Are you always "on the job?"

I'm more stressed about the section when I'm on vacation than when I'm in the office.

That's the drawback to not having an ASE to put in charge when you're gone.

 

This is it right here. I feel bad for our cops reporter, for whom "vacation" means 30 hours a week instead of 70. I was told in no uncertain terms that a career in newspapers meant no life and I bought into it for about 10 years. Single and penniless, that's where I moved to the desk. And while PaperDoll's sig line says "It's hard to writer but it's harder not to," I don't miss writing at all. I write epic emails, true, but that's on my terms, not someone else's.

Occasionally I get writing assignments and one of them recently earned me a couple phone calls from a fellow staffer — while I was on vacation. I haven't talked to that dipshit since; do NOT interrupt my time off with work issues. I'll deal with it when I get back. Period.

If you want to break the cycle of being married to work... well, I wish you the best of luck. Aside from going to the desk I don't know how else to loosen the grip, so to speak.

Like Moddy, I do my best for the 40 or so hours a week I'm there. That probably will preclude me from working in this business beyond my current job but I just don't care that much anymore. There is life outside of work, and that has been my most stunning revelation since I graduated college.

 

Wow.

You have your own photographer?

That's pretty cool.

 

in my more active days on a beat, 24/7. no regrets. always balanced it with girlfriends and ultimately mrs. shockey. no regrets. it is what it is. for me, an exciting part of the biz.

when i moved to the nfl beat, that lessened the 24/7 aspect some. now, due to physical limitations, it's certainly nowhere near 24/7. priorities change.

but you damn well can be in 24/7 mode and still have a life. 8) 8) 8)

 

Hell yeah. 8)

 

I'll take your word for it.

Like Moddy and Serve said, I don't have any clue how to do that job -- and do it well -- without it being an obsession. I understand the obsession. I feel it, too.

But ... I'll take the GOOD life instead. It's different for everybody. Gotta figure out your own, on your own.

 

I absolutely believe you can be 'on the job' without being obsessed with the job. What shockey said.

For some people, it's just second nature to always be looking around and asking and wondering and thinking...that's why they became reporters. They don't even know they're 'on the job,' they're just doing what they do.

I do think that age and experience makes it easier to temper that to some degree...maybe not take it all quite so seriously.

And I say that as someone who never puts down her blackberry, just in case. The trick, I think, is to separate the work that matters from the work that can wait or be delegated.

 

The thing that keeps me from having much of a social life is that being night editor means coming in at 2'ish in the p.m. and not leaving til 1/1:30'ish in the a.m. Add in sleep and that doesn't leave a lot of time for doing "stuff."

Even on the days off it's tough. Monday and Tuesday. Monday is mostly recovery time from the 5-day race. And what the hell is there to do on a Tuesday?

 

The only serious relationship I've had while doing this job, I was at my busiest I've ever been - working for two different papers covering three different sports. I was working five days a week, going to school, dating him and still trying to see the people that I was living with (ah dorm life).

But I'm always on the clock. There is no way to turn it off. I carry with me a pad, paper and my voice recorder with me at all times in my purse because you never know when you're going to see something worthy of note.

 

Leave the country or go somewhere that either has no cell service or where your boss thinks there is no cell service.

If you go on vacation to Colorado, tell your boss you're going to Mexico. I've done that one more than once...