Why I Quit Being a Sports Editor
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Moreover, I've learned never to write when I'm angry. You do your reasoning a disservice when you're angry. So I waited to cool down before answering the question in print.
Not that the topic hasn't come up already. People, men in particular, think I'm nuts for leaving my job at The Salt Lake Tribune. I had climbed the ranks of the staff to the assistant sports editor position. To be sure, it was something of a dream job when I first started.
When I took over the job in June of 2007, it was basically a Monday through Friday job. The job involved doing some planning work for the sports section, attending staff meetings, making photo assignments, developing young writers and editing the local editions of the sports section. It also was mostly daytime hours, which made TW very happy as we hadn't been seeing much of each other.
That first year on the job was the best because that's all the job was. Often on fall Saturdays I would work a few hours by going to cover college football games and running our paper's coverage, even writing a few stories on the side. In the spring I covered Utah Jazz playoff basketball.
It was perfect. Then came the 2008 Summer Olympics. They were in Beijing, China. Our boss decided we needed somebody to work the overnight shift to be in contact with our writers, post stories and edit photo galleries. Certainly he wouldn't do it, nor would his deputy sports editor.
For two weeks, I worked from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m. I edited Olympics stories and posted them online. I also did all the normal photo assignments, story assignments, planning and editing I would normally do during daylight hours, except it was nighttime.
OK, whatever. It's a temporary assignment. Things will get back to normal. Except "normal" became something different. It was decided that I should be in the office, copy editing pages on Saturday nights. And Friday nights, too. That's fine. I was used to doing that.
But in the fall of 2008, we also got a new computer system. Because I had so much spare time, it became my job to learn Pearl scripting and program our new newsroom system. Why is it the assistant sports editor's job to do this? Because I was available. It was 40 hours a week of sitting downstairs with the IT guys, coding agate scripts. w+w*+d*+d*/$1/
Clearly, this was not the kind of writing I'd been hired to do. All the while, I kept doing all the normal photo assignments, story assignments, planning and editing I would normally do. I even filled in on the desk for a week, helping edit the sports section for a week before we switched systems.
When we finally did switch systems and smoothed out all the kinks, I had worked 17 consecutive days and 29 of 31 in the month of December. The overtime would have been ridiculous, if I wasn't a salaried employee. My stress was off the chart. I wasn't exercising. I wasn't doing anything other than working.
That was 12 months before I quit. It takes a while for plans to come to fruition. TW and I were ready to leave Utah, but moreover we were ready to leave this lifestyle behind.
In my final 12 months at work, new duties were added. I wrote features stories every week for a ski page. I filled in on the news desk, putting out the A1 pages, the business pages; whatever they needed, I did. All the while, I was doing all the normal photo assignments, story assignments, planning and editing I would normally do.
My friends and family didn't see the stress or the long work weeks. They saw me covering the Super Bowl (which is kind of awesome to do). I guest co-hosted a sports radio show several times. I did TV reporter work. It looked like an awesome job.
To be sure, there was a time I cared about what it looked like. Ego is a powerful thing, I'm not proud to say. I wanted to be important. I wanted people to think I had a cool job. I wanted people to think I had a cool job.
I wanted all those things for a while. There wasn't a single moment where that changed. It was too many phone calls. I counted once: I made and received 45 phone calls on a typical Thursday. My phone rang all the time. I got a phone call on Christmas Eve, at dinner with my in-laws in Minnesota. It was too many nights at work, away from my family. It was too many nights in the office, when I thought the new job was going to involve being out of the office a little.
When I would see TW, which wasn't that often, we would talk about what we want our lives to be like. Seeing each other was a priority. Spending time together was a priority. Living someplace we loved was critical.
Working all the time, strangely, did not make the list.
Laughably, most of those things have not changed yet. TW is in Ft. Lauderdale for 3 weeks and 5 days, doing a rotation. Since moving to Maine 15 months ago, she's constantly been distracted by school. I'm still working evening shifts, getting home no sooner than midnight, usually more like 12:30 a.m.
But my phone doesn't ring. Hardly ever. Nobody calls me anymore. That's revelatory. My blood pressure dropped 10 points within two weeks of moving here. I didn't wake up in the middle of the night worried that I'd fucked something up in the paper.
It's taken 15 months to get used to, but I'm normal again. The ego has subsided. I don't need to work at The Boston Globe or cover another Super Bowl or get some wild perk simply because I'm a sports editor. I've proved to myself that I'm capable of great things.
It would be a blast to work in TV or radio again and I can't rule it out. But it might never happen and that will be fine. What's important right now is May 19. That's TW's graduation date. Actually, what's important right now is May 20. Maybe we'll go to the grocery store or go see a movie together. Maybe we'll sit on the couch and watch her backlog of Lifetime movies.
Doesn't sound revelatory? After six-plus years of being married in off-peak hours, non-revelatory is my version of revelatory.
I can't comment on this. But if I were to comment, I think you know what my comment would be.
ReplyDeleteNot unrelatedly, today is my two-year wedding anniversary. And I'm sitting in the same spot I will be on Saturday, which happens to be my husband's birthday.
Happy for you.
~D
There's someone I know who needs to read this. Thanks for giving me hope.
ReplyDelete~ K. A.
Perhaps we need an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on the sixth floor of 90 South 400 West in SLC.
ReplyDeleteAnd awesome IT guys they are.
ReplyDeleteC
I thought about saying that, but I wanted the story to be believable. You guys really are quite awesome, relative to ... well, let's just say other experiences.
ReplyDeleteYou don't have to explain it to me. 69-5-7.
ReplyDeleteDeveloping young writers? That's me! Great post, JP. Miss having you around.
ReplyDeleteYep. You know.
ReplyDeleteWhat more can be said?
When I finished school my dad offered me the opportunity to purchase his paper with my sister. Yes! I said. Will do! Wait, he said. Come work for me for three years first. If you still think that's what you want to do, then we'll do it.
ReplyDeleteThe first year, I admit to thinking the sports guy was a slacker. I asked my dad about his cush schedule. "Well, he was at a high school game 2 hours away until 1 a.m. As long as the work is done, he can come in when he feels like it."
My dad was the first person in the office every day, and the last to leave. He was there on weekends, at night, and writing stories at home. I knew I didn't really want that to be my life. And once I started having kids, I didn't even want to work there anymore (granted, someone else purchased the paper and I was still working the way I did when it was my dad's - long hours, work til the work is done - only for less benefits).
I have a huge respect for newspaper staff. Talk about being married to your job. I am still so grateful to my dad for requiring that I work three years before making the decision. I think I had it made at the end of one.
As Dave Dravecky said (about baseball) after the amputation of his pitching arm, the same applies to those lying-awake nights and jolts at every ringing phone: "Gosh, I'm gonna miss it ..."
ReplyDeleteGood move man, good luck
ReplyDelete