Random Newsroom Outbursts, Vol. 1

One of the things I love about my new job is working in an environment where you are constantly interacting with others.

No, there's never a dull moment in the newsroom.

Because a career in journalism requires a certain amount of – how shall I put it? – loquaciousness, it is only natural that newsroom conversation be thoroughly saturated with sarcasm, hilarity and the delightfully absurd.

Here are just a few tidbits from my growing Post-it note collection of newsroom absurdities.

• On my very first day, someone sang Poison's greatest ballad. "Eeeevry roooose has it's thooooorn." But why? The world may never know, but every cowboy has his sad, sad song.

• "Oh yeah, that sounds like an interesting story...NOT."


• The Web editor's ringtone is the theme song to "The Golden Girls."


• "Steve, wanna go to the strip club? Go ahead!"


• (singing) "The Looooooooove Boooooooat!"


• I passed an isolated desk in the Past Times section (not in the newsroom and therefore much more dull) and heard a person snoring behind his computer.

• "Ugh, I am so behind the times. Do you know how many recreational drugs I need to be trying?"

• "Who's the floozy on the train?!"

• In my first week, I was drafted to judge a Play-Doh sculpture contest between the Features Editor and one of the primary photographers. They were making tigers. I chose the editor's because his had stripes.

• "Oh, so what was your Boy Scout troop called? The shimmering dragonflies?"

Some of these don't even make sense to me, I'll admit.

If you're worried that my coworkers' obvious mental complications might rub off on me, be comforted in knowing that I am extremely resilient when it comes to avoiding unwanted influences. It's become hard in the past weeks, what with the high concentration of crazy and all. But you know how it goes …

… all in a day's work.