Tim Burke It is 1:07 a.m.
I’ve been working with the Spartan Daily for 11 years and I still don’t know what my job title is. I have been called a “Graphic Specialist,” the “Backshop Guy,” “Production Manager” and, in the Spartan Daily Fall 2007 staff box, I’m given the title “Production Chief.”
One semester, the editor decided my job title would be “Production Guru.” I refused. “Guru” sounds too wise, calm and spiritual for an Irish Catholic, so I suggest the job titles “Paper Pope,” “The Fighting Font Freak,” or “Patron Saint of Print.” The editor refused.
I’m still a “Chief.”
I thought I was the only “Chief” on the San Jose State campus until I found out the university’s head cop is a “Chief.” He may not have the fun job I have, but I bet he hasn’t had to extricate Cheddar Cheetos crumbs from a keyboard, or listen to students use “anal vomit” and “first amendment rights” in the same sentence. The police chief has a university supplied car with flashing lights and a gun.
He also works nights.
I work nights, but I don’t have a car with flashing lights or a gun. I have put in a request for a car and a gun to Pat Wallraven, Spartan Daily Finance Minister, who will downsize the order to a rubber knife and a tricycle, then make the journalism department pay for the equipment.
The College of Applied Arts and Sciences will provide tech support after they are sent a certified e-mail with approval from the university president, governor and Amy Frietag.I know how things work.
As the Production Chief, I oversee my tribe of student advertisers, editors, writers and photographers. Each semester, I watch a new group of wordsmiths, athletes, rap stars, malcontents, skateboarders, designers, psychologists, bartenders, intellectuals and slackers put together and send to the printer a daily newspaper.
The students do it and it is done at night. Spartan Nightly. Working nights at the Spartan Daily has some advantages. I can eat leftover faculty lunches and I am able to do serious celestial star watching.
A few years ago, I was able to watch the nightly progress of a comet (Halley’s) in the northern sky. Last week, after putting the first issue of the paper to sleep at 2:30 in the morning I watched the full eclipse of the moon while walking home but, whoops, I tripped over a university police car.
P.S. I was hired by Clyde Lawrence in the Summer of 1996. Two things he said have been embedded into my brain: “Make deadline,” and “Lock the doors.”
Mission half-accomplished: the doors are locked.
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