i have no idea what this post is aboot

when i was 19 years old, i was running (in an interim capacity) the copy desk of a 30,000 circulation newspaper. i had two interns under my wing and four copy editors. all of them were at least 3 years older than me, with the oldest being about 40 years older than me.

it was not always a good time.

the age difference caused a lot of passive-aggressiveness between me and the oldie. he was originally hired to be the assistant news editor; instead, the senior editors put me in charge and promoted me to assistant news editor once a news editor was hired. so that caused some hatred, too.

in all honesty, it wasn't my fault. by then, with all the turnaround on copy desk, i was the senior-most copy editor on staff. when i started interiming (which sounds like a sex act but isn't), i had only been there close to seven months. i made a lot of mistakes. but i was also overworked and confused a lot of the time. the first time i had to slot (which means i had to assign the pages, put together the wire budget, attend the daily budget meeting, and be the last person to OK pages before they went to print), no one told me i was doing that; i was just told to come in an hour earlier than i normally did. the same happened the first time i had to design the front page. and then i had to mentor the interns, when i myself was a college drop-out. it was an incredibly stressful time in my life.

i was only 19 years old. (although i did turn 20 later that summer.)

not to get all hindsighty, but i could've handled it better had i been handled better. if i had been trained for a couple of days on how to design the front page or how to slot, i would've probably handled things better than i did, which was over-smoking and snapping at people a lot. i tried my best to be personable, but i was thrust into a managerial role overnight and i freaked out.

the fact that oldie and i were constantly at each others throats didn't make things better. sometimes i wish the senior editors had just put him in charge (since that was what he was originally hired for), but he was new to copy desk, and i guess i understand why they decided to go with me. oldie had come over from sports, and his news judgment wasn't all that great. my news judgment was only marginally better.

i don't know where i'm going with this post. i think i was going towards "i've only always been slightly marginally better than someone else to get a job." i have no idea. maybe it was "i work really hard to only be slightly marginally better than someone else."

also, i'm starving and have no money to get something unhealthy from the vending machine.

meh.