That said, even though I had my reservations about the editor over the past year, things have turned out pretty well with him in charge. He doesn't have the same warm, super-considerate personality as his predecessor does, so it's been difficult sometimes to know where things stand with him, but in general we've worked things out. He does listen—as much as I've had my complaints, he's worked to fix things I've complained about, and a pretty good rapport has developed between all of us who regularly show up on production nights (him, Liz, and me, plus various copy editors). Things aren't bad. A lot of the uncertainty surrounding his's plans, too, in the beginning most likely came from the fact that we were changing over to the three-day production schedule.
So yeah—it's unfortunate that just about when things have started going more smoothly on production nights, we're going to have this regime change that tosses everything up in the air again. The three staff members I know I can really rely upon at this point are going to be graduating this spring, and I'm not so sure there's anyone left to trust. The only "elder" left from my days as a freshman, I think, is Jon. Everyone else is about to graduate or has already scaled back their time with the paper. I worry about Jon's plans to lessen his "presence" in the office, as much as he and his buddies have tried to reassure us about it. That, at least, is something that's been there as long as I've been here—we've almost always had someone who's in the office every production night who can answer questions and serve as that "familiar face" for anyone who walks in the door.
I also worry that everyone who has faith in my abilities will leave without recommending my services to the next regent, so to speak. I'm hoping someone recognizes my existence and the time I've spent on the paper over the past two years and makes note of it—not because I'm vain, though I may be, but because I'd like to grab a position worthy of my talents and accomplishments thus far. A lot of these news editors are, frankly, silly sophomores, people no older than me whom I don't trust very much. I don't hang out with them; I don't go to their parties; I don't have much of a foothold with them in a social sense. Hence I'm hoping that what the editor noted got through, namely that the people who were actually expressing concerns about production nights and the changes thereof are the ones who were there all the time this year, who made sure that things went well every night, namely him, Liz, and me.
I worry that the people who don't like me or know me (most of the news editors right now) are going to conveniently move me out of the way, especially now that Jon's planning to give veto power, so to speak, to those who grab the senior editor positions. I moved out of the news section proper about a year ago, so right now my best bet as far as staff positions are concerned is finding an associate/managing editor-like position to inhabit, else taking a step back down the ladder into a copy-editor spot. Perhaps, though, I'll finally be able to grab a spot as opinion editor or online editor—those were the positions I tried for this spring, only to be denied in favor of those senior to me (which does make sense). In any case, I'm going to be a junior next fall, and hope I can wrest a spot of some sort out of the hands of those who would just like to see me disappear, else I'm going to end up phased out like several of my staff reporter comrades-in-arms. They all ended up quitting the paper last year after they realized that too much was being demanded of too few people, especially among staff writers for the news section, with too little regard afforded writers who really are talented.
Those are my thoughts right now, after hearing Jon's attempts to explain his vast plans for restructuring staff positions and production schedules for next year during the editor-in-chief interview process. I've definitely got reservations, and a lot of them concern whether I'll even have a place in the hierarchy next year. We'll see...