Anne. Dale. Mike. Steve. When I think of my first job at a daily newspaper, at the old Wheaton Daily Journal on Schmale Road, the actual tasks — opening mail, making calls, reporting stories, editing copy — are completely forgotten.
The people I worked with, however, leap to mind, clear and vital after 40 years. Anne’s precise manner of speaking. Steve’s useful life advice delivered over whiskey — “Be careful where you put it.”
When we talk about employment, we usually focus so much on our jobs — the labor we do — and so little about who we do it with. Which is a shame, really, because those human interactions, the conversations, collaborations, friendships, rivalries, tend to set the tone for our working lives, far more than the specific duties we’re fulfilling, tightening a bolt or selling a car or composing a sentence.
On Labor Day 2024, those of us lucky enough to have jobs should remember we work with, and for, human beings.
I’ve been working continually since I was 9 and began delivering the Berea News Sun. What I remember most, beside how much I hated that electric alarm clock whining to life at 4 a.m. and muscling the big green Schwinn Typhoon with its double newspaper baskets jammed with folded papers through the pre-dawn darkness, were the subscribers.
Some were friendly and paid on time. Some didn’t answer the door even though they were clearly at home. Maybe money was tight. Maybe they realized they could dodge a boy holding a hole punch and a ring with well-worn cardboard cards, yellow for those who paid bi-weekly, purple for prepaid subscribers.
Through open doors I’d catch glimpses of other people’s lives. My route covered Whitehall, the curving streets of identical newly built ranch homes set along cul de sacs where we lived, and Sprague Road, a busy road lined with older, more run-down houses.
In the seven years I had the route, I learned the blue-collar subscribers on Sprague Road had less but tipped better than the comfortable suburbanites on Whitehall. A life lesson never taught in school.
I gave up the route the summer I turned 16 and moved to my first real job: scooping ice cream at Barnhill’s ice cream parlor. By winter, I was filling catalog orders at a J.C. Penney warehouse. Then nine months, my senior year in high school, in the kitchen of a Bob Evans restaurant.
I boiled potatoes and heated soup but mostly stood at a stainless steel table and baked biscuits. The man at the dish tank was named Wayne. He was older, say 20. I’d stare at the back of his head and try to make conversation.
“So Wayne …” I said, one day. “What’s your plan for the future?” I was going to college in the fall, I said brightly: What was he going to do? I don’t recall his exact words but remember realizing, with a sinking feeling akin to horror, that this was the plan.
I joined the staff of the Sun-Times in 1987 and divide my experience before 2020 and after. COVID was a disaster, people-wise, as offices and downtowns emptied out.
Employees must like it, because they resist going back. And as someone who enjoys solitude, I get that. But I also miss going into the newsroom, once so filled with people and life.
Luckily, my job occasionally throws me in contact with colleagues. I could never have navigated the recent Democratic National Convention without the help of Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet. People across the Sun-Times occasionally offer suggestions or correct mistakes. I particularly enjoy the close collaboration of working with photographers.
Ashlee Rezin and I were covering medical stories before COVID — we spent time at Mount Sinai’s emergency department, so we hit the ground running and did a number of COVID-related hospital stories.
As much as I enjoy the duties of my job — the reporting, the writing — it’s even better to work with someone you know and trust. I’ve added her name to the byline of my stories, because the facts she uncovered were so valuable. A good co-worker goads you to be better yourself.
The shadows on the field lengthen.My teammate Mary Mitchell took her ball and went home Sunday, retiring a second time. I think I’ve got a few seasons left in me, but when I finally doff my cap and follow her out the tunnel, I don’t think it’ll be swinging the bat that I’ll miss so much as the people who were once in the dugout, waiting to clap me on the back when I finished circling the bases.