Four years ago, I was quite unexpectedly laid off from my job as a features editor at a newspaper in North Dakota. I was heartbroken.
I loved that job and I loved my team. I was being paid to be a film critic and I was able to use my design skills to create some fun layouts. I was living the dream.
In the face of the layoff, my life was full of uncertainty, and my anxiety skyrocketed.
Three months later, I found myself in the Seattle area working as a general assignment reporter. I did not love that job for a multitude of reasons, and those feelings, paired with the heartbreak of my layoff, led me to explore moving away from journalism. I was 100% ready for a career change.
Almost exactly one year after being laid off, I got an email about setting up my first interview for a Marketing and Communications Specialist position at Treehouse, a Seattle-based nonprofit that serves youth in foster care. After a few phone and in-person interviews, I was hired. I was both excited and nervous to take this step away from the career that had brought me all over the United States for the last seven years.
Three years after starting at Treehouse, I am loving learning new and different ways to share stories. It has been a natural transition to go from creating content to inform people as a journalist to creating content to drive community engagement for a nonprofit that is devoted to a very worthy cause.
I am finding that the skills and experience I gained from being a journalist directly translate to creating and editing engaging written and visual content for Treehouse’s social media, blog, website and newsletters.
I love my job, both in terms of the projects I’m working on and the mission I’m serving. I also work with great people who are dedicated to that mission.
Right now, as a former journalist, having a newsfeed filled with colleagues who have lost their jobs, been furloughed or are facing reduced hours has been hard to see and has reminded me of that change-filled period in my life.
I’ve been thinking about my career trajectory lately, and while being a film critic/journalist was my dream job, I have found that the work I do at Treehouse is the perfect job for me.
When I lost my features editor job, I honestly thought I would never find a job I loved that much again. I’m sure this is something that many folks are feeling right now as jobs are lost during the COVID-19 crisis.
I am not generally a person who copes well with change, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last few years, it’s that you can’t predict the future. If things are rough now, it doesn’t mean they will be that way forever. Do what you can to turn things around, don’t be afraid to ask for help or advice, and embrace things that are outside of the trajectory you saw for yourself 5-10 years ago, or even yesterday.
I think this idea of embracing change needs to be something that white people carry over in the fight against white supremacy and systemic racism. We need to question our internal, sometimes unconscious, biases and how we have benefited from systems that were set up to marginalize Black people and other people of color.
This is bigger than one person and one system. We all need to take a look at what we’re doing in our homes, at work, in our communities and at the polls to change thoughts and actions, and amplify what Black people need to make this country more equitable.
Change is hard, but it is necessary. Let’s embrace it together.
75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice (Medium article)
The Association for Women in Communications has released a statement on current affairs. Please read the Association’s response here.
About the Author
Catherine Krummey is the Marketing and Social Media Manager at Treehouse, a Seattle-based nonprofit that serves youth and young adults who have experienced foster care across Washington state. She is passionate about using storytelling to create positive change in the world, especially using social media for social good.
Prior to her role at Treehouse, Catherine was an award-winning journalist at several publications across the United States. She studied Film and Journalism at the University of Missouri – Columbia.
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