By PAT NEWMAN
pnewman@thecitizennews.com

Is your job adventurous and sometimes risky, or safe and secure?

Is your workplace pleasant? What is the starting salary for your position? These are just three of the dozen or so questions I answered for 20 gazillion students attending Flat Rock Middle School's Career Day Friday.

Seated between the mayor of Tyrone and a software salesman, Citizen colleague Mike Boylan and I fielded questions and passed out clicky pens and rulers for about two hours.

Looking into those young, earnest faces, I couldn't lie. “My job is very adventurous!” I replied. Yes, attending school board meetings can be thrilling and mentally stimulating. Just try deciphering all those acronyms that school district folks fling around — QCC, REST, IT'S, SOL, GEMA... they've got a manila file full.

Is my job risky? Extremely. There's the risk of nodding off in a marathon meeting, the chance of getting flattened walking down the corridor of a county high school after the bell has rung and the daily death-defying feat of crossing Glynn Street against traffic into the newspaper's parking lot.

Covering education and writing features for a community newspaper is certainly not as glamorous and cutting-edge as CNN's Christine Amanpour's world beat, but you can't top it for sheer predictability. If it's August, it's time for the bus routes and back to school advice, the Pilgrims land every November, the top speller surfaces in February and soon after, kids and teachers are counting the days to the end of school and I have the honor of typing up the high school graduation lists.

Sports dude Boylan spends his time dodging balls — fall footballs and soccer balls, winter basketballs and spring baseballs. So how is the workplace? If my work space shrinks anymore, I'll have to type standing up. Between Knickknack Queen and Amazing Spreader, I have a teeny tiny corner, with a teeny tiny desk and a teen tiny chair that I squeeze into through a teeny tiny space. Coffee cups, jars of coffee, assorted agendas and newspapers seep into my teeny tiny cubby, courtesy of the Amazing Spreader.

At least twice a day, I accidentally roll Knickknack Queen's brass bowling bowl off its pedestal and ruffle the feather pen on purpose. I open the window, they close it. So is my workplace pleasant? “It's great!” I tell the kids. Especially the aroma of pork rinds and tuna emanating from the Amazing Spreader's desk larder.

They scribble a “yes” onto their printed forms and move onto the big question. What is the starting salary for a reporter/photographer. I could fib and tell them I make big bucks, or joke and say “I'd be a rich woman if I lived in a third-world country.”

But instead I tell them the modest range I saw in Parade Magazine for what people make. The featured reporter lived in Oregon and made a livable wage. “That much?” the students look at me in awe. It's obvious they have never worked.

Mike notes that the perks even out the difference between our salaries and Bill Gates' annual take. Things like circus tickets and passes to Fisharama, an occasional free meal or a nice thank you gift for a job well done. The stuff that makes life great.

I tell the girls that journalism is a wonderful field for women. Michael tells the boys that covering sports is awesome. By the end of the morning, we even believe it ourselves.

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