I love writing. Whether it’s writing a blog, or sending an e-mail, or a poem or an article, I just like writing. It comes easy to me, and I find that sometimes it’s the best way I can express myself.

I like copyediting because punctuation errors hurt my soul and I like to correct them.

I like paginating because I finally put all those years of training with Tetris into use. Seriously, pagination is kinda like Tetris. Except the Tretrominoes aren’t inverted pyramids that can be cut smaller if you really want them to fit into a certain space. Oh, journalism humor, zing!

I got into journalism because I wanted to be  writer, but actually be paid for it. The more classes I took in college, the more I found out I loved it. The fact that I’m nosy probably helps, too.

I LOVED working at my college’s newspaper. Reporting was fun, ideas were never really turned down. We made fun of hate mail, and even had a door dedicated to the best letters. There was a lot of trying new things, playing around with the look of our pages. My philosophy was always to try new things and have fun with it, because at a “real” newspaper, we wouldn’t have that freedom.

I didn’t know how right I was. I have stories turned down all the time, most of which I’m given no reason for. I think I’ve learned that we don’t touch anything that’s pro-choice or pro-gay  because “we don’t want to lose 20 readers.”

I wish I was joking about that, but I’m not. One day the decision was made not to run an article that mentioned someone was raised by a homosexual parent and their partner because the editors were worried we would lose 20 readers.

I can’t imagine canceling a newspaper subscription because one day there was one article that had something I disagreed with. No one forces anyone to read anything. I hate sports, and would rather be punched in the back repeatedly than read about or listen to people talk about sports, but I don’t refuse to read papers because they have a sports section.

Maybe that’s not the best thing to compare it to. Let’s say I’m anti-death penalty because my religion tells me that any sort of killing is wrong, even if it’s punishment for something horrible. Would I cancel the paper because I read an article about someone being sentenced to death? No, because that’s something that happened in the world, and I can’t deny that it’s going on by not reading a paper.

What happens when the 6 o’clock news covers a GLAAD event? Are the producers like, “Uh…. you know, we just can’t afford to have 20 people calling in to cancel their cable.”

I bet the people who run CNN’s Web site are saying all the time, “Now you guys know, we can’t run any of those article about gay people raising babies! We can’t afford to have 20,000 calling in to cancel their Internet subscriptions!”

Wonder no more!

Stressful jobs that pay badly

No. 4 – News Reporter

Median pay: $32,900
% who say their job is stressful: 62%

“Every minute is another deadline for those who report and write the news. While racing against the clock, reporters gather data, conduct interviews and analyze their findings all before writing about major events for a newspaper, magazine, radio show or television program.” – CNN Money

Median is $32,000? Sweet jeebus, I would LOVE to make $32,000, maybe then I could afford a DVR to record the shows I miss while working late shift every night.

Median income for a high school teacher is $43,000. Seriously? They get off three months in the summer, a week at Thanksgiving, two at Christmas, one in the spring, and who knows how ever many other stupid holidays. And they get weekends off, always. Reporters get five holidays a year… And it’s very likely they’ll be working at least one, and probably Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve isn’t a holiday in reporter land.

Veterans Day was this week, which is not a holiday for reporters. We all work. And by work, we either write about the parade, or a flag raising, or do a man on the street about why people are thankful for veterans.

Or we act busy for 7.5 hours writing that story we did all the interviews for the day before.

So the next time someone from the teacher’s union calls me to complain about how teachers are underpaid, maybe I’ll tell her how she can suck it.

But it wasn’t a source at all.

Me:  ”Newsroom.”

Caller: “Was there a paper today?’

Me: “Yes.”

Caller: “Well, I didn’t get it again.”

I then told him I would transfer him to the circulation department.

What I really wanted to say was, “You’re not missing much.” Or “That’s a shame.”

Why would there not be a paper? There’s a paper every day. Every. Day. We’re a daily paper. That means you should get one Sunday through Saturday.

I don’t know what happened to your delivery person. I actually don’t care if you get a paper or not. We’re supposed to care about our readers, but when our readers are dicks, I don’t care how many times they haven’t gotten a paper in the last month.

I understand it’s frustrating to not get something you’re paying for, but maybe you should talk to the person that’s responsible – like the newspaper delivery person. Maybe when someone answers the phone “Newsroom,” you should ask, “Who do I talk to about paper deliveries?”

I don’t know if this is a local thing or not, but we also get TONS of calls where people ask us for phone numbers to other things… like the local TV stations.

“Newsroom.”

Caller: “What’s Channel five’s number?”

“Uh… this is the newspaper.”

“But don’t you know the number for channel five?”

“No, I have no reason to call the news channel.”

“But don’t you have the number?”

Calling the newspaper isn’t like calling information. Maybe we should be flattered that people think we know everything, but I don’t like wasting my time looking through the phone book to give a caller the phone company’s number, or going through everyone’s stories to find out what day trash collection runs through which neighborhood.

The most calls I ever got was the day of a college basketball game. The local news station couldn’t get their satellite feed (BTW, I know nothing about how this works, so don’t correct me), and the game wasn’t on till halftime.

Most of the calls went like this: “Where’s the game?”

Me: “I don’t know, sir, this is the newspaper.”

“But the paper said the game would be on this channel.”

Me: “Well, we’re the newspaper. We don’t control that.”

“But the article said….”

Me: “Sir, you can reach the TV station at…….”

As soon as I got rid of him, another call.

Me: “Newsroom.”

“Where’s the damn game?!”

Me: “The TV station’s number is….”

The sports guys were getting calls too. There were echos of the same number being repeated throughout the newsroom for an hour or two until the game finally came on.

Moral of this story: The newspaper isn’t 411, and most likely the employees have no idea what’s going on at the local TV stations. Well, they probably do have some dirt on that arrogant anchor who wears his glasses on the tip of his nose in an attempt to look smart.

Oh, and that other anchor from the other station… Don’t let him near your pet gerbil. Trust me.

After my job interview at my current job, I went to visit my friends at my old job to tell them how it went. I don’t remember telling them how I thought I did, I only remember telling them how filthy the place was, and how I thought the reason it was so dark was because of the wood paneling.

(You’re probably wondering why I decided to take the job. Well, I was desperate and it was the only interview I could get and have gotten in… ummm… 19 months.

There’s no wood paneling in the newsroom. Just lots of blinds. Closed binds. And it probably wouldn’t even matter if they were opened because there’s just an alley and another brick building outside. Those bastards in the ads department got the good view… of the highway and a few trees and dilapidated houses.

Last winter I started an experiment. I was eating kettle corn at my desk and dropped a few pieces on the floor under the desk. Instead of wasting my energy by bending over to pick them up, I decided to leave them. They’re still there. It’s not surprising, because the newsroom is never vacuumed. That’s right vacuumed. We’ve got carpet that was probably blue at some point in time, but now is just lots of brown splotches. Supposedly it was going to be replaced this summer, but the whole “economy thing” ruined those plans.

It’s not so much that it’s ugly and leaves a bad impression on everyone who walks in, it’s the fact that it’s not healthy. People are sick all the time. And yes, I know some of those people mean “sick of work” when they call in sick, but there’s always something going around, and it typically takes a couple weeks to get over coughs and sniffles.

Anyway, the one place that I used to think was cleaned was the ladies’ room. The toliet bowls sometimes have blue “cleaner” in them, and the toliet paper is replaced. The soap is refilled too, but that’s another story that I’ll get into some other time, and is equally gross.

I’m not sure how long ago I noticed, but in the third stall of the ladies room, which is the one I always use, there’s been a seashell on the floor.

Oh yeah, and we’re in a landlocked state, hours away from any ocean.

But there’s two tiny white seashells in the stall. For a long time, I thought it was a little ball of toliet paper. It drove me nuts. I finally had to look closer (risking my life!), and saw that it was a tiny seashell.

My first question is not how it got there, but why is it still there? It’s not up against the stall divider, or against anything. It’s there. In the open. Begging to be swept up.

Now that I think of it, I’ve never seen a broom in this building. I hear the vacuum every evening around 5 p.m., as they pretend to sweep the front lobby and hallway. Vacuums don’t clean stains though.

So for at least the last six months, I’ve had to look at that seashell, just hanging on right in the middle of small square tile. I could pick it up and throw it away, but so could every other woman who works there and chooses not to.

Or maybe these ladies try to get in and out so quick they don’t pay attention to my little friend.

I would like to take daily photos to see if it moves at all. My guess is that any movement is due solely to someone accidently kicking it when moving around in the stall. But then I’m the creeper taking a camera into the ladies’ room.

And sometimes they have to wait for their editors to leave the room and whisper their frustrations, or bore their non-reporter friends when they hang out on the weekend.

Now that my best work friend has moved on to a better place (and by that, I mean another newspaper), I have no one to share these things with as often because I don’t want to call him every evening or take up smoking. And since the only writing I do is at work, I’ve decided to start this blog.

I will use this space to talk about things that are not just annoying, but funny as well. The police scanner can be pretty entertaining, as well as disgrunted employees who have been working 20+ years and are paid less than the new employees.

Hopefully there will also be guest posts in the future as well. Everyone has an awkward experience at least once a day. Because we all know that really, most journalists are awkward and/or tend to hate people.

There will also be documentation of the cleaning staff. They can swipe headphones off someone’s desk, but they can’t seem to sweep the bathroom floor. There will be pictures… and I’ll probably be the only one who enjoys that.

Thank you for visiting, and I hope you enjoy the future posts.