This blog has evolved from a public space where I attempted to connect with many people into a private blog that only a few close friends visit. That is largely a stage of life thing. Being older, with far less energy than even a few years ago, I do not go out much beyond my job, which is pretty consuming on its own.
We have a new arts editor; she's British and charming. We've gone out of the office a few times; yesterday for lunch, to chat. She's one of the many nice friends I've made at KQED. Her boss is another. I first met him years ago at Edutopia, George Lucas's project that was briefly one of my clients.
The core of my team is made up of online producers -- people familiar with blogging, social media, online video, interactive graphics, database journalism, and more. I've got three and a half positions reporting to me at present, soon to be four.
The people in these jobs are all young, in their twenties and thirties, and I love the time I get to spend with them. They are all extremely committed to public journalism but also so talented they could easily be earning twice as much at a startup in the private sector.
They just choose not to. My role is to protect them, allow them to expand and grow, and to challenge them. We've worked that out over the past two years into a mutually satisfying relationship. Every working day we have conversations that help my aging brain to stay engaged and not wander off on its own, as it is want to do...
I also have an extremely cantankerous older blogger, a guy I have known for a quarter century in three different companies. He's brilliant, rebellious, and given to providing us rants at our daily "standup" meeting. Rants on things like salmon, gun violence in Oakland, and various historical topics.
Within the company he is considered a management challenge. I enjoy my time with him and have arranged for next week to be a chance for him to explore the origin of the mysterious East Bay walls high in the hills -- so far nobody seems to know who built them or why.
Then I have the "fill-in" staff. These involve many more people, let me try to count. At least eight or nine. These are also mostly young people who work now and then when my main staffers are absent. Two are older, experienced journalists -- peers I deeply respect.
The younger ones are folks I am trying to help. One has been a temp worker at KQED for seven years but never got a raise. I took his case up to HR and after a laborious research process, they agreed that he should have been paid more for at least the past three years.
He was going to be given an offer yesterday but on Monday, tragically, his father fell ill, had emergency surgery and died. He made it to his side, in Arizona, and was able to help his mother make the decision to pull his dad from life support.
I worked with HR to get this week paid for (since he had been scheduled to fill-in for one of my staff) and then found out what the company has decided to do about the wage disparity issue.
Next Monday he is to find out: a check, a bonus, of $11,000 and a permanent raise of 20 percent.
This kind of work is how I spend my days. It makes me proud to be a manager.
The rest of my work is guiding young reporters on investigative projects. We've been breaking stories now and then -- I'd love us to be doing more of this. In effect I have created a tiny CIR inside KQED.
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