Working for the holidays? Join the club — and the party.
Join the club — and the party.
While this schedule has its drawbacks, every year I’m reminded of how many benefits there are, too.
Last week, I got a phone call from friends who were coming into town for the holidays.
The words were met with stunned silence and a little lingering bewilderment.
Journalism has become such an elite and endangered profession that even we can forget the elements of it that are more, well, blue collar: namely the fact that journalists, like retail and restaurant workers, have to be ready to work even while the rest of the world is taking a holiday.
The journalist who said it shall remain unnamed for reasons of ubiquity — we’ve all said the exact same thing at least once this week.
(I always repeat my phone number twice, at the beginning of the message.) We spend lots of time with phone trees and site maps.
[...] when we get someone on the phone, we share the news as if it’s breaking.
[...] what if that D.A. had no experience with, say, the closing of a popular local restaurant or the proper valuation of a new Internet startup? A good journalist knows how to make the most of any available source.
[...] it’s not as if anyone is calling us back or returning our e-mails.
A couple of days before Christmas, I took advantage of an empty work moment to slip out of the office.
[...] for a brief hour I joined the thousands of other people who were off work and flooding Union Square to load up on presents for their loved ones (and, I suspect, themselves).
Caille Millner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.