pride in work

I was trying to remember a time I felt any pride in my work... not my volunteer work, but the work that makes the bills... I am so jaded by now I thought "there couldn't have EVER been such a time as that! Such a time where I once looked forward to work, where I cared about its output, where I wanted it to be "good"...

I just couldn't think of anything except the one time when I was out of grad school and I was working at the B0st0n Gl0be's website... I remember really caring about everything... (or was it just youth?) I just cared so much I worked so many hours and I didn't even want pay for it...

Or maybe they just gave me dumb things because I was so young... I remember this one thing I was in charge of called "Buzz Cut", where I had to choose somebody who wrote in for a haircut and then accompany them and write about the whole haircut and take before-&-after shots... or I once got a Press Badge and got to be on the front line of the B0st0n Marathon, it was amazing -- I got a byline because I took the only photo of the wheelchair winner, for some reason I was right there... They plucked me into the newsroom a few times and I spouted once about a computer fair at elementary schools, and later was told "they only ran that story because you said something".... I did all the museum exhibition sites, oh it was the best part, I got to go to all the champagne-filled openings!! I once drank bourbon from a flask next to a mummy-exhibit at midnight (with a nice journalist from a competitive paper; I was more enamored of the mummy)... I once went to the bathroom next to Jul1ia Ch1ld... And once at work I got in trouble because I was too drunk to post World Series scores correctly, I remember the Editor-In-Chief yelling at me about it... Once I had sex in the photo room, which is nowadays just done by computers.... And, most importantly: they had hired on a retired journalist at that time (he's probably gone by now) a man who was about 80 years old, who had gotten all the B0st0n MOB stories, he had been the type to wait in vans and spy on people, and write stories about them... anyway, they had him as a consultant for our front page breaking news which I was in charge of... I was in with it with him every day I was doing the breaking news... he was amazing... his name was John. He had done every type of thing in the world I wanted to do, hide out in vans, write pulitzer-prize winning articles, get in danger... we got so close for a while, and when I left, he wouldn't come to the party, he said he didn't want to say goodbye... There was another party once for a co-worker, John said he didn't go because 'all I would do is flirt with you'.... He told me stories of times in the old newspaper days when editors jumped over desks yelling at people, and people smoked and drank at their desk, and yelled and got crazy... I wanted to be a part of that so bad!! But those times were long gone before I met John.

I got to be in on all sorts of things then. I know I am lucky now in other ways, I am trying to think about all those things today.