Good-bye

Tonight I say good-bye to the job I've had for the past two years. I don't usually say too much about work on this blog, so for those of you who don't know, for the past two years, I've worked at the sports desk of the El Paso Times preparing the "Scoreboard" page, basically the second page of the sports section where all the previous day's scores and standings are printed in teeny-tiny type (agate, to you journalism people). People always give me a funny look when I tell them what my job is. I'm going to miss that. Anyway, I've known for months that I'd be leaving at the end of the summer to take a job as a teacher's assistant. In some ways that has made it easier to process but in the end I think that it has made it much harder to say good-bye. I feel like I've been saying good-bye for months, attempting to loosen my attachment to a job I've really loved.

With the end comes relief at the easing of responsibilities and excitement about starting something new, I suppose, but mostly sadness. This job has meant a lot to me, maybe too much. In many ways it has been the fulfillment of a childhood dream. Here's what I wrote about it at the end of 2005 (let me just clarify that I don't actually write for the El Paso Times). In so many ways 2005 was a horrible year for me--I was a confused and depressed grad student, but one good thing came out of that year, and that was getting a job at the newspaper. Maybe many would consider it menial, but to me the job was glamorous and fast-paced and just plain cool. And even two years on, that sense of awe that I work there has never really left me. Maybe I'm not still bowled over every time I have gone in to work like I was the first day, but just being around that constant rush of excitement of the newsroom is still thrilling to me, even two years later.

And now I'm going to give it up. Sure, there are some very good reasons to be moving on from this job. I feel like I've mastered the job twice over and then some, and when you can do a job in your sleep I think it's about time to start looking for something new. The hours are odd (nights and weekends and holidays), the pay is low, and stress can be high. I've known from the beginning this wasn't a job that you stayed at for years and years, and I do think I'm making the right decision--it's time to move on. But I am really going to miss the job with all of its eccentricities. I'm going to miss headlines and jumps and tag grafs and knowing about dozens of different tab styles. I'll miss knowing the ins and outs of high school sports and knowing local sports schedules off the top of my head. I'll miss the chaotic order of the newsroom and finding out about news the second it happens. But most of all I'm going to miss my hilarious and amazingly hard-working co-workers. Working there has sometimes been like being on a TV sitcom, since my sportswriter friends are so quick to come up with witty remarks. I've never worked at a place where people have so much fun at work. Work can be fun? Shocking to most people. I am going to miss that very much.

In a lot of ways getting this job was some crazy accident and I have to believe it was fate. A lucky star. It was the perfect job for an aimless twentysomething slacker grad student still living at home. This has really been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, something I will look back on and marvel at the fact that I did it, and I think experiences like these are what life is all about, really.

I don't think there will be any tears on my last day, probably because I have shed many tears already as I've reflected on the highlights of the past couple of years and said some early good-byes. I think I'm ready and that in the end I'll be cool and calm and collected. Well, maybe. So farewell, El Paso Times, it has been a fun ride.