Entry tags:
PERSPECTIVE
I've been thinking a bit about the six years I spent in the bowels of Hell a couple small newspapers about 60 miles away, back in 1991-97. Those days come to mind for two reasons: 1. My current financial state is almost as dire right now as it was then; and 2. the company that recently bought my newspaper, as it turns out, has in recent years also purchased those papers. So we're part of the same family again, sort of.
There was a time when I couldn't think of those years without a queasy sense of unease and distaste, which colored even my view of the region -- which actually is a beautiful part of the state. It took a while for me to stop taking my bad experiences out on the region. And, in fact, it took a while for me to stop concentrating on just the bad parts -- fiscal catastrophe, emotional isolation, a career that was heading nowhere and yielding not even enough renumeration to live on, a sense that I was a hamster in a wheel while simultaneously spinning plates and that to slow the wheel or drop a plate would mean ruin, and -- at least for the final year, which was the impetus for that era's ending -- a hostile, borderline vicious, verbally abusive boss who made it an unsavory work environment. It ended in '97 when I just snapped, decided I wasn't going to put up with that life another day, and did not. Left without notice, and without all that much regret: At that point, I didn't feel I owed them much of anything.
That's all more than nine years gone now -- it'll be 10 years in early May -- and with the passage of time has come perspective. I've long since now been able to look back on those days and concentrate on the good experiences, the positive outcomes and pleasant moments of those six years. 1. I was part of a good church for awhile, with a sensitive and wise pastor and a vital and diverse congregation of, by and large, kind people who were followers of Christ. 2. For all of the nonsense and misery at the office, there were some good people there as well, and while my career wasn't really advancing, I was learning my craft: In those small community papers you find yourself doing everything. I was covering everything from an aninternationally-followed murder trial to the various dysfunctional municipal boards to the local Dairy Princess. And I learned diplomacy, as our storefront office -- situated near the courts, the bars, the mental-health clinic, the smoke shop, the VA, the park and the pool hall -- seemed to attract everyone whose acquaintance with reality was largely theoretical and who had a story to tell, usually involving aliens and Democrats and the plates in their skulls. 3. There was one really, really good weekend coffeehouse in operation for a few years, which still remains the standard by which I judge coffeehouses: Is it Common Groundsish enough? 4. It was when I met the inimitable![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
michaelhinman. And since he's the one who more or less introduced me to LJ -- yeah, it's his fault -- my acquaintance with you all can be halfway traced to that period.
Don't know where I was going with this -- just an observation that all of our past experiences, even the dismal ones we'd rather forget -- go to make up who and what we are; and that, given perspective, those darker times always had brighter and lighter moments.
Sounds & Images: "Country Song" (Seanan McGuire)
State O'Mind: Reflective
There was a time when I couldn't think of those years without a queasy sense of unease and distaste, which colored even my view of the region -- which actually is a beautiful part of the state. It took a while for me to stop taking my bad experiences out on the region. And, in fact, it took a while for me to stop concentrating on just the bad parts -- fiscal catastrophe, emotional isolation, a career that was heading nowhere and yielding not even enough renumeration to live on, a sense that I was a hamster in a wheel while simultaneously spinning plates and that to slow the wheel or drop a plate would mean ruin, and -- at least for the final year, which was the impetus for that era's ending -- a hostile, borderline vicious, verbally abusive boss who made it an unsavory work environment. It ended in '97 when I just snapped, decided I wasn't going to put up with that life another day, and did not. Left without notice, and without all that much regret: At that point, I didn't feel I owed them much of anything.
That's all more than nine years gone now -- it'll be 10 years in early May -- and with the passage of time has come perspective. I've long since now been able to look back on those days and concentrate on the good experiences, the positive outcomes and pleasant moments of those six years. 1. I was part of a good church for awhile, with a sensitive and wise pastor and a vital and diverse congregation of, by and large, kind people who were followers of Christ. 2. For all of the nonsense and misery at the office, there were some good people there as well, and while my career wasn't really advancing, I was learning my craft: In those small community papers you find yourself doing everything. I was covering everything from an aninternationally-followed murder trial to the various dysfunctional municipal boards to the local Dairy Princess. And I learned diplomacy, as our storefront office -- situated near the courts, the bars, the mental-health clinic, the smoke shop, the VA, the park and the pool hall -- seemed to attract everyone whose acquaintance with reality was largely theoretical and who had a story to tell, usually involving aliens and Democrats and the plates in their skulls. 3. There was one really, really good weekend coffeehouse in operation for a few years, which still remains the standard by which I judge coffeehouses: Is it Common Groundsish enough? 4. It was when I met the inimitable
michaelhinman. And since he's the one who more or less introduced me to LJ -- yeah, it's his fault -- my acquaintance with you all can be halfway traced to that period.Don't know where I was going with this -- just an observation that all of our past experiences, even the dismal ones we'd rather forget -- go to make up who and what we are; and that, given perspective, those darker times always had brighter and lighter moments.
Sounds & Images: "Country Song" (Seanan McGuire)
State O'Mind: Reflective