First, a brief note about my blog’s header. No, this isn’t a travel blog…although I may wander there occasionally. But traveling, as well as words, is one of my passions. So I’ll be changing out travel pics there from time to time. This one is taken during a too brief stay at Lochmara Lodge, on the Marlborough Sound, on the South Island of New Zealand. I was finishing up a 50-plus mile hike along the sound, and it was pure heaven. Trust me: If there is ONE place that’s a must visit in New Zealand (OK, there are dozens of must-visits in NZ…), this is it. Check out its site for more details: http://www.lochmaralodge.co.nz/
My former newspaper, The Charlotte Observer, went through another round of layoffs this past week — eight folks in the newsroom took voluntary buyouts. Not sure how many others throughout the rest of the company.
There have been so many now, not only in Charlotte but throughout the country, that it’s almost become routine. But for each individual affected, it’s far from routine. For each person who chooses to walk through those newsroom doors for the last time, it’s the end to a chapter in their lives that for most of them began when they were 22, and often much earlier than that. And because of the continuing decline in the newspaper industry, it’s not likely a chapter that will be reopened.
It was a little different for me, when I chose to take my voluntary buyout from the Observer in May 2008. It was the very first round of buyouts, and that time, they were all voluntary. While I certainly couldn’t predict how many, or when, I knew with certainty that more would be coming. At that stage, there were still many people in the newsroom who, for whatever reason, were in denial — denial about conditions worsening, denial about their jobs ever being in jeopardy, denial about the stability of McClatchy (which closed at $3.02 on Friday…but definitely a leap up from the 52-week low of .35). At that point, I wasn’t concerned about any imminent layoff, as I had a fair amount of seniority. There were many reasons that contributed to my decision to leave when I did, some of which I won’t go into, but one significant one was that I knew I could NOT bear to be one of the ones left behind, watching the exodus of my friends and respected co-workers.
That may strike some people as strange — considering as how I ended up leaving and saying goodbye to everyone, all at once. Think of it like the pulling off of an emotional bandaid – excruciating, but quick … not drawn out, over a period of agonizing years.
An e-mail I received from a dear friend, a man, who still works at the newsroom the other night put a poignant voice to all of this. A co-worker and friend of ours was one of the eight leaving. I’m going to share part of the e-mail:
I walked him down to get ice one last time as he was leaving, and he stopped halfway, turned around and said he wanted to go before he cried. I finished that for him.
The life that is gone from here is excruciating.
If you knew these two men, and just the thought of either of them crying or even being on the verge — it brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes imagining it (and is doing so again as I type this).
Another reason my departure differed from those of so many others is that journalism isn’t the only career I’ve known. While it is absolutely my professional passion and the career that I was “meant to have” (let’s face it – when you know it, you just know it), it is my second career. When I first graduated college I was in accounting and finance. I went to work for Deloitte, Haskins & Sells as an auditor, and later worked for Electronic Data Systems as a financial analyst.
I’ll save for a later post how I went from becoming a number cruncher to a wordsmith…
The Final Word 