Austin American Statesman Adventure

Around 2:30pm on Tuesday afternoon I entered the doors of the Austin American Stateman and sat down to wait for my professor and well-known social columnist, Michael Barnes. The design of the building is a bit trippy. Angular, askew. It always seemed like I was walking into a corner.

Once Barnes arrived, we took the elevator up and entered the newsroom, an open area full of desks, Macs, and newswriters. Everyone was busy. I rubbernecked past every desk, wanting to catch a glimpse of what these people were working on whether it was designing, chunking and organizing information, talking to important contacts ("...turkey on wheat, no mayo and lots of mustard), and revising the good old fashioned way--with a pen, paper, scratchouts, and arrows. The vibe wasn't as frenetic as I expected. I had imagined people running between desks hurriedly, talking seriously, writing a mile a minute, maybe even yelling at each other. Who knows why my imagined model of a newsroom mirrored the Washington Post during Watergate, but it did.

Needless to say, I felt perfectly comfortable in the lax environment and Barnes made me feel at home and less like a pimpled teenager seeing people do what I want to do when I grow up. So he sat at his computer and I sat on a desk and we got down to business.

He replied to emails and I opened this guy's mail. As a former entertainment editor, Michael recieves tons of free music from random record companies. So here I am, this person who only ever recieves bills and paychecks in the mail, tearing open package after package, each one containing a new, shiny album, DVD, VIP invitation, or doodads for your wine glass, or whatever---point is: FREE STUFF. It was the best christmas ever. I even got Billy Bob Thorton's Christmas album! Well, I received it. Michael is the lucky one who gets to keep this stuff.

But I digress. After he checked a week's worth of emails, we walked to the printing room. He pointed out the new vertical printing presses that are worth some millions of dollars and are specialty equipment exclusively made in places like Germany and Switzerland. These machines were massive, stretching the length of ... I don't know, a football field. I don't remember too clearly. Frankly, these monster machines freak me out. I wash my hands of it.

The experience was refreshing. Finally, I could concretize the idea of a career in journalism. And it didn't seem impossible. These people in the newsroom--they looked like you and me. I looked around and thought, "This would be a great place to work."

Plus, there are candy bowls everywhere.