Delayed start

Most kids head back to school Tuesday, but not kids in Saugatuck.

Due to construction at the schools, the kids start Monday, Sept. 8. One more week won't hurt us.

Work

My new boss starts soon. I'm looking forward to some changes (perhaps I will regret saying that!). What's funny about this is she started her newspaper writing career as a freelancer for The Sentinel and I was her editor. That was back in 1994. I have little recollection of her, and I shared that with her. She laughed. I laughed. And I still can't remember much.

I also found it funny that, when she met with the news staff on Thursday, she told the story of how I called when her material was late. Sounds like me.

See, the reporters are having a hard time dealing with some of my "quirks." One of the main ones is time. When someone is scheduled to be in at 9 a.m., that person should be in at 9 a.m. I've gotten red in the face telling people that "9 means 9." Not 9:02 or 9:10.

I think I've become a joke already over that.

I suppose this stems from my upbringing that if you weren't 15 minutes early, you were late. Moreso, though, it reflects my more than 20 years in page production and deadlines. When our deadline was 11:30 p.m., that mean't 11:30 p.m. If I sent a page at 11:31 p.m., I was late, had to explain it to my supervisor and the publisher and, for awhile, I would lose any pay bonus because of bad page flow. Ouch!

In newspapers, even in this online age, time is not only money, but it's also pride (who wants to be beat on a story?), customer service (who wants to read an old story?) and survival (who wants to file unemployment?).

Thought: Time for a change.