Your biggest moment in this profession...

Zing! I meant two different days.

 

I came to work one day at USA Today, didn't have much of anything constructive to do and declared to my deskmates that I was going to find a story to get on the front page of sports that day.

Did, too. I mean, it was 45 lines, but still ...

I made the top of A1 a couple of times, but those were lightning strikes. You never knew when you'd get hit. (And given the difficulties of dealing with the A1 desk, the lightning-strike comparison is apt.)

The biggest moments I think of are three times when I was out of work -- once by my own hand, once at the behest of management and once when I moved south to be closer to my intended -- and I was able to convince somebody that I could bee valuable to their organization. It's tough to fight that self-doubt when you're out of work and struggling at the plate, as it were.

 

Indeed, those times are tough.

 

Yes, but as with a hitting or shooting slump, you have to go back to fundamentals and build up your confidence before you can be valuable to somebody else. It's a difficult lesson, and I didn't get it the first time. Wasted the better partof a year once trying to learn it.

 

One moment that stands out to me is when I was interviewing a GM of an organization I'd often dealt with about a special aspect of it, and he said "you probably know more about that than I do." Now, arguably I did, but I didn't expect him to say that. It felt good. And there were witnesses.

 

Was he right?

 

On the precise thing I was asking about, I guess he was right that I did know more, because I had studied up in order to ask the right questions. But I also think he was underestimating himself. His lack of pretentiousness is refreshing I think.

 

i thought long and hard about this

and the honest answer is that it was my first day at my first job

30,000 daily

the smell of the press ... the sounds of the newsroom ... reporters and photographers racing in and out of there ...

and the realization that this was where I belonged

 

The day I was eliminated from "Dream Job."

Best assurance I knew what I was doing.

 

I worked 33 straight, 12-14-hour days before and during the Atlanta Olympics.
Included was a 20-hour day on July 27th.
As I/we finished up the Closing Ceremonies section, and I started to collect my things, the Composing room staff (we were pasteup then) joined the desk in the newsroom and gave me a standing ovation as I left on a two-week vacation.

 

Knock contests or whatever, but June 1977 wasn't bad -- won APSE award for columns (when you only needed one, admittedly not the best system). Was 22 and got a call from a friend on a PM desk at another newspaper at like 5:30 in the morning, woke me up. Had to go in for a front-page story. Again, whatever you think about contests, that ain't bad.

First big event for a million-plus paper wasn't bad, either. A Super Bowl.

 

Oh, and in retrospect, getting this job. Just hit 10 years, my longest at any single place. One of the dot.coms that came through the dark times and survived.