Some of you know that I've been promoted at work. Which means I actually took advantage of an opportunity. An opportunity that has presented itself time and again over the past eight years. What opportunity, you may ask? It's to edit and lead the North Central News, a weekly newspaper that is published within our same company that produces the paper I have served for nine years – the Northeast Herald. All here in the Alamo City area.
Going from staff writer to what a college adviser had half-jokingly called me eons ago ("glorified staff writer) in some respects won't be much of a significant change. Save for the welcome pay increase and slightly altered schedule. And the idea that I no longer must attend so many government meetings week after week after week. And I would actually have to manage a reporter rather than be held accountable to another editor.
It's a daunting challenge, no doubt, but nothing with which I'm not familiar. I've edited before in college and even launched my own alternative fishwrap before I crashed and burned in spectacularly glorious fashion.
I will miss sitting in the back row of numerous city council and school board meetings in semi-rural suburbia northeast of San Antonio. I will fondly recall the small-town politicking, occasional civil wars, the friends and media contacts I've made out there (and enemies). But I'll miss perhaps most of all – my sweet cubicle. Entrenched in the back corner of our newsroom, my desk – stowed away from the rest of the world it seemed at times – has been my home away from home.
Farewell, most precious workstation. I shall remember our good and bad times. Such as that one time my Herald editor simply walked past me into his office at such a speed he had failed to notice my presence there the entire day.
Oh wait. That has happened numerous times. All year. Every year. The novelty wore out in 2001.
Woe, woe is the disconnect between me and my cubicle. Alas, do not worry. For I will operate a mere eight feet away, building a shelter upon my new desk. But it will never feel the same as before.
As for becoming an editor once more, it's a role for which I am fully ready. I had rejected previous chances to edit my own publication within my current employer. Initially I had felt simply burned out from the managing job. Loyalty to the Herald and its coverage area developed. Then came life's other whirlwinds – personal struggles to which I had to attend. I had no choice but to give up past opportunities at editing.
So now, it's better late than never. I'm ready for a professional change. It comes at a time of exciting happenings in my personal life. I've paid my dues. It's time to rock 'n' roll.
