Skip to main content

Empty Chair at Empty Table

Image
By marydalene

IMG_1328

I’ve had a month to get my head around this, and I still don’t know exactly what to say, so I guess I’ll just go ahead and say it. Get it out there. Spell it out, if you didn’t already know.

I lost my job.

I’ve had my job at the newspaper since I was an intern, straight out of college. That was in 2002, if you wanted to know, when the Olympics were here. They hired me after my internship, and I was grateful for a job. I was graduating from college, losing my student health insurance, and pregnant with Timothy. So, yes, it was a blessing, and one that I was keenly aware of.

Over the years, I’ve worked with some crazy, talented, passionate people, who are all in the newspaper business because they love it (it certainly isn’t because of the pay). I’ve met some people who made me want to tear out my hair in frustration, and met others who I will genuinely miss every single day. In fact, I already do, and I’ve only been out of a job since Friday.

I stared out as the lowly copy editor on the News Desk, and over the past 11 years and three kids, have graduated to an award-winning lead designer for the features desk. I loved my job. It was fun, hard, challenging, demanding and very, very creative. It was also rewarding and neat and … unique. The nature of my somewhat anonymous job is that people didn’t notice what I did unless I made a mistake (and believe me, I’ve made a few), but my co-workers would often let me know when I did something that caught their eye. And if they noticed, others did too, even if they didn’t say anything.

I’ve also won several awards, some of which I’ve blogged about (like this one and this one). Other pages, I’ve just done and loved, and then moved on in the world of a daily newspaper.

But I’ll miss it.

The paper needed to make some changes, and unfortunately, those changes didn’t include me. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve made in my life. I wanted to stay, I wanted to make it work, but it just wasn’t going to.

And so I had to leave.

I know this is the right decision for me and for my family. It is time for me to say goodbye to those crazy, passionate people, and be grateful for Facebook so that I can keep in touch with them.

So I leave an empty desk and a hole in my heart. I will always love the newspaper, and I will always love a good design. Now, it will be my turn to make an impact somewhere else.

Here’s a small sampling of some of the pages I’ve done over the last three years. (I need to find out what I did with my earlier works.) If you’re interested in seeing more, feel free to visit my online portfolio.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Funny Things Kids Do, Part 3

By marydalene
Jared got out the camera today when we went up to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a little Easter dinner get-together. When Timothy saw the camera, he said, “Don’t take a picture of me!” “Why would I take a picture of you?” Jared asked him. “Because I’m cute.” ______ Sarah has discovered how to open and close the drawers to my dresser, and she knows that she isn’t supposed to get in them. The other day when I checked on her, she hurried over and grabbed two of my socks that were on the floor and promptly went over to my dresser where she put the socks back in and then tried to close the drawer. She came back and tried again and was successful. And I didn’t even have to say anything to her. She just saw me and went straight to the scene of the crime and tried to clean up the evidence. ______ Timothy loves to read, and so we let him read in bed before going to sleep at night. He’s only allowed to read until 8:30, which gives him about 45 minutes if he doesn’t ...
3 comments
Read more

That Was Exciting

By marydalene
There is something terribly cute, and at the same time terribly sad, about a baby hospital gown. I now have first-hand experience with it, since Ryan spent a day in the hospital on Timothy’s birthday. (Nice timing, baby boy.) Last Sunday, I could tell that Ryan was getting sick. I had hoped, when I saw that Sarah was congested and a little ill, that Ryan wouldn’t catch it, but he did. At any rate, I wasn’t really worried because Sarah was hardly phased by it and I assumed it was just a mild virus. Well, the difference between 4 years and 4 months readily became apparent on Sunday night. Ryan slept half the night in his swing after getting really fussy about his stuffy nose. He slept comfortably once in his swing, so I didn’t really worry. On Monday, he was needy. It made working interesting, especially since he wouldn’t really play on his own. He spent a lot of time in my arms or in his swing. Monday night, I could tell that he was worse, but didn’t know that there was much I coul...
4 comments
Read more

Something Scary

By marydalene
So this year, Timothy decided that he wanted to be “something scary” for Halloween. We threw out the various options, and he settled on a vampire. (“I don’t want to be a doctor again,” he told me, “because of all the doctor jokes I got last year.” Ooooookay.) He was quite pleased with the results, and enjoyed being scary. I chose to be Hermione from “Harry Potter.” (“Hermione’s hair is long ,” a 7-year-old girl down the street told me – as if this means I can’t be her – and I explained that I cut my hair earlier this year and it hadn’t had a chance to grow back yet. She was somewhat mollified, but not quite. She’s as precocious as Timothy sometimes.) But I won some movie tickets at work for my costume, made with much effort and collaboration with Janet (Thanks, Janet! And Jared made my wand, too.) This is the first year I’ve had all the elements completed (skirt, sweater, tie, scarf, robe and wand). And this is probably what I’ll be next year too. So if it looks familiar, that’s b...
4 comments
Read more