Our publisher, Doug Brown, puts notes of (occasionally attempted) humor inside the back door of Your Favorite Newspaper. The one that’s been up there for quite a while is this one, which is not necessarily humorous: “The whole world is short staffed. Be kind to those who showed up. Thank you.”
A couple of things made me think about that this weekend.
First, Susan and I have a tradition. Each Friday night that I work (and that’s a lot of them), particularly when it’s a payday, we meet at Billy Ann’s on Main Street for supper. As is our wont these days, we split an entree and enjoy a few minutes on what is otherwise a really busy day for me.
My daughter managed a fast-food restaurant for 13 years and she had a simple description of when things were really, really busy: “We got our butts kicked.” Billy Ann’s is not a fast-food joint, but on Friday night, my daughter would have used the footwear-to-the-posterior analogy to describe the situation inside the place. There were two hard-working waitresses and we had to wait to get a seat and wait to get our meals. Mike Jettinghoff, the owner of the place, thanked us for our patience as we left. Susan was in charge of leaving a tip, and she promised me it would be a good one. They deserved it.
That’s part of the food for thought my mind chewed up this weekend. The other is closer to my home-away-from-home. While the restaurant is about a half-block east of us here at 125 N. Johnson St., we’ve got a similar situation here inside our own building.
We have a reporting staff of four plus a sports editor. At the end of April, one of our four reporters took a job at another newspaper.
It’s tough to hire people, particularly in specialized occupations, and being a reporter is a specialized occupation. We had a guy here for a while but he didn’t work out.
So for almost 10 months, basically, we’ve had three people doing the work of four. All three of us — Jessica Bricker and Glen Werling are the other two — have private lives of varying difficulty and, speaking for myself, I’m still adjusting to this second-shift stuff. It’s a struggle. I don’t know any other way to put it.
There is a light of the end of the tunnel, however. A college senior is interested — interested enough to come out soon and take a look around, meet his potential co-workers, and see what’s what. We’re hoping this is the guy.
In the meantime, we’re working our tails off around here. Six mornings a week we’re putting out what I think is a darned good newspaper. When we’re back up to full staff, I think we’ll be exponentially better.
Doug’s posted note about being short-staffed and being kind applies across the board — not just here or at a nearby restaurant, but pretty much everywhere at this point in our nation’s existence.
Hang in there. We’re all in this together.
And be patient, please.
daves@news-banner.com
