It used to be that we all knew where the lines were drawn between our various beats. There was tech, there was entertainment. Now it’s some combination of all of it and that makes for some infighting over who gets to write the big stories. It also makes for a much more competitive atmosphere among reporters. If I’m not on the ball twenty-four/seven, some reporter in Silicon Valley is liable to scoop me on my own beat, simply because of a better relationship with someone on the inside of some tiny new media company.
It’s a total shit show. Which is why I’m here early. My byline count has been a bit… off lately. I’ve missed a couple of stories because some other reporter at some other paper landed an exclusive story that I should’ve landed first.
They weren’t even great stories, but that’s not the point. I’m better than that. I’m almost always first with anything important and my sources know that’s my reputation. They tell me what they know so I keep getting noticed, which gets them noticed. As soon as I land another great story, all the misses will be forgotten. Until then, it’s all I can think about.
This is the Examiner. The senior editors don’t like coming in second place. And they’re used to better work from me, as they’ve been quick to remind me.
I’m not sure why I’m off my game, but I need to get it together, and fast. It’s probably just a freak thing, not a real slump. I can get back to it if I can get myself to focus.
The problem is right now I’m so focused on how to get back on top that I’m not doing the work that will get me there. Kind of like stressing that I won’t get enough sleep which then keeps me up at night and ensures that I won’t get enough sleep. That’s been happening too.
It’s a phase. I’ll snap back into form. I just need one great story idea, instead of the garbage I’ve proposed over the past couple of weeks. I knew our boss wasn’t going to go for any of what I was suggesting but I had to come to him with something.
“Our intrepid reporter Linden has a brilliant take on ripped jeans,” I overheard him say to the New York editors, praising some stupid story she brought to him on a Los Angeles-based manufacturer who’s using recycled denim. Brilliant? Seriously?
She’s obviously ambitious and capable. My desk is close enough to hers to overhear her interviewing people for her stories and she doesn’t give up until she gets the quote she wants or the information she needs. God help the person who tries to hold out on her because she doesn’t budge an inch.
“I have three people on the record telling me he’s being dismissed from his job in the morning. Do you really want to respond with no comment? I don’t think that’ll look very good for you.” I’ve heard her say things like that without even seeming like she’s playing hardball. And they tell her what she wants them to say. But still.
I had a three-column exclusive story on the front page about a multi-billion-dollar buyout of a media company and she’s brilliant for writing about pants. I don’t get it. Well, yes, I do. I’ve set a high bar and now I’m paying the price because the editors expect me to hand them exclusive stories every week. My buyout story was a month ago and I haven’t been on page one since. That looks very bad to the senior editors who are paying attention.
And they’re always paying attention.
3
Linden
Without even looking at my phone, I can already tell I’m late. It’s the kind of thing a person knows just from the slight shift in the way the sun looks in the sky.
Okay, I’ll cut the bullshit.
I know I’m late because, unfortunately, I’m always late. I always have the best of intentions, but somehow something holds me up. I know it’s past eight o’clock, and if I hadn’t stopped for coffee, maybe I could’ve been here on time. But probably not. Something else would’ve derailed me and I’d be right where I am. It’s just how it always seems to work out.
Every damn day.
And that means Jack will already be at his desk, and he’ll make sure I’m aware of what time it is and how inconvenient I’ve made it for him because I forced him to pick up the slack.
It’s not like I want him to do my work for me. I actually like the part of my day when I assess all the feeds. If a reporter is working on something big and a smaller story comes through, it will probably get handed off to me to write. Mine is an odds and ends job that still gives me the freedom to dig up my own things to write about. And I’m learning about a lot of companies and getting some good experience.
I don’t have a problem doing my job. I don’t think it’s beneath me. Most people in the bureau had to do it at one time or another and it’s kind of a rite of passage.
Unfortunately, I have a tiny issue with punctuality.
I’m somehow reliably late, no matter how hard I try. Jack isn’t my boss and my job rarely crosses paths with his, so it shouldn’t make a difference to him what I do or how late I am when I do it. Yet he always makes it very clear when I arrive that he’s done me a huge favor by going through the feeds for me and sorting everything out. I swear, he just seems like he pitches in out of a need for extra adoration and appreciation. Maybe his teachers didn’t give him enough gold stars.
When the elevator opens on the eleventh floor, my sole focus is getting to my desk without spilling my hot latte onto my sleeve or down the front of my white shirt. I’ve already failed so far, thanks to the barista who opted to top off my drink with an extra pour of low-fat milk, which is now leaking from under the plastic lid of my reusable cup.
I can feel a warm dribble running down my arm, even though I’m now holding the cup away from me like a baby with a full diaper. I will my laptop bag not to slide off my shoulder and disrupt the delicate balancing job I’ve got going with the file folders in my other hand.
In other words, a normal Monday. Hopefully, my revved-up, take-no-prisoners feeling will carry me through midday. Or at least until I’m done dealing with Jack. Baby steps.
I walk toward the newsroom’s open double doors, already knowing what will greet me when I go inside. Jeremy, the deputy bureau chief, will have been puttering around since seven, and the box of donut holes he brings each day will already be emptied of its contents. He lives far away and if he leaves past six in the morning, the traffic is awful, so he shows up at the crack of dawn, eats breakfast, and leisurely reads the big national newspapers—in other words, our competition.
“Linden. G’morning,” Jeremy says. He’s walking from the coffee room back to his desk with a cup of coffee he just brewed. He always takes on coffee duty first thing and he makes it so strong that it has the faint taste of motor oil. I see him glance at my store-bought coffee like it’s an affront to his brewing.
“Hey, Jeremy. How’s it going?” I’m asking about his day and his life, but he’ll answer with something related to news.
“Pauline’s got a merger she’s tracking but I haven’t seen anything else yet. Jack’s here, he’s probably got something. I dunno. What’re you working on?”
“Still chasing sources on my Zumalife story.” Zumalife is a small surf wear company that’s been giving me the runaround and I’m starting to get worried that I’m missing something important. I’m not about to let Jeremy know that.