It's just roughly one month since I began my new job as a magazine editor, and it definitely feels good to be back in print media. Since October 2008 (it took me awhile to realize what I'd essentially thrown away), a part of me has
ached to return to assigning articles, selecting photography, making deadlines and approving page proofs. I love it all.
Of course, my previous print job was with a newspaper in a much smaller city where you make four right turns and run into everyone you know. (Okay, Tulsa isn't literally that small, but it's pretty close when you run in small circles, like local media.) I never seemed to keep busy for my full eight-hour days until it was deadline week - and then I was easily running 12+ hour days. One reason was the lack of e-mail. I was on every imaginable distribution list and constantly asking to be added to new ones, but in a town of a couple hundred-thousand people...there's only so much news. Esp. when you're a community publication and don't cover the nitty gritty stuff.
Because of this experience, the thing that's surprised me the most about my new job in a city of two million is the amount of e-mail I get on a daily basis. In the first week, my inbox was a flood of constant messages, leaving me feeling a bit overwhelmed. I easily go through 75-100 e-mails per day. It is for this reason I have zero desire to put my BlackBerry to work doing the exact thing I purchased it for in the first place: fielding work e-mails. It would drive me insane.
