Thursday, September 08, 2011

Small Triumphs

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—When you're stuck in a less-than-wholly-stimulating job, it's worth basking in the small triumphs.

Case in point: Remember those "skybox refers" I briefly discussed in this post from last year? Yesterday, I wrote this one for a story about a paper publisher who had recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection:


Maybe half an hour after I write that thing and see it cleared, one of my superiors comes up to me and asks me if I was the one who wrote it? "Yeah," I say in a slightly guarded voice, expecting to hear some criticism. "Good job," the editor proceeded to say. "We decided to change the headline of the story to that one."

On a day in which I was feeling especially crappy about things (not helped by the minor ruckus I caused when I inadvertently "spoiled" a supposed big plot point of the TV series Breaking Bad for a bunch of newbies at work, some of whom hadn't even heard of the show), hearing this compliment had the effect of brightening up my entire day.

Apparently I still am capable of stretching my creative muscles at this "job" every once in a while!

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