She's leaving, bye bye

This week in a Small Town Newsroom was my last.

I got a new job, and tomorrow is my last day. I'm really excited about my new job, and it's going to supply an even bigger cast of characters.

I was running an experiment that Farquad ruined yesterday. I started telling people two weeks ago that I was leaving, after I'd turned in my notice to Boss. We'd talked about it in the newsroom very openly, but I hadn't told Wakeen. I suspected that he hadn't listened, and wanted to see how long it would take him to notice I was gone. Farquad said something about it this morning, and Wakeen was SHOCKED. He couldn't believe I was leaving, and had no idea when. I thought Violet's eyes were going to roll back in her head.

Wakeen keeps falling asleep at his desk. His head drops down to his chest, and then he starts snoring. Like, really loud, and it's happened at least three times this week. Watching Farquad find out was funny.

My last week has been Fergus free. He went out of town for Thanksgiving, and then is taking some time off, which just means he comes in at night when everyone is gone, but doesn't do any work.

I thought I'd be really sad to leave, but if I hadn't already turned in my notice, this week would have driven me to it. Our printer ran out of ink. I had ordered more two weeks ago, and figured it was in Boss's office, like they usually do. Nope. I called our IT dept., it's not there. They didn't read the PO that I sent, and had to get it overnighted. It would have been fine, had they not continually insisted that the fault was on my end when it was NOT. 

Previously on...

This week in a Small Town Newsroom

Something’s in the wind, y’all. Boss has been acting weird for a couple of weeks now. I’m not sure if it’s something in his personal life, or if it’s something going on here. I don’t like not knowing. 

Today is our proofreader’s last day, and I am not ok with it. We didn’t know he was leaving today until yesterday. He’s in his 80’s, so I can understand why, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. 

If Fergus keeps standing behind me and chewing, loudly and with his mouth open, I might have to see about doing ‘this week in prison.’

As I’ve mentioned before, Fergus is a racist. The other day, he starts telling me this story about a girl that used to work here, and described her as a big girl. Then he starts telling me about how she went to a rural area (rural, not remote or unreached) and how the people there thought she was a sideshow act because of her race. It did not help his case that I live somewhat nearby where this supposedly happened. His story did not have a point, just that she was a bigger girl, and people had never (apparently) never seen someone of her race before. Fergus isn’t all bad, and he may have been teasing, but he also said something about a woman who was a victim of domestic assault. I’ll spare you the worst of it, but just because the man is considered to be easy going, does not mean that it was the woman’s fault. 

We got a notice for our calendar that there’s a livestock sale going on soon, which isn’t unusual. However, they had a notice that was worded a little weird. We looked it up, and not only will they have the usuals, like cows, goats, chickens, etc., but they’ll also have zebras, monkeys, water buffalos, lemurs, emus, and several other exotic offerings. I’m trying to convince my dad we need to go. (We live on a farm.) But we’ll see.

I’m wondering what these grandkids did to get listed after the pets in the obituary.

And finally, do we think the baby we had in the birth announcements named Thor will be best friends/worst enemies with the one from last month named Loki? Cause I think yes.

I previously wrote this on the Friday August 31 open thread on Ask a Manager.

Back at it

This week in a Small Town Newsroom

We had the day off yesterday, hallelujah, and are back at it today.

Fergus has taken off to parts unknown for Thanksgiving, and will be out for a few days. *happy dance*

I, apparently, got married. I got an email from a high school columnist that's just started. She's a super sweet girl, but she emailed me and addressed it to Mrs. Knees, despite the fact that I've signed all my emails Bees.

Wakeen, if it's possible, has gotten even sillier. He and his wife separated again, briefly, when she texted him on Tuesday to tell him it's over. They're back together now.

His family came by last Friday, his wife, their son, his wife, and their kid. The kid was asleep the whole time. He introduced them, by name, to every single person individually. We work in a bull pen. But he introduced them about six times. Except for the third or fourth time, when he forgot his daughter-in-law's name.

Fergus had a loud disagreement with his son about whether or not it was appropriate for the son to wear shorts on Thanksgiving. Then the son says he's not coming. Unsure how it turned out.

Fergus, for all his faults, is good at his job. Not so much with the people skills, but he's a good reporter, for the most part. He and Wakeen had a disagreement after Wakeen did something incorrectly, and Fergus had to redo it. Fergus was right, and wasn't snippy about it or anything, just this is how we do it here. Wakeen took great offence, to the point where Farquad told him to knock it off. He kept talking about it. Boss calls him in to his office, and Wakeen goes, for all the office to hear, "Time to get raked over the coals!"

Our system is down, (It doesn't want to be at work today either) and so we can't start building the paper until it comes back up. The IT people are not here. It's going to go so well, I can feel it.

Previously on...

This week in a Small Town Newsroom

I was off on Monday, and completely missed this, but heard about this from several sources. Fergus wants a raise. We all do, but no one has had one in YEARS. About once a quarter, Fergus loses it either to the Boss, or the Great Grand Boss. GGB just keeps walking down the hallway. Boss, however, fires back. They got into it on Monday, when Fergus says he wants a raise, and starts talking about how much overtime he has, and how he works harder than any of us. He made several points which weren’t wrong, but his delivery wasn’t great. Then he insulted our Boss’s appearance, which Boss did not take kindly, and Fergus said some things about how Boss manages, and then stormed out. He stayed outside for a few minutes, then came back in and said he’d been a high performer for quite some time, and if he didn’t get a raise, he would have to look to other avenues. We all know they’re not going to fire him, and he isn’t going anywhere.

I was looking through our supply book and came across the office furniture. I found office chairs that have the heated massage thing, for the low low price of $675 dollars. Each. I mentioned it to Jane and Farquad. Farquad is a little hard of hearing, and thinks that I said $75 dollars. He says that’s great, and I should order them. Get one for everyone. We’ll need ten. He thinks about $1000 is not a bad price for that. I agreed that it wouldn’t be, but seven grand is a little different from one. His eyes about bugged out of his head.

Fergus is, to be frank, incredibly racist. He just described someone else as the most racist person in the county. I could have made many comments. I refrained.

A drunk lady tried to put soda in her gas tank when she ran out of gas. It did not work.

In happy news, I get to do the birth announcements this week. Those are always fun because 1., it gives me a break from the occasional depression of doing the obituaries, and 2., it’s fun to see what people are naming their kids. Sometimes I make fun. Quietly, and mostly to myself. Anyway, I got a call from a new mom the other day, asking about her baby’s announcement. I heard something in the background, and thought it was a dog. It kept going, and kept going, and then I realized it was not a dog. She was pumping, and either didn’t care, or didn’t realize that I would be able to hear it over the phone.

I previously wrote this on the Friday August 24 open thread on Ask a Manager.

Times they are a changing

This week in a Small Town Newsroom

It's that time of year that I start trying out Christmas cookie recipes. The cookie lady lied to me, and the recipe made significantly more than 36, so I took them to work. The boys have never been so well behaved.

Our main file sharing system has been on the fritz. IT has stopped answering calls promptly, so it was down for a while one day. We're all trying to figure out what to do, and talking about it. A good 10 to 15 minutes later, Wakeen pipes up that the system is down. Wow, I had no idea.

A little later, we all had to use task manager to shut the program down. Fergus and Wakeen didn't know how to do that. Fergus has a very basic understanding of the computer, but got started. Wakeen took a while, because he had trouble finding the delete key.

Fergus comes in super early. Like 3 or 4 a.m. early. And then he leaves most days about noon or a little after. It's sometimes hard to tell if he's gone, or just outside on a smoke break. I try to keep a screen saver on his computer to tell how long he's been gone. I went to put it back on the other day. I always drape a tissue over his mouse, cause it's crusted with things. This time, I had to use the keyboard, which I hadn't looked close at before. Oh my. Not only was it crusted with THINGS and most of the keys not only didn't have the letters, but were literally worn down. Much of the germx was used. So much. 

My ongoing irritation with the advertising secretary continues. She left me a note that an obit I charged for was supposed to be free. I disagreed, and told her so. She said that it was, and with her nose up asked if I'd ever read policy and procedure. I received very little training when I started, and wouldn't even know where to find such a thing. What she was telling me would mean that I have been doing it really, really wrong for over a year, but literally no one has bothered to bring it up. Unless I hear differently from Boss, I'm going to keep doing it the way I've been doing it.

We have a regional publication scheduled to go out Monday that I do the edit and layout for. I don't have the pages yet, nor do I have any content, and won't have time to work on it today. So that will be fun.

Violet almost killed Wakeen the other day. For some reason, he brought up cancer, and was naming people who had died from that particular kind. Violet's husband passed away from cancer a few years ago. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her face change, and she turned and told Wakeen. He didn't know, and apologized, then did not speak again for a while.

I had to have an uncomfortable talk with Boss today. It went well, but I was not looking forward to it. 

Previously on...

This week in a Small Town Newsroom

I got called up to the reception area to speak to someone. It doesn’t happen often that I go and talk to people, 97% of my work is at my desk, and on the phone. Usually when someone’s here, I have to talk to them about an obituary that they’ve brought it. It is never fun. This time, I get up there and there’s a little old lady waiting. She came in to tell me thank you for running her reunion notice in the paper, and that she’d appreciated all my help getting it in.

Farquad had to go to the hospital last Saturday, he was throwing up blood. (If I’ve learned anything from movies, it’s that we’ve probably all got tuberculosis now.) He was complaining on Monday, when he was back to work, that his friends on facebook didn’t agree with what the doctor was saying. Cause that’s where I get my medical advice. He’s talking about all this while holding a monster energy drink. I didn’t, but wanted to tell him I’d diagnose him for free. He drinks too much coffee, dips, doesn’t take care of himself, and his gut has turned caustic and is eating him from the inside out.

Fergus and Jane have been, well, not fighting, but they had a fight several months ago and were not speaking. After she took the job to become my counterpart, he had to work with her more. (The fight was his fault.) He’s been very friendly lately, to the confusion of us all. Yesterday, he told her that it’s a pain in the butt to have her mad at him.

A guy called the other day and yelled at me, because we published an article about him ‘a couple of years ago.’ He was mad, and said that he wasn’t ‘on the drugs’ but we’d said that he was. He did not stop to draw breath for at least two minutes, while he told me all about how we’d ruined his life. People wanted to hurt him (?) because of what we’d published, and he couldn’t get a job, and he didn’t go to jail. He finally paused for breath, and then mentioned the magic word (lawyer) and I transferred him to my editor. He was arrested in 2014. I don’t think we’re the reason for his problems. 

And finally, a pet peeve. If you are picking out an obit photo, DO NOT. DO. NOT. Use one that has been rattling around in the junk drawer for the last thirty years. Make sure the photo, if it’s a physical one, is clean. It’s ok if it’s a little discolored, or old. That’s fixable. Don’t use a low quality one if you can help it. If the photo is a frame, TAKE IT OUT OF THE FRAME, and THEN take a photo of it. Make sure your reflection isn’t visible. Y’all would not believe some of the things that people send in.

I previously wrote this on the Friday August 17 open thread on Ask a Manager.

Got my bossy britches on

This week in a Small Town Newsroom

Wakeen fell asleep at his desk the other afternoon. It was pretty slow, and we were just sitting around talking when Violet and I heard this noise coming from his desk. We both turned and looked, and he had his chin to his chest, sawing logs. He did wake up after a few minutes, but dear heavens.

Sadly, I don't have an update for this. Most of my phone conversations are very short. I had one the other day that was 10 minutes long. He talked the entire time. I finally get him my email address, a feat unto itself, and he asks my name again. I have a very girl's popular name. It is easy to spell. He pronounced it when he repeated it back to me without one syllable, which I don't love, but is how a lot of older people say it. I don't love it, but ok. He then tells me it's unusual for a lady to have that name, and he doesn't know anyone with that name. I am unsure what he heard that sounds like my name, and very much is not.

Everyone at the office is sick. As soon as someone leaves for the day, I descend with the Lysol. A lady in advertising saw me carrying it, and told me her husband had the flu. I did not give in to my first instinct of spraying her with the Lysol.

Farquad isn't here today, he was fine yesterday morning, and then yesterday afternoon, started coughing. It's horrible when he coughs, because it literally sounds like he's hacking up a lung. I was expecting him to vomit any second. It was disgusting.

Yesterday, Boss was out, so I was in charge of putting together the front. It was stressful, but I was doing ok until about ten minutes before deadline. That's when we found out advertising hadn't put in the right pages, and we had to change all the ads. That wasn't fun.

Some of the boys, though, have no idea how close they came to death. Farquad wants to be in charge, but isn't willing to do any of the work. Fergus came and stood right behind me, while chewing his yogurt. I cannot stand to hear people chew, and he was right behind me. He was also talking to Violet about robots for... ahem, adult entertainment. I almost turned around, killed him, and went right back to work.

Wakeen, however, was the worst. I was asking him where the pictures I needed were. He says he doesn't know how to get there from his desktop. I told him to click on the file icon. Nope. I said the file button, which was a mistake, because he started looking at his keyboard. I finally gave up and went and glowered over his shoulder until he found it. He was then shocked that I didn't have enough room for more than one photo.

I didn't mean to almost hit him

Hello, friends!

While I'm recovering from the coverage of election night (regardless of who's winning, an 11 p.m.  end, 45 minute drive, and 5:30 a.m. wakeup isn't very fun) I thought I'd tell you about the time I almost hit another reporter with my car.

This winter, we had a fairly snowy season. One day on my way to work, I started down a fairly steep hill. It had snowed a day or two before, but there wasn't much left on the ground. The truck in front of me started weaving a little, and I wondered what he was doing before I also started to slide. I thought for a second my brakes had gone out (again) but then I saw everyone else sliding. I tapped the brake like I was supposed to, but kept sliding. 

As I was careening what I was sure was going to be my slow and painful death, I noticed a reporter for one of the local news stations filming at the bottom of the hill. Right where my car was headed. I figured he'd, you know, move out of the way. But no. 

I got off the ice enough to aim away from him, and headed towards a police car (by accident) instead. I didn't hit that either, thank goodness, and got stopped off in a parking lot where I could take a minute to breathe. I got out and took a couple of pictures, one of which ended up on the front page, and was very thankful that I was not one of the people off in a ditch. 

I think I screamed the entire way down the hill, and certainly when I thought I was going to hit him or that cop car. I made it to work ok, just took a minute and put the car in four wheel drive and went on. Later, I checked the news station's website to see if the footage made it to the news. 

It's on twitter. I came really, really close to him, which it did show, but thankfully, my horrified face was not visible.

Previously on...

This week in a Small Town Newsroom

Fergus is the crime reporter, and as such, has… interesting phone conversations. We all try and drown him out, because there’s only so much you can hear about the stripper map before you want to hurt someone. But try as we might to ignore him, some things just slip through. This week, one of the phrases was, “Unless that attorney puts a muzzle on her.” Lovely. 

Fergus is also not afraid of swearing. He has an outside voice as his inside voice, and normally, he could swear up a blue streak. Yesterday, however, he was talking to someone on the phone about one of the jailers. (Who he described, not by name, but as ‘you know, that BIG girl.) He starts talking about how she has a potty mouth, and how he couldn’t believe what she was saying. Blank blank this and blank that. And the most shocking part of it was that he wasn’t saying the words. I don’t know who he was talking to that he didn’t want to cuss in front of, but we were all shocked that he was so offended. 

As part of my job, I do the layout for those plaques that you see with newspaper stories on them. (Don’t buy one, they’re a waste of money. Just frame the article.) I am supposed to send them to Grandboss’s secretary to be proofed at the same time I send them to Advertising Boss’s secretary to be ordered. GB’s secretary approved it, and AB’s secretary was supposed to order it. This was about two weeks ago. I go on with my life. Wednesday, I get a call that why hasn’t that been ordered yet, haven’t I done it? I said yes, it was submitted two weeks ago to AB’s secretary. Not ten seconds later, she was getting paged over the intercom. She didn’t like the look of it, apparently, and felt that there were changes that needed to be made. She didn’t tell me what changes, but I guess I was just supposed to know.

Grandboss wanted to order one of the plaques about a nascar race. He told me to get started on the layout, and he would get with his secretary about what size. I can’t do the layout unless I know the size. It took me a couple of hours to get a hold of her. She told me to do whatever I wanted.

Yesterday afternoon, Farquad starts in how he doesn’t feel well. I didn’t respond, because I didn’t want to hear about how he hadn’t eaten, or did a ‘really hard’ workout, or whatever. This morning, though, he runs to the bathroom and begins throwing up in the bathroom. Which we can hear. From our desks. Thirty feet away.

Jane asks Fergus a yes or no question. She is trying to get an answer and go back to work. He stands up from his desk and comes over and stands RIGHT behind me. (She and I sit across from each other.) He was in my bubble, which I did not appreciate, smelling like smoke, which I really didn’t appreciate, and taking way too long to come up with an answer. 

I previously wrote this on the Friday August 10 open thread on Ask a Manager.