Take this job and love it

Let me begin with the highest truth: I hate our editor in chief, Liz White.

However, we have never fought, argued, spat, quibbled, or even spread nasty rumors about each other. I hate Liz for inviting me a year ago to The Daily Gamecock. It was such a nonchalant gesture, first in person and then later via e-mail. I came to the interest meeting full of strangers and decided to stick around for grammar’s sake.
A year later, the office feels like -- all together now, staff -- “a home away from home.” This is because we know how everyone works around here and what to expect. It feels so liberating to cooperate with a bunch of other college students in an open-ended environment. At other jobs there’s been a disconnect between myself and my managers, because their authority and duties kept them in a different place. But here, I share professors with some staffers and trade homework advice with others. We’re all at the same stage of life, and that makes it easier to trudge ahead with putting out a paper.

Or should I say, “made” it.

While I’ll be Viewpoints editor during the summer, the staff will be much smaller. We’ll only meet once a week, which means this semester is essentially my last “real” one at The Daily Gamecock. It also means I should give thanks now, and not just to the editors: my co-workers include Evie, Barry, Lauren, Callie, Jason, AJ, Amanda, the Kellys and Zach (where copy editing is concerned). Every office should be so lucky to be stuffed with people who welcome non-sequiturs and off-kilter humor at the drop of a hat. We vacuum here at The Daily Gamecock: no brooms up our asses!

Back to the main idea: my hatred of Liz White. While my junior year easily beats the two before it because of my time here at the paper, senior year looks to top it with new opportunities. And exploring these opportunities means leaving the office before being forced to attend graduation – though I’ll continue to write columns for sure, and maybe even a few that aren’t tongue-in-cheek satires.

So I’m not really leaving yet, but it feels like goodbye. But I’d also like to greet the crop of fresh faces that will come to the newspaper in the fall and warn them: you’re gonna get attached to this place. Give this office a couple of open minutes of courtesy and you’ll get back a dozen friendships.

And if you’re not careful, you just might learn to love -- I mean HATE -- the people around here.

Thomas Maluck
Copy editor, columnist, perennial foot-dragger