Words of wisdom for new daily SE

Congrats to Coldcat, a new member to the board (and one of my besties! LOL) and a brand new SE to a daily! Leave words of wisdom, or congrats, to him here...

For me, since I am drunk beyond belief and ha to edit this like crazy...congrats man...switching from TV to newspaper was a hard switch, but you know your shit and you are a great editor! Best of luck!!!

Spike

 

Translation?

 

Spike's gonna hurt like hell this morning...

 

Actually doing well for the condition I was in...between minor league baseball, strippers, and gallons of IPA...we are alive....

Mrs. Chiquet just texted me to say she got a new job and will be moving to where I am finally after a 4-month search. So this is turning out to be a good week!

 

My No. 1 piece of advice to a new SE is to guard your personal time and space very carefully.

These jobs will eat your brain if you let them.

 

What he said.
And, not every step, every message, every hurdle, ever story is a crisis.
Crises are few and far between, act accordingly.

 

Make that a double on all of the above. Also post the following slogan somewhere where you can read it every day: Illegitimi non carborundum. It will serve you well.

 

Agree with what's been said.

Perspective is HUGE to being a daily SE.

 

Will piggy-back on what's been said by adding this: Not only guard your personal time, guard your work time carefully. People always want 10 minutes of your time here, 15 minutes there. All day long. Make sure to make your own work a priority before letting people cut into your time.

 

I'm going to go the other way a little bit. Keep things in perspective, sure. But don't diminish the importance. There's a reason you have been given responsibility.

Also remember that, unless you're a one-man show, you wield considerable control over other people's livelihood. Don't lose sight of that. And treat people in a fashion you would want to be treated yourself.

 

Wish someone had told me all of these things five or six years ago.

 

When dealing with the public -- and sometimes with people in your own corner offices -- you need to remember that once you say "yes" to coverage of an event/person/situation, that sets the baseline for what you will cover in the future and how you will cover it. People will remember.

For instance: If you run the Little League team photos, in the fall you will be expected to run the Pop Warner team photos. Don't do it and you'll be (quite possibly rightly) called out on it. Assign a feature on a kid winning the state cadet wrestling tournament, be ready to assign one for the ice skater, gymnast, etc. Do a wraparound for the baseball team making it to state, you'll have to be ready to do the same when the soccer team makes it next fall.

Smartest thing I did was to solicit input from inside and outside and create a written policy on what we cover and what we don't. These days you could put it online along with a submission box. People have a tougher time being critical of you when your policy is in black and white and well thought-out with input from all sides. With no plan, doing a favor "just this once" will create a snowball that will swallow hours of your work week. And, as someone once told me, "the only thing worse than a caller (e-mailer) with a piddly little complaint is a caller with a piddly little complaint who's got a good point."

Also, three long hours of off-deadline planning/advance work is well worth it if it saves you five minutes on deadline 100 times a year.