I have this irritating tendency to let other make the decisions I should have made myself. Best example:
On the way to Europe for a vacation, I stopped to visit the New York headquarters of The Associated Press. As a 28-year-old editor in the San Francisco bureau, I was given the rare opportunity to meet with the top man, General Manager Wes Gallagher.
“What would you like to do?” the great man asked me. “Uh, be a writer or an editor,” I said indecisively. “Well, which?” he asked impatiently. “Uh, editor,” I responded, as if flipping a coin.
“We need editors in our Washington and New York bureaus. Would you be interested?” he asked.
“Yes,” I responded, unconvincingly.
San Francisco was a great place to live. My family was there, and I loved all of the famous sites. But this was an opportunity. I had learned to grab them when they came.
So within a few months I was off to Washington and an editing job. Within two years, I was “night editor,” actually running the afternoon news desk, which edited and cleared most of the Washington news for morning newspapers. In 1973-1976, that included an awful lot, especially Watergate and the Vietnam War. Why would they pick someone so young? Because the news desk was filled with old, jaded news veterans, just hanging on until retirement. It was a heady position, but after four years I was burning out. I wasn’t writing anything myself.
The head of the congressional staff had offered me a job on Capitol Hill and I stupidly turned it down. I told him I had promised to be an editor.
Then in late 1976, I was unhappy that I wasn’t getting overtime when others were getting extra pay working late. I turned down an offer by the union leader to accompany me into the bureau chief’s office to complain. I just went myself.
I made my case to Marvin Arrowsmith, well respected but ailing man running the bureau. For years he had been the White House correspondent and looked particularly distinguished, more like a president than a newsman. As he aged, his hands shook and he seemed like he was too old for the job.
With his hands folded, he said, “I need to tell you this. We are making a change in the night editor by year’s end.” I was being fired from that lofty position! What a shock! What was I going to do?
I can’t remember being more upset about anything, ever. I had no family there. Not many friends. This was my whole life. Arrowsmith swore me to secrecy, and I unwisely agreed, keeping it bottled up. I complained to my doctor about chest pains.
Finally, over Thanksgiving dinner with strangers, I passionately unburdened myself, probably ruining this great meal for all of them. I started going to church (where, fortunately, I met my future wife.)
Because I couldn’t get overtime, I had built up a lot of compensatory time off, and I took it on a trip to visit family in California. Nursing my wounds, I was awaiting a call from my friend Jack Smyth, who looked over the January schedule for me.
“They’ve assigned you to the Hill,” he told me. Meaning Congress. Really? The whole bureau had a shakeup, and Arrowsmith himself retired.
The first week I got back, I sat in the front row across from Jimmy Carter’s inauguration as president. I covered confirmation hearings, rushed around visiting famous people. The place was alive with interesting young people. And I got bylines. Then I was assigned to Treasury, which launched my business writing career.
Why didn’t I agreed to leave that position earlier? Why did I wait for other people to make decisions for me?
No more.
