It won’t be the same

 

March 23, 2012

 

This is my editor’s last day.

In some ways the whole world changes from this point on since operations at the Bayonne office will be reduced.

The editor – the old editor’s assistant – will do her work up north, leaving a handful of employees in Bayonne to handle operations.

Since taking over BCN in 2004, management has streamlined operations in the second office, some how trying to make two offices act as one.

This seems to be the last of these moves for the foreseeable future, although management said we may also soon move the Bayonne office out of this decrepit building that has housed us all these years.

It will be a relief not to have the toilet in the upstairs apartment overflowing – a situation that is almost as regular as the tides.

I already feel isolated, and if not for the regular email and phone contact with our north Hudson reporter I would feel absolutely out of touch.

But even that is alarming, since it does not stop with work hours and often bridges areas I never expected to go.

She asked me the other day what I thought of when I first saw her – or what I think when I come up on Tuesdays for meetings.

I can hardly say I’m jealous as hell about her writing, and make something else up I think she wants to hear.

Meanwhile, Tuesdays become a lifeline to sanity as I struggle to keep part of the overall family. Meetings are curious. I wear my hat low and try to keep out of trouble.

We seem to have a good crew of reporters, although not nearly as lavish in language as the crew I started with – and I was jealous of that crew, too.

Anyway, I’ll miss the old editor because she was also my daily company to and from Bayonne. I would pick her up and drop her off everyday, and so have someone to talk to on the way. Emails and texting, while vastly more interesting, doesn’t make up for a warm body in the seat next to me.