If I had a dime for every time someone asked me what the worst part of my job was, I wouldn”t be a millionaire, but I would own a lot of dimes.
Is it dealing with the coaches? No. Is it dealing with angry parents? No. Is it the pay? No. Is it the commute back and forth to Cloverdale every day? No, but because of soaring gas prices, it”s moving up on the list. Is it the swing shift that keeps me here from 3:30 to midnight? No. Is it the people who still haven”t figured out I work a swing shift after nearly 24 years here? No. Is it the coaches who don”t call in game results? No. Is it the occasional prickly athlete who thinks he”s God gift to sports? No. Is it the missed family events because of what the job requires? No.
It”s none of those things.
The worst part of my job is making friends with co-workers and watching those friends leave. I hate it, and I”ll never get used to it even though I”ve been through it more times than I can count and more times than I care to remember. I truly dread the last-day-of-work goodbyes. The only good thing, and the most important thing, is that my co-workers and friends are moving upward and onward in pursuit of their career goals and career dreams. For some it”s a new job, for others it”s a well-earned retirement.
Once the hurt of their leaving passes, I feel nothing but joy for them and cherish the time we did spend together at the Record-Bee.
I have so many names and memories. Ellen Leifeld, who hired me and is now a high-ranking editor with a major newspaper. Ellen”s husband, Ron, a great photographer. Jeff Segol and Walt Neary, two reporters who went out and climbed the ladder of success. Publisher John Lowman, the best of the best, if a bit frantic at times, especially during our paper-sponsored bass tournaments in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Reporters Heather Chavez, Keith Bowers, Kari Hulac, Jentri Anders, Stephan Clark, David Thom, Laura Rains, Craig Johnson, Margaret Gan Garrison and Larry Spears, all outstanding in their own different ways. Former managing editors Mike Molligan, Cliff Larimer and Elizabeth Larson were solid bosses; former photographer Joe Mickey is the best I have ever worked with. Former news editor Aura Taylor, copy editors Leonard Neft and Kim Sloan, and assistant editors Dave Stoneberg, Cindy Friday and Susan Stout were true pros. And that”s just a partial list of the many outstanding journalists I have known at the Bee. They may be just names to you, but not to me. I”ve tried to incorporate something from each and make it my own.
Because the Record-Bee is a small daily and on the frontlines for the journalism industry, it will continue to train reporters, photographers and editors who are on their way up. There will be mistakes, lots of them. There will be triumphs, too ? lots of them.
That long list of success stories now grows by one. Elizabeth Wilson, who has served her time in purgatory, is adding her name to the graduating class of Bee staffers, the Class of 2008 if you will. Elizabeth has been hired by Entrepreneur Magazine as an editor and will be relocating to Orange County in the next few days. Her last day of work at the Bee was Monday. The high quality of her work and her tenaciousness has been rewarded, as has been the case for so many Bee staffers down through the years.
And so I say goodbye to another co-worker and friend, probably not the last but certainly among the best.
Elizabeth will do great. The Quagga Mussel queen has left the building.
