Column: Staff beats the office heat wave
Published 12:00 am Monday, August 1, 2005
This is a story about the great group of individuals I get to work with every day. I’m referring to all of the writers, salespeople, graphic artists, circulation, classified, editors, managers and staff that make up the Albert Lea Tribune.
If you are lucky in your life you get a chance to work at a job you really love. You also would be considered lucky if you get a chance to work with individuals you admire and have fun being around. I am truly one lucky individual because I get to go every day to a place where I enjoy both.
Our staff is made up of unique individuals with an array of different talents and each person lends those talents and help each other when the need arises. What I absolutely love most, though, is the genuine caring and heart each individual puts into every job they do.
There are many difficult tasks required to to put out a daily paper and to have so much heart is sometimes a problem. When a sad story or cause needs to be covered it is difficult not to become personally involved and although we need to separate ourselves and use perspective in our jobs, it is the heart and caring that seems to rise to the top with this great staff.
The staff at the Albert Lea Tribune was recently put to &uot;the great summer heat test,&uot; when during the dates of July 19 thru July 29, the building’s air conditioning went out.
If ever there is a time to test your staff and see how nice they are, try 95-degree heat and high humidity for a prolonged period of time in a office in which most of the equipment is also generating a great deal of heat.
I am living proof our team not only battled Mother Nature, but they let me live to write another column.
Many of you may think I’m writing this to try to buy, or in some way bribe, my way back into my staff’s good graces. You know what? You are exactly right. I think so highly of our team I’m willing to reduce myself to a groveling idiot just to let them know how much I appreciate them.
With the air conditioning now in proper working order, I hope they will let me out of my office so I can see them and my family again.
In short, I really want them to know they appreciated for the job they do and express my extreme luck to be a part of such a great team.
(Scott Schmeltzer, Tribune publisher)