Requiem For a Career
We sat around a table in a nice hotel restaurant wondering if we should order lunch, and, if we did, who would pay for it. The man who had invited us there as new employees was 15 minutes late. At that table with me was Aaron and Patrick and Tania and Mike, I think. We had been invited to lunch as part of an odd ritual of team building and, I guess, for the Managing Editor to welcome us to the newspaper. I wondered why I was there – I was just a 31-year-old intern and didn’t expect that my employment with the company would last longer than the five months my internship would last. I was probably the oldest one there even though I was the least experienced in the workings of a newsroom. There was no complaints from me. I was happy to be there and felt I had been given an opportunity. That was pushed aside, though, over fear that someone might suggest I pay for the lunch. I didn’t have enough money to cover my own lunch let alone anyone else’s. A phone call was made to the office...