « Your resume says it all. When can you start ? »
I was still reeling when I got off the phone. My sister was lounging on the floor next to me. She speaks Spanish, not French and didn’t understand a word of the conversation that had just rocked my world.
« I got it, » I said, blinking. This went from a maybe-its-a-date-maybe-its-just-coffeee-as-friends to a marriage proposal.
The irony ?
The dress clothes, which were stifling in the Kansas heat, and the eyeliner, which happened to be perfectly even, was for naught.
Throughout the entire Skype conversation, we never even switched to the video view.
Kafka’s castle
If only everything had been as easy as that initial conversation.
I won’t bore you with the bureacracy that followed, but let’s just say that I spent the rest of July, August, September and part of October navigating my way through le château de Kafka, Kafka’s castle— the nickname the French use for the impossible-to-understand paperpushing that happens in all official French offices.
But for each person who didn’t pick up the phone or told me in an exasperated tone Ce n’est pas possible, there was someone who rallied around or offered a kind word or a bit of advice.
I won’t bore you with a Oscar speech list, but you know who you are and I can’t say merci enough. Merci mille fois.
And then, as suddenly as the original offer, I had my visa in my hands and a departure date of a few weeks away.
After months of waiting, it all seemed very fast.
Becoming your correspondent
During the long limbo period, I connected with the Alliance Française of Kansas City. The AFKC is an organization all about French language and culture—they provide language classes, screen French films and provide plenty of opportunities for Francophones and Francophiles to get together in the Kansas City area.
The president and board of AFKC were wildly supportive and enthusiastic about my internship at Le Figaro. Essentially, my opportunity—the chance to work with the French language and explore French culture—is what their organization is all about.
Together, the president and I concocted a plan, which evolved into this blog. My mission would be to share my experience with AFKC members and any other readers in the Blogosphere.
The board gave me the fantastic title of special correspondent, or envoyée spéciale, for their organization.
As a girl who has dreamed of being a special correspondent for a long time, this is pretty dang exciting.
What You Can Expect
Over the next six months, throughout the duration of my internship, I will be updating this blog with stories, anecdotes and reflections from my séjour in Paris.
As I will be working in a French newsroom, I’ll keep you updated with the buzz in Paris. It is going to be a busy and exciting year, what with the scandals of DSK still making headlines and the French presidential election on the horizon.
Subscribe to my blog to get updates on my most recent posts, follow me on Twitter (AFKC_envoyee) or better yet, become a member of the AFKC today. They have a link to my blog on their website and will be sending out sneak previews of what I’m up to.
Preview of the next few days ? A lot of packing.