A couple weeks ago my father did something he hasn’t done in a long time. He wrote a column. Now that he has made it official by recognizing it himself in his own writing, I feel it is an appropriate time to write about my new title.
All my life people have been asking me whether or not I would take over and run the paper when I got older. Well I must be older now because it’s happening. For two months now I have been the editor in chief. I really never knew if it would happen. I didn’t want just to follow the steps that everyone said I would follow.
I don’t know how long this job will go for, if my dad will ever decide he wants to do it again, but I know I really like it thus far. It’s a really enjoyable job. I get to look through all the news, decide what goes in the paper, and then it’s a giant jigsaw puzzle to fit everything in. That may be an oversimplification because it sounds easy when I put it like that. It is not. It takes hours and I don’t get days off anymore, but I like it that way. I enjoy being busy.
For the first time in my life I am working a full time job and to be honest, I think it might be considered more than that because of how much time it takes. The strange part is, I don’t feel it. I will be at the office for an entire day, eight, ten or even 12 hours, and I can’t tell that any time has really passed. I take a short lunch break at my desk, but other than the sun going down when I leave, I don’t ever feel the day go by. I like doing my job, I guess it can be related to that old phrase, time flies when you’re having fun! Or the other phrase, when you like what you do, you never work a day in your life.
Working without feeling like I’m working is not the only part of my job I enjoy. I love working with my family. That’s what we are here at the paper. Reed is a member of the family, and the rest of us are all related, even our newest employee. My Aunt is now helping out around the office with my old job. I should also mention all the people who work for us outside the office: Melanie Piltingsrudproofreading and reporting, along with Chris Schlaak, Sarajo Vulcan, Kathy Paulsen and the rest of our columnists.
While being the editor, I have, not purposely, neglected the responsibilities of my old job, Editorial Assistant. I still do some of the basics from that job, because part of that job was helping with my current job, but a lot of it was going left undone. That is no more now that we have Teresa helping out. She loves it and we love having her here. She really is a character. She has a sense of humor, unlike my mother (Tracie), who treats her job like a prison guard with their inmates. In all honesty, Mom isn’t that strict, but she can get a little bit uptight when things get stressful.
One of the perks of my new title is I can rub it in my sister’s face. I’m just kidding of course, but I have definitely noticed that she treats me differently since I started this job. She doesn’t use the word “kid” anymore when she talks to me. The other thing, she’s helping out more around the office. With the workload, it can be hard to do all the little things in addition to everything else and she has been picking up the slack. Now if I could only get her to start writing her column again…
Maybe when Jessica gets around to reading this column (which I know she does, because I ask her to edit them) she will feel something, maybe some inspiration to write again. It can really be a good stress reliever. When I started writing I wrote a bunch of columns, because it kind of felt like work. I had to sit down and consciously think of topics to write about. Nowadays it isn’t as hard. There’s usually plenty to write about in a small town!
Thought for the day: Although something may be difficult at first, that makes it all the more rewarding in the end. And in the words of Al Batt, be kind to each other.