June 30, 2024
I want to share a story with you about a girl named Solstice.
Solstice was a creative writer, one of a small handful employed by the Local Newspaper. She and the others were featured every week, in the Sunday Paper in the Creator’s Corner of the paper, where they could write poems, short stories, and amateur articles about things that mattered to them. Some of them even drew pictures for adult coloring pages.
Solstice LOVED her job more than anything. She was always so eager to work on a new project every week. She poured her heart and soul into every piece she wrote for the Creator’s Corner, and she always received positive reviews. Many readers found her stories relatable, and her poems so vividly detailed that it was as though you were there, watching the scene unfold.
Solstice spent her free time plotting outlines for each topic to be featured, and she was very well paid for her work. All of the Corner artists were.
Then, one day, the local paper decided to downsize and cut the Creator’s Corner out completely. After all, who cared about the artistic expression of a bunch of college kids?
But figuring their services could still be utilized, they encouraged the kids to take up journalism, assuring them that they could stay on as Apprentices to the current journalists until they finished school. The Corner Artists were given 10 days to decide what they wanted to do. Sign a contract with the paper to be Apprentices and change their Majors, or face a lay-off.
But Solstice couldn’t afford to change her major. She’d already sunk everything she had into her current Art Major. She’d never be able to come up with that kind of money in only 10 days. She considered applying for a grant, but those things took time. Time that Solstice didn’t have.
This was Solstice’s only source of income, the only thing she was really good at, and the one thing she had that was putting her through school. So she began scrambling, trying to find some other way to remain a part of the paper. There had to be some way. She met with the editor asking if she could help with editing the articles, but the editor didn’t have room for another editor. So she spoke to the journalist in charge of the local Sports News. She was attending the local college, after all. She could get the 411 on all the Sports teams. But he told her that if she wanted to partner with him, she had to switch her major. So she begged to simply take pictures for him. He could write the sports columns and she could take the pictures. He didn’t even have to credit her the pictures. If he simply paid her for them, she’d call it even. But he already had a photographer. He wasn’t looking for another one.
Desperate, Solstice met with the heads of the local paper. She pleaded with them, “Please, I can’t afford a Major change right now, but if you’ll give me more time, I can apply for a grant and change majors as soon as it’s excepted. I really need this job, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep it. I just need more time.” But the paper had a deadline to downsize, and they couldn’t keep a dead weight on the payroll, so Solstice got her lay-off notice. At the conclusion of those 10 days, she would no longer be employed at the newspaper. Solstice left the meeting in tears.
She began applying for any job, trying to supplement the income she would no longer receive from the newspaper, but no one was looking for creative writers, nor were they willing to work around Solstice’s school schedule.
The deadline came, and the deadline went as Solstice tried desperately to find something else. The editor took some pity on Solstice and allowed her to work an extra week for the paper, accepting what would be called Solstice’s Final Piece before termination of her employment.
When she arrived to submit her final piece, she collided with one of her former Creative Coworkers, leaving from a meeting among the former Corner Artists and the heads of the paper. He told her that since learning of her layoff, they’d all signed new contracts and changed majors to journalism.
“Not that it matters,” he said with a laugh.
“What do you mean,” Solstice asked, confused. Of course, it mattered.
“You didn’t hear,” he asked her, raising an eyebrow. “The public was outraged to learn that Creator’s Corner was being canceled, and they called everyone threatening to boycott the newspaper unless the Creator’s Corner remained a part of the Sunday Paper. So those of us who signed the contract won’t be Apprenticing to be Journalists, after all. We’re all just going to work on Creator’s Corner.”
But Solstice didn’t sign the contract because she couldn’t afford the change of Majors, and she couldn’t get a time extension, so she was still laid-off. She submitted her last piece to the editor to run in the newly reinstated Creator’s Corner that Sunday, and then she cried all the way home, now jobless.
The neighbor saw her sitting in her car sobbing and came over to check on her. Crying uncontrollably, Solstice told him the whole story. “I LOVED MY JOB,” she began through hysterical sobs. “Since getting the news that we had to change majors, I haven’t been able to eat. I can barely sleep. I’ve just been stressing and crying and crying and stressing,” she told him through her tears. She explained what she’d learned that day from a former coworker as she submitted her final piece before her official layoff, and she concluded her story with, “I LOST EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING! FOR NOTHING!!!” Tears spilled down her face, soaking the steering wheel, dripping on her arms and in her lap. “Nothing,” she whispered.
“That’s awful, Solstice,” her neighbor told her. “But you’ll find another job.”
Solstice couldn’t do anything more than stare at him. Had he not understood what she’d just lost? Did he misunderstand her tale of woe? How could she convey the true tragedy of it to him in a way that made sense?
She shook her head, her tears raining down her face like a monsoon storm. “Oh, yeah, I’m sure I’ll get other jobs, but I will never, NEVER love them like I loved the one I just lost.”
