Today is a slow day

Today is a slow day.

I usually come into work at 2pm, shoot 2 to 4 assignments on average and get out around 11. Some days are more jam packed.

Like my two day adventure in Austin. I didn't post a lot, because honestly the work wasn't super exciting, but being there was. But I racked up over 12 hours each day, just in the grind of covering different things.

Today is a slow day. Didn't come in until 3, because I worked over a bit yesterday and there is nothing for me to shoot until 6pm.

I could go home and clean a little. But I just feel like hanging out in the newsroom.

The Facts newsroom is cool. Little islands of desks with people working and interacting (sporadically sometimes, on both counts).

Our reporters desks are lined up, one behind the other, facing the front door of the building. Like torpedoes waiting to be fired out the tube at the first hint of news on the wind.

Our editor's office is across the room with a large window looking out over the crew. Kristina's desk is outside of it, I wouldn't call her a secretary (because she's kind of tough) but she helps keep things going.

There are a couple empty desks in between, of course, because this is a newspaper in the 21st century.

Sports guys are on the opposite side of the room as the reporters, with their desks facing the wall in a line, like they have done something wrong. But I think it might be a tact to keep them from watching sports on TV, like they are doing right now. MARCH MADNESS!!!

Then there is a cluster of six desks in the center of the room with four stations for layout and the two spots for photo.

The two photo desks face the front door, so we get to observe everyone in the newsroom. Which is probably a sharp idea, because we visually observe people for a living, so a little in-house training is a good idea.

Behind us is an open space that was where the darkroom was until just before I started. Now it is a space for a photo studio. There isn't a lot of room, or light control, so it can be a challenge, but it's not too bad.

All the desks in the building are just desks pushed together, no cubicles. Stand anywhere and you can look around and see anyone, besides the higher-ups that have offices.

To my right there is a large glass wall that parts the large, open room in two. Ads, classifieds and the rest of the departments that make up the company are over there. Most of their desks are full with several people who seem like they have been here for awhile. Family photos and the like, sprinkled on their desks to make them a little home.

I don't have a ton of interaction with people on that side. Every so often I need to ask something or one of them comes across the divide to get some info. I know some of their names, but not a lot. I'll get there.

Michael, our assistant editor, sits right in front of "my" desk (we share, because we only have one "good" mac). He has a automated egg candy dispenser thing that shoots candy into your hand when you wave under a partially hidden spout. But right now it would just make the whiney noise and maybe throw a few shattered M&M shells onto your palm because it is pathetic and empty.

There is a little bowl of emergency candy next to it, for such occasions. A Jolly Ranger orange smoothie flavored delight kept me going for a little while today.

Somedays I barely eat during the day because I have stuff to do and my memory is terrible. Wolfing down some cheap fast food in my car on the way from something to something else. Which is fun, trying to eat in a smallish car with a manual transmission. :D

Other days I go to the glorious candy egg for prayer several times before eventually I leave the building in a happy little sugar drunk.

I think this is why journalists of old usually had a bottle of some brown liquor in their desks. Because sometimes you have to do something and if there is no news happening and you are in the newsroom you either talk to people, eat or drink. Sometimes all three.

Today is a slow day. We don't even have any obit photos. That's how slow it is, no one is even planning a funeral.


One of the bad things about the last newsroom I worked in, on a fairly lengthy list to be sure, was it was so closed off. All of the desks were cubicles that people could hide in or sneak away from. I'm not saying cubicles are the cause of the laziness that plagued the paper, but if you are working and you know your boss can't see you...come on. Some people would work and some people wouldn't.

It was also very depressing there, because they were all prefab cubicle constructions. So when a position was down-sized, liquidated or whatever other fancy lingo is used to say "you're ass is outta here!" there was still the ghostly remnants of their job haunting up the joint. A sad, broken chair in front of a horrendously outdated monitor in a cubicle with stuff still tacked to the fuzzy walls.

Here at least they re-arranged some of the desks to and try to give some feng shui to the current decline of the American newspaper office. And it works. We see the empty desks, sure, but there isn't a row of unused space giving off the vibe of a ghetto in the middle of the room. Newsroom Redevelopment!

Little less than an hour before my only assignment today. That's just enough time for a plane to crash into a bus full of blind nuns at the same time a fire erupts in an orphanage on the opposite side of the county.

The one county we cover is just as large as the three covered by the Sun. But we've dialed back a bit, leaving some of the more northern area for the Houston Chronicle to cover I guess.

Makes sense.

It's after five, so most of the other side of the building is gone or working on it. FRIDAY! Wooo!

It's a cool job. I've heard myself say that to people several times over the last couple weeks. I say it without even thinking about it, because it's part of my small talk sometimes. People ask about the camera, how long I've been doing it, or how I like it.

I do. It is what I want to do. I could make more money in a studio or some other photo job. And I'm actually trying to find some stuff to do on the side, occasionally, so I can make a little extra money.

But I want to do this.

I want to be in the newsroom.