Real World update

Many worse ways exist to eke out an existence. My gig is not bad at all. I get to play with computers all day and when I'm done playing with computers, I get to talk about newspapers. I get to go to some cool places and hang out with some cool people. I occasionally fly first class, and I eat a lot of food and drink a lot of beer and scotch and other people pick up the tab.

My job allows me to not have had to pay for a vacation in three years. My job allows me 2,500 square feet of living space and a new "near-luxury" car (that's what J.D. Power calls it, "near-luxury." I find that funny, for some reason.) It allows for The Wife to have thousands of dollars worth of dogs around the house and to put her stamp on something she loves and that feeds her soul.

It allows for my seventh-grader to not have to go through the same hell I went through in seventh grade. Don't get me wrong: seventh grade in 2007 is apparently equally as hellish as it was in 1981, but at least it's not for the same reasons. If she came home crushed by somebody having made fun of her clothes, she can go buy different clothes. She never has to worry about the check for her field trip bouncing, or about not having lunch money. And before you ask, yes, I still after all these years know how to identify an overprivileged brat, and when I see her showing signs of being one, I call her on it.

I'm also lucky that, when I show signs of being an overprivileged brat, The Wife calls me on it. That is a good thing. I've been prone to show said signs (and have been all my life, even before I had even the remotest qualification to do so), and I know those signs well enough now to hate myself a little bit after I find myself guilty of it.

More than all of that, I have had opportunities to broaden my perspective that I never thought I would have. I never thought I would be counting kroner at a McDonald's in Denmark or driving a car from the passenger's seat in Australia. I never thought I would sit in a roomful of executives at some newspaper and have them listen to me.

And more than all of that, around all this stuff, I get to occupy the same house as four of the most fantastic people I'll ever have the privilege to meet.

I work with a lot of people who don't realize how good they have it. I work with a lot of people who get no joy from their work at all and it makes me wonder if they get joy from anywhere. I work with a few people who worry about whether the numbers on the spreadsheets add up and who are charged from above with the task of making sure they add up or it's their ass. I can see how that might suck out one's soul. I work with people who have everything I have and then some and think they "deserve more."

My job puts me around people who have no soul left. Maybe it's because they had to work too hard for the same level of success that has seemingly come so easy to me. Maybe it's because their life is all about spreadsheets and not about actually accomplishing something. Maybe it's because I no longer work with artists and instead work with Business People. Avid readers — well, maybe reader — will remember a post from low down on this page, from when I was contemplating making this career change, when I interviewed with the president of the company:

He was a Businessman. I've spent years cultivating a deep contempt for Businessmen. Soulless assholes who care nothing more than making a buck, who hire people based only on what they can see on paper, who don't create anything.

That guy was shitcanned a couple of years ago. Not much patience among Businessmen for guys who don't make their numbers. Whatever that means.

I was worried then about transitioning from a job that required a lot of soul (while simultaneously stealing said soul) into a job where soul was not really a requirement. I've done OK, and I've done so without having to give up too much of what makes me, well, me. It does require a different approach. I have an obligation to the Spreadsheet Drones. I have customers who could give a shit about my work-life balance. Sometimes I overdo the amount of energy I put into bringing soul into my job, and I don't have enough left over for things that actually matter. The Real World will take whatever you give it, and no matter how much you give it, it usually wants a little bit more.

But as I get settled into Year 4 of Life in the Real World, life after journalism, I'm OK with what it has provided me so far. There is a post below which might be interpreted as, well, a rant. And it was. I'm entitled to that occasionally, too, because the pace can be frenetic and frustrating. But the rewards are really pretty cool.

If any of the above comes off as arrogant, I'm genuinely sorry (and it's not often I put "I" and "arrogant" and "sorry" in the same sentence.) I sincerely don't mean for it to be; far from it. I'm genuinely grateful for what I have. I think it needs to be said.

Just another day in the life of a guy who makes rich guys richer

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Here we go again, go, go, go, go, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina, Illinois, Iowa, go, go go, the kid in 2C has been screaming since takeoff (actually he’s been screaming since we were at the gate), turn up the iPod, let Patrice Pike scream at me instead, at least she has some sense of tone, go, go, go, “I presume you’ll send the updates on this document tonight,” yeah, I’ll do that, after I land at 10 p.m. after I’ve been working since 7 a.m., go, go, go, THEM: got time for a question? ME: no THEM: just a quick question? :) , ME: k, what’s your question? THEM: can we do blah blah blah blah blah? ME: no, we can’t make the system do that, THEM: why not? Shouldn’t it work that way? :-( go, go, go, can I get a decision on this document I gave you Tuesday?, go, go, “no, we’ll have to put that in front of the committee,” go, go, go, Wendy’s for lunch, McDonald’s for dinner, I can sleep after I’ve made some more money for these other people, go, go, go, what a team player you are, what a professional, “the most professional person I’ve ever worked with”, go, go, go, gotta go, answer the phone, “got a question,” it’s a two-parter, a three-parter, let’s go back to the first thing you said, I can explain that part, “why does it work that way?” I don’t know, I’ll never know, it wasn’t my decision, I don’t defend the functionality, I just describe it, go, go, go, go, go, it can always be worse, at least you have a job, at least that’s not your kid screaming in 2C, it could be so much worse, go, go, go, let’s get going, but wait, there are storms, somewhere, we’re not going to go just yet, can’t go, it’s not safe, ok, now let’s go, on to the next thing, no time to do this thing right, it's about 90 percent there, "well, that's enough, let’s just go on to the next thing, we can go back to the other thing later," go, go, go, go, I gotta get back to the other thing, but I can’t remember what it was, go, go, go, phone’s ringing again, can’t get it now, hit the Ignore button, if it was important they’ll leave a message, gotta send a message, go, go, go, hey, you know, I don’t think I can do this anymore, “yeah, me neither, things are tough all over, did you update those spreadsheets I asked you to update?” go, go, no time to listen or evaluate or try to come up with a way to go more efficiently ‘cause we gotta for christ’s sweet sake go, where are we going? hell if I know, I just know we gotta go, 'cause that’s what we do, we go, next place, “ding” you have new mail “ding” THEM: I think we found a bug ME: what kind of bug? THEM: it does this when it’s supposed to do that ME: let me check on that for you THEM: I’ll be waiting :-) ME: k, I’ll get right back to you after I “ding” come see me when you have a second “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrring” I need some help right now, THEM: you there? ME: no, go, go, go, keep going, goddammit, because if you stop, you’ll be forced to think about how ridiculous it all is.

A cartload of crap

I've been to Racine, Wis., a time or two, but I've never had a need to have any dealings with the Modine Manufacturing Company. I'm guessing my needs for thermal management are covered by my air conditioner and my car's radiator.

I would likely still not know of Modine Manufacturing were it not for a link on my favorite media news site. Apparently Modine was offended by a perfectly accurate headline in the local rag on a story about how the company laid off 50 of its workers recently.

The headline: "Modine fires 50."

Modine President David Rayburn apparently took offense at such a direct headline. He was clearly annoyed that the page designer didn't have enough space to allow the copy editor to write "Modine takes account of the interests of all its stakeholders, relieves 50 workers of further participation."

Rayburn writes:

We thoroughly evaluated every position here in Racine, to determine its place in the new structure, and to eliminate redundancies. We offered early retirement packages, and then made the tough decision to eliminate 50 positions. We acted responsibly. We acted in the best long-term interest of all of our stakeholders - customers, suppliers, employees and shareholders.

Whatever. I write back:

Dear Mr. Rayburn: Fuck you.

Come on, man. Grow a pair. Sack up and tell people the truth: "Because of poor management, unrealistic profit goals, and an inability to anticipate changes in the global market for thermal management, we got to November with a realization that we need to find a way to keep more of the money we're making for ourselves. Because of this, we have determined that 50 of our co-workers are no longer necessary to the operation. Therefore, as the holiday season begins, we have decided to take what we were going to pay them next year and keep it for ourselves. Nothing personal; just business."

Instead, Rayburn figures shooting the messenger is a better plan. "I was very disappointed to see the large headline in the newspaper on Friday, October 27, "Modine fires 50," Rayburn wrote in his letter to the Journal Times of Racine. "These employees' jobs were eliminated, based on a business decision, carried out after careful consideration. It was very insensitive to these employees' hard work and service to characterize their situation in the sensational way you did."

My guess is the copy editor wrote "Modine fires 50" because "Modine shitcans 50" was a character or two too long. I again offer Rayburn an alternative: "It was very insensitive to make such a big deal about our bad business practices. It makes us look like cold, unfeeling bastards who would fire people in Q4 rather than take a risk of our bonuses being lower."

Figuring those 50 jobs averaged about $40,000 a year in salary and benefits, the cuts in Racine saved Modine $2 million for fiscal 2007. This doesn't count the savings from the 45 positions opened by early retirements that were not filled.

According to the AFL-CIO's Executive PayWatch Database, Rayburn earned just shy of $2.7 million in total compensation in 2005. One suspects it never occurred to Rayburn to try to get by on $700,000 next year in order to save these jobs.

There are other ways to keep labor costs down. Measurable performance goals and tough evaluation processes would help minimize dead wood. Realistic profit expectations would keep greedy stockholders and boards of directors at bay. Executive pay is horrendously out of control in all industries; would be nice to see some stockholder outrage against THAT.

Listen, I understand that it's just business. It happens in my current line of work, and it's happening a lot in my former line of work. People get laid off every day. But, Mr. Rayburn, save the bullshit. Just stand up and say, "We fired 50 people today , because we thought our chances to make money would be enhanced by their absence."

Oh well. At least Modine is creating opportunities in China and Mexico.

Meanwhile, here in America, we'll just keep telling the middle class that they're unnecessary.

What five years can do

Five years ago, I was one of the top news editors for the eighth largest newspaper in the United States. I was 33, and had been a professional journalist for more than a decade and a half. I had assembled sections for some of the biggest stories ever -- the first World Trade Center attack, the Branch Davidian siege, numerous World Series and Stanley Cups on impossible deadlines.

All ego aside, in whatever newsroom I was working, when something big broke, I was the go-to guy on the production side. I don't know much, but I will put my newspaper production and design and decision-making skills up against anyone anywhere in the world. I know how to put out a daily newspaper.

At 9:34 a.m. CDT on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, I was summoned to work early to put out the most important edition ever of the nation's eighth largest newspaper. I covered the 34.8 miles to work in 32 minutes, hitting my car's electronically governed 112 mph limit on the way.

As I pulled up to the building, with the newspaper's big Gothic nameplate on the side, it started to hit me. I pulled my car -- somewhat more slowly -- into a parking spot, near the news helicopter pad for our TV station. I got out. I closed the door. I began walking to the employee entrance, just like any other day.

Then I stopped.

A thought kept ringing in my head:

I don't know how to do this.

I stood there, on the top floor of that parking garage, for probably three minutes. Just stood there, the staircase down to the door in front of me, the car behind me. To my right was the skyline of the eighth largest city in the nation. A city that, for all I knew could have been the next target, being as it is a symbol of American consumption and oil power.

There I was, the Go-To Guy, just standing there. I don't know how to do this.

I took probably 100 deep, deep breaths. Somewhere around breath No. 45, I thought about going back to the car, back home to my family, and pretending it never happened. That thought went away before breath No. 46 came out. But I still stood there for another minute and a half. I don't know how to do this.

It was 10:01 a.m. My deadline for the extra edition we were publishing was 2 p.m. A quick review of a post from 2002 tells the story something like this:

I got out of the car and stood in the parking lot for a second, trying to get my pulse rate back down to normal. It hit me then that this was the Biggest Story Ever. I don't know how to do this, I thought. I don't have any idea. It was as if my brain had been wiped clean of everything I had learned over the past 16 years.

As soon as I was in the building, I was herded to a computer terminal and told I was designing the cover of our Extra edition. Deadline was 2 p.m. God only knew what more would happen between now and then. I didn't worry about it. I started designing, and fast, because everybody on the newspaper's masthead -- the publisher himself, the editor, the executive editor, the managing editor, and assorted others -- was standing behind me.

I hit the button on that page at 1:58, and turned my attention to the regular paper. The final page count was 48. I don't remember a lot of specifics from that exercise. We were just hunting and gathering and trying to determine what was true and what wasn't.

Back then I wrote, "I stood there for a second." I remember now it was much longer than that. Over and over in my head, I don't know how to do this.

I was responsible for the front page, back page and two inside pages of that Extra edition. I did the other pages fast enough to be able to spend time on the details of the cover. I remember fussing for several minutes over the spacing between the words "of" and "terror" in our main headline, "Day of terror." I switched the main photo five times, as a different photo editor brought me a new and better photo for the front page.

The front page I did that morning -- with the entire masthead of the nation's eighth largest paper standing behind me, watching every mouse click -- is now hanging in the Freedom Forum's Newseum. Everything on the page was spelled right. The words "of" and "terror" were properly spaced.

The main story was being written and revised right up to the point when I hit the button to send the page. It went out two minutes before deadline.

It was, in short, the culmination of everything I had learned and everything I had done in 16 years in journalism. I was handed a monumental task, and I delivered at a level that I never had before and never did again.

I worked more than 14 hours each of those first three days; then, one night, I broke down. Cried like a baby. I was able to ignore the full impact of what happened to our country, to a bunch of people whose only crime was not calling in sick on a beautiful Tuesday morning. But I could only ignore it for so long.

Dick Cheney tells us that the administration policies are working, and proof of that is that we haven't been attacked in five years. Excuse me, Dick, but we also weren't attacked in the 60 years before Sept. 11, 2001. Dumbass. The administration has accomplished nothing, and in many ways has made things worse. We've created chaos in a little country that had nothing to do with the attacks. We're stirring up shit in another. Meanwhile, the man with the money behind what happened is still out there, somewhere, with full ability to do it again if he wants to.

As for me? That was probably the beginning of the end of my journalism career. I damn sure never want to be part of another story that big, or that awful. The stories in the years afterward -- Afghanistan, Iraq, the threat from North Korea, day after day after day of human suffering and awfulness -- I just didn't want to know anymore. I still do know, of course, but on my own terms.

I'm not the go-to guy anymore. Journalism is a young man's game. I aged a lot those last few months of 2001. I just hope the young people who are taking it over learn to ask the right questions and don't accept everything that's being handed to them. It's more important that they know how to do it now than it was for me to know how to do it then.

Data transfer interrupted

I am reachable, by one medium or another, pretty much 24 hours a day, every day. The only time that I am completely out of pocket is during the one or two hours that I am on an airplane going somewhere.

Being constantly available, of course, does not mean that I am providing better service. It just means that I can half-ass more stuff. It means that I can be in a meeting while driving a rental car from a customer site to an airport. It means that, while a customer is paying some absurd sum for me to be on site, I can simultaneously be helping two other customers who are not paying for the privilege.

This is a true story, and yeah, it's a little gross, but it's an illustration of what American business has become: Yesterday, I was on the phone with a customer and answering an e-mail ... in the bathroom. Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

And don't think that I don't know where to find the "Ignore" button on my phone. There are plenty of unanswered items in my Inbox. At some point, I do have to sleep. At some point, I'm with my family, and that means With My Family. At some point, the sign has to turn around to "Closed." But every one of those Ignored calls and unanswered e-mails is still a tiny little failure.

One thing that makes my job extremely complicated is that the European co-workers on whom I depend heavily have a minimum of five weeks of vacation. Over there, it's acceptable to basically accomplish nothing in June, July and August. Over here, it's not acceptable to be unavailable while you're in the john.

I'm not complaining. I have a family which is very well-provided for. My roof covers a large number of square feet. The bills are paid and times are largely good.

But I know in some way, I'm paying for all this prosperity. And I also know I'm not the only one. This is the way We live. I just wonder what the end result really is.

As the fog descends ...

What would be fun, really, is to sit here and write while I'm at the complete edge of exhaustion, just to see what would happen. I've been in constant motion since last Wednesday: fly, drive 2 hours, meeting, drive 2 hours, fly ... one-day weekend lull ... fly, drive an hour and a half, meeting, drive an hour and a half, fly, get another rental car, hey! why is there a traffic jam in downtown Boston at 11:30 at night? lost in Boston, find freeway, drive an hour and a half, meeting, and eeew, that was why there was a traffic jam in downtown Boston.

So I'm in New Hampshire right now, with another day of meeting, fly, drive in front of me. And yeah, with the downtown Boston tunnels closed, it's going to be a bitch getting into Logan. Tomorrow's flight goes to North Carolina, where thankfully the meeting will be held in the same city in which we're landing. Then, fly and drive home Friday night. Weekend lull, then off to Southern California next week. Fly, drive an hour, two days of meetings, drive an hour, fly.

Then, a week of vacation. No plans, just vacation. The plan does not include moving eight miles a minute, as Seger once sang.

So writing all that was a long way of saying no, I'm not going to go to the reunion. That would be another three days of flying and driving, and I'm just not up for it. I can come up with more reasons to not go than reasons to go.

The fog is coming faster, the eyelids are getting heavy, the thoughts are coming both fast and slow at the same time. It's like the gears are turning without any actual power, the perpetual-motion brain that is spinning 7,600 rpm on the way to nowhere. I'm pretty sure I've forgotten why I'm in New Hampshire, and why I'm going to North Carolina. I'm just here, typing, not even in full control of the text I'm currently entering. I wonder how much longer I can do this.

Summertime, summertime, sum-sum-SHADDUP!

No vacation here, sorry. Still trying to figure out the mysteries of ASCII characters 0D and 0A. For now, everybody's having fun around me. Oh well; my time will come.

On the clock

I have 20 hours to complete two PowerPoint presentations for an upcoming conference. During that 20 hours, I must also have dinner, sleep, have breakfast and get children ready for school, and I'll lose one more hour to commuting.

How do you like my chances?