In 1977, just a few courses short of a second bachelor’s degree, I took an internship at a newspaper and never left. The internship ended and I just kept coming in. They eventually decided to pay me. A few months later, I became the sports editor.
I am sure, sometime between 1977 and 1988, moving from sports editor to city editor (but keeping the same desk), I said that I have got to get things organized on my desk. I probably said it many times.
In 1988, I took a ministry in a small church in central Indiana. Not long after I started, I said I have to get my office organized. My desk was a mess.
In 1993, I took another ministry position. My desk was a problem. I said I had to get organized.
I later returned to newspaper work. Guess what happened.
I moved to yet another newspaper job in 2008. I’m still here. Also, my desk remains a mess.
When my oldest grandson was two years old, he sat in my chair in the News-Banner office and tried tapping on the keyboard. If I remember correctly, his prose that day made more sense than mine did.
I posted that photo on Facebook and many of my former co-workers had the same comment: Well, your desk looks the same.
Yes. Yes, it did. Still does, for that matter.
I tell people that every night, the Paper Monster comes in and poops on my desk. I’ve never caught it, but I know it’s out there. How in the world do all these things wind up on my desk?
I’m making another concerted effort to clear the decks, so to speak. My goal is to eventually have a workspace, the surface of which is visible to the naked eye.
One of my newer co-workers, who’s been sitting across near me for about three months, saw me trying to eliminate one of the many piles of stuff on my desk. “Didn’t you just try to do that?” she asked. Probably, I thought, but it still needs doing.
The grandson whose photo you see here is now 13 years old and an eighth-grader. I have another grandson who is almost two years old. I figure to replicate this photo, substituting Liam for Titus, sometime in the next few months.
I wonder what my desk will look like.
I’ll let you know.
daves@news-banner.com
