With all the holiday hustle and bustle, you may have missed it.
On the day after Thanksgiving, Robert Horton wrote about his 20 years of reviewing movies for The Herald, professing he has the best job in the world.
I don’t always agree with Horton: How he can rate "Soul Man" as a better movie than "Out of Africa" will forever remain a mystery to me.
And I don’t agree with him this time, either. That’s because my job is the world’s best.
While my life would be hugely better if all meetings were outlawed, I have to admit that working in a newsroom for the past 30 years has been great fun.
Where else can you get paid to learn about people and things — to dig in and find out what makes someone tick or how something works? Yes, there are some dull folks out there, but most everyone is pretty fascinating if you ask the right questions and take the time to listen.
Where else do you get paid to watch major events or see history being made? I’ll never forget covering the eruption of Mount St. Helens and its aftermath or watching the Legislature in action. And yes, it is true that people who like sausage or the law shouldn’t watch either being made.
Sometimes you get to right some wrongs — uncover a scam, air out a government misstep or the like.
I could go on, but I’m hoping you get the point — newspapers can be a lot of fun.
My guess is that most reporters and editors agree; we just don’t want to say it out loud because newspaper owners might use it as an excuse to pay us less.
I wasn’t the only person to disagree with Horton.
"I, too, think that I have the best job as the coordinator of volunteer services (for Providence Hospice and Home Care of Snohomish County) and I would say it remains, after 14 years, a pleasure and a privilege," Treasure Omdahl of Everett wrote in an e-mail after reading Horton’s piece.
She said a co-worker and their boss also feel the same way.
Then she asked the threshold question: "Are there others out there that think the same, or are we mostly a nation of discontents?"
I think the former, but let’s find out.
Are there others out there who love their jobs or at least most aspects of them?
If so, I’d like to know so we write about it.
Send me an e-mail or drop me a note and tell me what you do, what you like best about it and why.
Mike Benbow: 425-339-3459; benbow@heraldnet.com; write to The Herald, P.O. Box 930, Everett WA 98206.
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