30 November 2006

Lady of leisure

Your Wren joins, as of this morning, the ranks of the suddenly unemployed.

After nearly 14 years with the company, and almost nine as a managing editor, my position at the paper was abruptly eliminated and “consolidated.” For a while at least, I won’t have to drive 27 miles down-mountain and then 27 miles back up-mountain every day.

There are blue flowered blessings hidden in these thorns.

Others include not having to get up at 5 a.m., no more advertorial writing in my immediate future (bleh-blechhhh-phooey!), no more sitting in a corner of that dark, mini-bus-sized newsroom and no more weekly deadlines.

Gosh. Whatever will I do with my time? Write?

To the above right please note that Blue Wren is no longer a lovely blue spiral, but me. Although it was always unlikely that the right-wing group editor and publisher of the paper would ever run across this blog, I figured it was best not to tempt fate. Now, although I’ll retain the nom de plume, I’m freed from self-censorship.

It was a good run, that job. I learned a lot and had some great fun along with the daily toil and stress of editing a weekly newspaper and three special sections each month. That’s a lot of a.m.’s and p.m.’s to change from AM, PM, am, pm, A.M. and P.M. to the proper style.

I won’t miss that, but I will miss my reporters and the opportunity to know the local news before it hits the papers. I’ll get used to it, I think.

And now it’s time to move forward. I hope to find something closer to home that satisfies my soul, my yen for creativity and somehow keeps the electricity on. Wish me luck.

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11 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a mistake...I'm kind of in shock.

Your writing is free now to move beyond the "parks and recreation budget for the top 2 percent" (to use your words.)

Your writing is insightful and beautiful, and hopefully you can now spread that writing around through other publications. Everytime I read your writing I consider it a learning experience - both from the technical points of writing and especially the more abstract ideas you bring forth so clearly.

Beautiful photo, by the way. Much better than the blue swirl thing.

roxtar said...

A world-class lingo-slinger such as yourself should have many an option, including the option of doing what you do from home. The always delightful Patrick Hillman at Blowing Sh*t Up With Gas, also a fine scribe, had a post on how the ability to string one word after another in a reasonably coherent manner is seen by many Very Important People as a magical skill akin to voodoo or summoning phlogiston. A skill, by the way, for which they will pay handsomely in order to avoid having to do it themselves.

And did I mention that you can do it from home?

And home is usually a pretty good place to be, especially in the Sierra in the winter, no?

roxtar said...

Here's the link from Patrick's writing on writing. Enjoy!

Hey. The guy who ran against Doolittle might need a media co-ordinator/press person. Hopefully soon.

Anonymous said...

This time of year is a pretty good time to be off work (except for the money thing). I used to work in mills where they shut down for maintenance for a couple of weeks around Christmas. It was pretty nice, actually, to have a couple of relaxed weeks to enjoy the season.

I'm sure that you'll find what you want to do next.

Wren said...

Wil - Such kind words any writer would be flattered to have. Thank you. Once the smoke has cleared, I'll be looking to do other writing, for sure.

Roxtar - "World-class lingo-slinger." Aw, man. Yer a silver-tongued divil, ye are. Thanks for the encouragement. HOME is a good word. Thanks for the link, too. And the Charlie Brown campaign suggestion. More blue flowers, all.

Kevin Wolf said...

Wow. I just popped over and the news was quite a surprise.

I've been there a couple of times and there's always that mingled sense of now what do I do and relief.

Best of luck in finding something great to apply your writing and editing skills to. (But don't start with me and my crappy sentences.)

Anonymous said...

Good luck.

Neddie said...

Mojo, that was just lovely. My cynical old lower lip is trembling, and I can't help but feel that Wren's karma acquired a lovely roseate glow when she hired you.

Wren, you're going to land on your feet. That's not some kind of stupid rah-rah buck-up, stiff-upper-lip bullshit, it's a simple statement of fact.

Meanwhile, The Chumps of Choice look forward with eager jubilation to your relaxed and distraction-free contributions.

gardenin' guy said...

It really is a shame that people like your so-called group editor and publisher are able to keep their positions while you are unceremoniously dumped during this time of "goodwill and peace on earth." Knowing personally what a nasty little four-page, free, occasionally published, advertising rag your newspaper was before you became the managing editor; how you built it into a respectable weekly publication which scooped all the other newspapers in the area (the REAL ones in the valley!) when the chief despot (okay, head marionette) came to the aid of our local one; how you managed to do this despite having such a cheap budget and virtually no support from your parent organization; all this tells me just how foolish the above mentioned maroons must truly be. And I have to wonder about the "family" organization they work for since these two are still keeping the rag they have in the town above you from being a real newspaper. We might be able to read some actual local news other than that which is paid for by the local merchants if the reporters were allowed to go out and find the news instead of having to sit around in that nearly windowless, ugly, dungeon-like building writing whatever drivel your so-called group editor assigns. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that you, your paper and the paper that owns it are all located in one of the most conservative counties with such a high percentage of elderly people in Californica or if they were just terrified that someone in the group that owns both of them (read newspapers or maroons, whichever you like) might notice how you've done so much more than they. Were they upset with your reasonable views or were they afraid of finally being discovered as the biggest impediments of California's Oldest Newspaper recovering it's dignity and integrity, that they might have to actually start working instead of just hanging onto their cush, lazy positions? And why of all times now? An additional poke at the one person who maintained her integrity despite receiving absolute feces-pay while trying to keep enough people to do the job employed at even more fecular wages, perhaps? After all the additional work of those positions you did between slaves, not only without extra pay or any but the barest of support but without recognition or even a simple thank you, to think they could actually be so low is truly disgusting. The corporate world; "You kiss mine enough and I'll cover yours. If you dare show me up or in any way endanger my comfort, I will destroy you." The views expressed in this tirade are solely those of the author and this kvetch is the only one responsible therefor.

Anonymous said...

Me too! I'm not a writer like you Wren, but I am in the same *place* you are. I put my career on hold a few years ago when we moved to Ohio from NY. Since then I've been doing odd jobs but have mainly focused on my family. Facing an empty nest, I'm in that "what next" phase. A fine place to be I might add.

Best of luck to you!

Anonymous said...

Of course, I don't know anyone who has ever been fired by a bundle of suits who hasn't fallen upwards, somehow.

I was fired by a really half-assed web design firm by a fat and bald little guy who was five years younger than me.

I was hired to work for the band REM some days later. (At twice my previous rate of pay.)

Life gives, it takes. You're too talented to push ads around a page.

Now you can come visit!