I was about half an hour late for work on Tuesday because I made a last-minute stop at the store to pick up some party items.
Tuesday afternoon, I was set to head to Philadelphia for an editor's conference. My first day back to the office - Friday - we're hosting a St. Patrick's Day birthday party for two co-workers and I wanted to be ready.
Dragging along my laptop bag, my lunch and several grocery bags, I stepped off the elevator Tuesday morning to find everyone assembled in the conference room.
"Oh well," I thought as I took a quick peek in there. "Must be just advertising people. They probably don't need me."
I continued to the lunchroom, dumped my bags on the counter, and turned around to find the advertising director right behind me.
"Do I need to be in there?" I asked as I saw his urgent expression.
He nodded.
"Yes, but first I need to tell you that (our publisher) is no longer with us," he said. "Now, come."
I rushed after him into the conference room only to find my former publisher stand there giving out his cell phone number to the staff in case of further questions. In the room was also the director of human resources.
Later that afternoon, we got an e-mail from our new CEO detailing the layoffs in the company. Eight positions in total were cut - four senior officials (3 VPs and 1 corporate human resources director) and four publishers at smaller newspapers.
The scariest thing? They will not be replaced.
Instead of having someone there for us at all hours of the day - someone in charge - we are now left with an empty office and a phone number for our new Connecticut Cluster publisher in New Haven. Of course, he'll only be there for 8 weeks or so, until he moves to his new position in Philadelphia. Then someone else will fill that role, and we have no idea who that person is.
Much to think about at the editorial conference for the past two days, and also much to discuss with the new CEO. He explained the reasoning behind it to me this morning after I confronted him via e-mail about his decision - cutting management in order to put more editorial people on the street, basically trying to undo all the damage the Journal Register Company has done over the past 2 decades.
Will it be that easy? I don't know. But we have been promised at least one new digital reporter in our cluster, and that person will most likely end up in Middletown (as a symbolic gesture since our paper was the one who lost a publisher).
Now I just have to figure out how we go from here. Lot's of new ideas from the conference. I just have to figure out how to get everyone else on board. Before, two of us had a vision. Now, it's just me.
(You can read more about this on my work blog HERE).
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Look who's driving
As I stopped at a traffic light on my way home from work Thursday night, I noticed the license plate on the car in front of me. It said "671 GUD." I chuckled and took a photo with my cell phone. "Gud" means "God" in Swedish. You just have to snap a picture when God is out driving around. ;-)
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The smell of grandma's freezer
I pulled a couple of hot dogs out of the freezer when I got home from work today and realized that the plastic bag they were in smelled like my grandmother's house.
I paused and smelled it again. Yup, it smelled just like if I had pulled the bag out of grandma's freezer in Sweden 20 years go.
When I opened up the freezer, I found a bag of dill next to where the hot dogs had been.
"Aha!" I exclaimed to nobody. "That's why!"
You see, my grandmother would always keep dill and parsley in the freezer.
"You never know when you'll need it," she'd say.
Perhaps she still does. All I know is that at her old house where I grew up, she used to have an enormous freezer against the back wall of the kitchen for all her baked goods and some extra meatballs. I didn't realize until today that all those things in there had a very distinctive smell.
It's amazing how such little things can bring so many memories.
I paused and smelled it again. Yup, it smelled just like if I had pulled the bag out of grandma's freezer in Sweden 20 years go.
When I opened up the freezer, I found a bag of dill next to where the hot dogs had been.
"Aha!" I exclaimed to nobody. "That's why!"
You see, my grandmother would always keep dill and parsley in the freezer.
"You never know when you'll need it," she'd say.
Perhaps she still does. All I know is that at her old house where I grew up, she used to have an enormous freezer against the back wall of the kitchen for all her baked goods and some extra meatballs. I didn't realize until today that all those things in there had a very distinctive smell.
It's amazing how such little things can bring so many memories.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The joy of being in charge
As soon as I entered the office this morning, I got pushed into the conference room by our advertising director.
"Great, you're here!" he said with relief and kept directing me away from my office and into teh big room.
He then turned to walk away, a little too quickly, and I could hear him mumble "enjoy" under his breath.
In the conference room were two angry black women and my publisher, all looking a bit distraught.
"I just don't understand," one of the women said. "Why you gotta put my background information in? Why you gotta do that?"
Once we established she was one of the people who had been arrested a few days ago, and was accused of wielding a knife at a young man allegedly smoking crack cocaine outside her building, she claimed she'd never been convicted of anything and that everything about the knife was false.
We calmly told her we could check our facts but that the information came from the local police, and if there was anything wrong, she would have to take it up with them.
The friend said "See, I told you so! Why you gotta come here and yell at them for???" and then the real action took off.
We showed them to the elevator door, but the two women argued louder and louder and were finally screaming at each other "You're not the one who's losing the house - you just shut the (expletive) up!)"
Others in our office were hiding in their cubicles, wondering if they should call the cops.
The elevator finally came and off the women went - with a few faded screams as the elevator took them down 4 floors. It could not leave fast enough.
Of course, once we checked the court records online and her arrest report, the woman was indeed guilty of drug violations and violating a protective order and police did indeed say she threatened a man with a knife over the weekend. It didn't make us feel any better about the situation.
As I made it to my office, I had a call from a reader in Killingworth telling me that apparently said in our paper that the New Haven mayor - an outstanding and friendly man - was being investigated for by federal officials for taking bribes from a developer, when in fact it was the mayor of Shelton who was under investigation.
"How could we do this to such a nice man?" the reader wanted to know.
And finally, someone who was named frequently in the comment section of our web site decided to hit "report abuse" on any comment that mentioned his name, which lead us to a long discussion on what constitutes a public person. Is the man who owns most of the company where six people just died in an explosion considered a public person? The story and all discussions and questions around it are certainly newsworthy and it's in the public's right to know. Does the fact that this man is a former city official still make him a current public person? Can you ever stop being a public person? And will this matter in terms of us removing the comments, that in our view were not threatening or libelous?
Tough day today.
"Great, you're here!" he said with relief and kept directing me away from my office and into teh big room.
He then turned to walk away, a little too quickly, and I could hear him mumble "enjoy" under his breath.
In the conference room were two angry black women and my publisher, all looking a bit distraught.
"I just don't understand," one of the women said. "Why you gotta put my background information in? Why you gotta do that?"
Once we established she was one of the people who had been arrested a few days ago, and was accused of wielding a knife at a young man allegedly smoking crack cocaine outside her building, she claimed she'd never been convicted of anything and that everything about the knife was false.
We calmly told her we could check our facts but that the information came from the local police, and if there was anything wrong, she would have to take it up with them.
The friend said "See, I told you so! Why you gotta come here and yell at them for???" and then the real action took off.
We showed them to the elevator door, but the two women argued louder and louder and were finally screaming at each other "You're not the one who's losing the house - you just shut the (expletive) up!)"
Others in our office were hiding in their cubicles, wondering if they should call the cops.
The elevator finally came and off the women went - with a few faded screams as the elevator took them down 4 floors. It could not leave fast enough.
Of course, once we checked the court records online and her arrest report, the woman was indeed guilty of drug violations and violating a protective order and police did indeed say she threatened a man with a knife over the weekend. It didn't make us feel any better about the situation.
As I made it to my office, I had a call from a reader in Killingworth telling me that apparently said in our paper that the New Haven mayor - an outstanding and friendly man - was being investigated for by federal officials for taking bribes from a developer, when in fact it was the mayor of Shelton who was under investigation.
"How could we do this to such a nice man?" the reader wanted to know.
And finally, someone who was named frequently in the comment section of our web site decided to hit "report abuse" on any comment that mentioned his name, which lead us to a long discussion on what constitutes a public person. Is the man who owns most of the company where six people just died in an explosion considered a public person? The story and all discussions and questions around it are certainly newsworthy and it's in the public's right to know. Does the fact that this man is a former city official still make him a current public person? Can you ever stop being a public person? And will this matter in terms of us removing the comments, that in our view were not threatening or libelous?
Tough day today.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Losing my mind!
The new job is going great, but sometimes I feel like I'm losing my mind.
Yesterday, I lost my wallet. ME. Lost. My. Wallet.
I rarely lose anything - I'm known to be the founder of lost things.
I first realized it around 4 p.m. when I stepped out to grab some dinner and put my hands in the empty pockets of my coat. Hm! I thought. Strange. Must have left it at home.
I searched the office when I got back just in case. Not there.
When I got in my car to go home that night, I searched the car. Not there.
I got so paranoid I called my husband and asked him to log in to my bank account to make sure no big purchases had been made. He confirmed that the last time the card was used was the day before at Dunkin' Donuts.
When I got home, I searched the house. Not there. I called work again and had my co-workers search the entire office. Not there.
Last step was searching the car - again - with a flashlight. Of course, the wallet had slid in between the seat and the door, just where the seat belt comes out of the bottom of the car. Phew!
But if this was the only thing, I would have written it off as just something weird. However, two weeks ago, I blew off a doctor's appointment when I was supposed to have X-rays taken. My doctor drove to a different office and waited for me there for half an hour.
I didn' t have the slightest idea my appointment was even that week. I had no reminders in my calendar. In fact, I couldn't even find the little card with the appointment date and time. Weird!
This is so unlike me. Perhaps I will just write it off as stress. Anyone else have any other suggestions?
Yesterday, I lost my wallet. ME. Lost. My. Wallet.
I rarely lose anything - I'm known to be the founder of lost things.
I first realized it around 4 p.m. when I stepped out to grab some dinner and put my hands in the empty pockets of my coat. Hm! I thought. Strange. Must have left it at home.
I searched the office when I got back just in case. Not there.
When I got in my car to go home that night, I searched the car. Not there.
I got so paranoid I called my husband and asked him to log in to my bank account to make sure no big purchases had been made. He confirmed that the last time the card was used was the day before at Dunkin' Donuts.
When I got home, I searched the house. Not there. I called work again and had my co-workers search the entire office. Not there.
Last step was searching the car - again - with a flashlight. Of course, the wallet had slid in between the seat and the door, just where the seat belt comes out of the bottom of the car. Phew!
But if this was the only thing, I would have written it off as just something weird. However, two weeks ago, I blew off a doctor's appointment when I was supposed to have X-rays taken. My doctor drove to a different office and waited for me there for half an hour.
I didn' t have the slightest idea my appointment was even that week. I had no reminders in my calendar. In fact, I couldn't even find the little card with the appointment date and time. Weird!
This is so unlike me. Perhaps I will just write it off as stress. Anyone else have any other suggestions?
Friday, February 5, 2010
New blog for work
I am doing a new blog for work now. You can check it out here. But pretty soon I'm hoping to be able to do both.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
