don't know how long the new story will be

[aruan]

So, I got the job of Cops Reporter. Despite this meaning that I am de-facto writing for The New York Times, there is a whole other post about how much my freaking out about it overpowers the flutter of enthusiasm that prospect evokes in my gut.

So let's talk about my leaving the News Desk.

After a three-week search and numerous interviews, News Editor Andy was basically backed into a corner to hire a replacement for me or make do without. So come January we will carry on the tradition of hiring recent University of Florida graduates (among about half the staff, the boss here is a veteran and still goes to Gators games) with a girl named Elizabeth.

I hear she did marginally well on the copy editing test - apparently, nobody came close to the awesome of yours truly, though she at least put the animal cruelty story on the mock A1 page, which is Andy's version of a dealbreaker question. But he says she's trainable.

Not having been working the day she interviewed, I haven't met her. And besides not hiring libelous plagiarists, I'm not sure what the standard is for copy editors - we're a pretty varied bunch age- and background-wise, but generally smart and therefore slightly caustic, hardworking. Mostly, I hope she's useful to the desk, pitching in for others in a bind with a huge section, listening to and learning from Andy's advice.

Most of all though, I hope she gets along with Copy Editor Jeff. He's at least 50, a tall, rail-thin ex-hippie, but acts like a 35-year-old tomcat. He spends his weekends being a happy divorcee, hooking up with women he meets on match.com at a local bar called the Blue Nile but doesn't kiss and tell. He's got a grown daughter he spends his every vacation making road trips across the state to see, has a severe stutter but not when he's drunk, curses like a sailor and loves trains, and is generally this indelible ray of curmudgeonly sunshine with his completely non-skeezy lecherous humor, and I adore him.

But not everyone does, and I'm going to miss him sitting all the way across the office. So I hope Elizabeth gets him.

Comments

[saturn92103.livejournal.com]

No, let's talk about your news!! YAY!! CONGRATULATIONS! You shall be superb.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks. Brandon talked me into it - experience being what got him the job here, any kind of experience so long as he took the opportunities. So I'm hoping to learn from this, do something new, etc. But I have no idea how good I'll be at it, or how much of my life I'll get to keep with a job I can never quite set down, etc. So there's that ambivalence. But it is mostly excitement.

Leaving the desk will be sad. I'm working next to Jeff tonight (been here a year and still won't have a desk until I become a proper reporter, silly cubicle arrangement, so I was thinking about the new girl and what that'll mean for a home that's been good to me in this newsroom.

[jenbeth78.livejournal.com]

how exciting!

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

It is! But now that it's real, I'm starting to think about it more practically as opposed to the dreamlike quality of Working for a Real Newspaper. It'll be fine, but it's a little scary.

[go4it.livejournal.com]

File your news under Fantastic! Congratulations! I have no doubt that you will do a stellar job there too.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much. I'm excited to tell people about it, but it will be something largely different from even the reporting I did at the Alligator in college, and responsibility and not leaving work at work and etc. etc. etc. It's awesome, it's what I wanted, but having it I'm now thinking about it more practically? Brandon's been great though, and the editors won't let me fall on my ass, so hey, maybe everyone else knows something I don't. :)