Mood:  not sure

I was entered into a reflective mood this morning thanks to a prompt about a past workplace.

It reminded me about how I had to get where I got, and where I am now.

I struggled, fought, and often did things my way to finally get to where I wanted to be in the journalistic world. I did everything in a bass ackwards way. My college education was incomplete as it turns out. It was kind of superficial, and no one encouraged, let alone pushed, me to do an internship anywhere. I was somehow fooled into believing that education and the college newspaper was all that was needed to enter the professional world.

My result was that I moved to the city of a paper I liked and made a nuisance of myself with the paper's HR manager until I finally got a job as a layout specialist. This was before pagination, so people like myself were responsible for taking columns of raw copy and pasting it onto grids that were then shot by a camera to become film, which then in turn was made into plates that were put on the press.

I learned more about page design, journalism, newspaper protocol, office politics, how to work with people, and more from my three years doing that than anything in college.

In the meantime, I was trying to endear myself with some folks at the paper. To get them to believe I could be a reporter - sports, news, whatever. I even quit for a summer in order to get published. I had been there two years and the paper would not "assign" me stories on top of the full-time position I held. So I left and pursued free-lancing, which really meant getting this paper to take me seriously. I did mostly feature stories and soft news that summer, and had all but two stories accepted and published.

Then I ran out of money. I got my old layout specialist position back, but with an addendum - I got a column covering the local music scene, which introduced me into a whole new world with which I fell in love.

Subsequently I and a paper colleague started our own music magazine in 1996. It was a tabloid newsprint-sized monthly. Two years later my partner decided he wanted out, so I acquired his portion of the paper and after 24 months and issues as a partnership, I published 76 more issues before I sold it.

During that time I left the daily newspaper, lost thousands of dollars to my business, and spent time working as a pizza delivery guy and as a banquet captain at an upscale inn.

Learning the music business while learning how to run a publishing business was quite the education unto itself. I knew far less than I thought, but in the end knew far more than many journalists I know because I had to do it all - sell ads, distribute, market, design pages, write, hire, fire, balance books, etc.

I left the magazine behind to get back into the daily news world, taking a job as wire and entertainment editor of a small free daily. It was a great experience. And I learned more about publishing there. And I learned more about myself and my abilities. I never once doubted I could do anything I wanted, even when others were unsure and unconvinced.

But in 2007, I left the news biz behind again. And this time, probably for good. I became a daddy in 2006. And the grueling schedules of a daily newpaper editor is not a conducive lifestyle for a family man. Family is always first for me. Always. So I had to look for something different. Part of me was ready for anything, even if it had nothing to do with English, journalism, publishing, etc.

Now I am at a great company where I am an editor working on educational material. In some small way I am helping our youth and helping our struggling education system in America. And my strengths that were often overlooked or undervalued in the newspaper biz are challenged and rewarded everyday.

But first and foremost, I am husband and father. And that is where I am now.