Leaving the job I love

I've been in newspaper for my entire adult career. It's the only thing I truly know how to do. The only tattoo I have is a pica. I've worked almost every holiday since 2015. I think in inch counts. It's the only math I can reliably do. My style is AP style. Newspaper is a huge part of who I am.

But that's changing.

I'm moving back to Nashville to work at a company that designs museum exhibits. The history major part of my soul is thrilled and the journo is terrified.

Instead of deadlines being at most, two weeks, I am going to be working on a months long time table. I'll have holidays, weekends, real lunch breaks.

Few people know how hard journalists work. Especially designers and copy editors. Our names don't go in the paper anywhere. We're the last line of defense against typos and bad headlines. Not to toot the copy desk horn but we're often the unsung heroes. Design is something you don't notice unless it's done wrong.

I love newspaper. It's shaped who I am. It's how I met my boyfriend. It's where I learned how to be a designer and it's allowed me to find the thing I love doing.

But it's hard. It takes a toll. The hours are hard. It often feels like life and death. And then you make deadline and you're just going to do it all over again tomorrow. Your work is on display for the world and readers are more than comfortable criticizing it either on the phone, on Facebook or sometimes to your face. Once a man called and told me he knew I "hoped to be a professional one day." He was upset because we didn't have the lake levels in the paper for a week. At the time, I was 25 and essentially running the copy desk at the paper where I was working. Another recently commented on Facebook and called my designs the worst he's ever seen. Readers can be cruel.

But they can also be wonderful. One of my favorite things about working at a community newspaper is seeing people enjoy my work in public. Over breakfast, waiting at the mechanic, framed at a newly opened business and even once while driving down the highway at 40 miles per hour (don't read and drive, kids). They're ready with criticism but they're also ready with praise. When we launched the redesign, I heard for weeks from readers through the grapevine about how much they loved it. I heard from several readers how helpful a map I made was for the presidential visit. There are countless stories about wonderful things readers have said about my work over the years. The good has always outweighed the bad for me.

But it's time for a change.

I am so grateful for my time at the Daily Journal. I have learned so much and gotten to do so many amazing things. I helped redesign an entire newspaper. One that my grandfather subscribed to for 40 years. He read it cover to cover every day. And when he got older, he would read it two or three times because he'd forgotten he already read it. It has been an honor to be part of something so historic and that people love so dearly.

The Daily Journal was a safe place to land when I needed it. My department was being shut down and I needed a job soon and this one was it. It's the only one I applied for and the only interview I did. They took a chance on a little designer who hadn't worked in Adobe in two years and who was facing an imminent layoff. I remember being excited my first week when my supervisor seemed surprised at how quickly I caught on. But that's what journos do. We figure it out. And we do it fast because we're on deadline.

I will always be a news person. I don't think it ever leaves you. The rush of hitting deadline on election night, seeing a page you put hours into on the rack the next morning, catching a typo at the last minute. These are things that no one understands outside of the news world.

I love it so much but it's time for me to move on.

So I'm going to pack up my style book and my red pens and head to Nashville. But I will always be grateful for my time as a journalist. Because it made me who I am today.

-30-