A Flame This High
By Margo Frink
(Nov. 2013) Until just recently I would get up in the morning, pour a cup of coffee and head to my home office where I would begin my work day, usually still in my pajamas. Most days I was checking through emails before 7:30 a.m., posting news to the website, writing stories and processing copy for the print edition. I was busy but still had time to keep up on tasks around the house, run errands and return phone calls. It was flexible and possibly the only perk to the job, which I cherished when my brother was ill. I could not have spent his final days with him if not for the flexibility of my work.
We kept our website that I post news to daily, but due to my lack of finances, I had to pull back on the events I covered and the board meetings I attended. Part of what I believed to be so important in community journalism was slipping away.
Because this paper that Martha and I had put our heart and souls into for nearly five years did not provide me with enough income to “pull my weight” (and believe me I was getting pretty heavy), I needed to find work elsewhere.
I cried the first three days I had to “work outside the home.” A self-motivated, independent worker who hadn’t risen to an alarm clock or punched a time clock in many years, I was out of my element. I was my own boss and found myself working for someone else with too much time to think about how it all got screwed up and how in the hell did I end up here? I wanted my life back.
The workplace dynamics are foreign to me. It’s been more than a decade since I worked with more than two other people. Although “getting along” and “fitting in” has never been a problem, I forgot that some people will talk about you without even knowing you, trample on your feelings to get what they want and use you as a means to an end. Workplace gossip is silly, really and non-productive. But it exists and probably always will.
It’s been several months and I’m settling in. I tell myself, just do your job, get through the day and try to forget about the rest.
Now that we are back in print (yay!), though monthly for now, hopefully we can get back to weekly.
I have my full-time day job, come home and begin my full-time paper job. I get to lay awake at night trying to figure out how I’m going to pull it all together. My house looks like a cyclone hit it, I never prepared my gardens for winter and I haven’t talked to my best friend in weeks.
A rubber band can only be stretched and used, wrapped around things and used again and again before it finally snaps. The same can be true for some people. Me, I will fight and claw my way along until the bitter end and manage to get it all done somehow, but something’s got to give.
What will give: Right now – what I treasure the most – my family and friends. If I can’t come see you, call you or answer your text right away, I’m sorry. We will get together at the holidays.
Board meetings: If we can begin printing weekly again, I will try and get back to my beat. I do miss all of you and never stopped believing that reporting on what you do is important.
Community events: I will do my best to attend a few, but will give no guarantees.
I’m the queen of compromise. I always thought that I was settling for something other than what I really wanted until a wise woman once told me, “you’re not settling dear, you are compromising.” I feel all better inside.
Margo Frink is vice president of M3P Media LLC and publisher of the Madison County Courier. She can be reached at 315-481-8732 or margo@m3pmedia.com.