Is your job

adventurous and sometimes risky, or safe and secure?

Is your workplace pleasant?

What is the starting salary for your position? These are

just three of the dozen or so questions I answered for 20

gazillion students attending Flat Rock Middle School's

Career Day Friday.

Seated between the mayor of

Tyrone and a software salesman, Citizen colleague Mike

Boylan and I fielded questions and passed out clicky pens

and rulers for about two hours.

Looking into those young,

earnest faces, I couldn't lie. "My job is very

adventurous!" I replied. Yes, attending school board

meetings can be thrilling and mentally stimulating. Just

try deciphering all those acronyms that school district

folks fling around - QCC, REST, IT'S, SOL, GEMA...

they've got a manila file full.

Is my job risky? Extremely.

There's the risk of nodding off in a marathon meeting,

the chance of getting flattened walking down the corridor

of a county high school after the bell has rung and the

daily death-defying feat of crossing Glynn Street against

traffic into the newspaper's parking lot.

Covering education and

writing features for a community newspaper is certainly

not as glamorous and cutting-edge as CNN's Christine

Amanpour's world beat, but you can't top it for sheer

predictability. If it's August, it's time for the bus

routes and back to school advice, the Pilgrims land every

November, the top speller surfaces in February and soon

after, kids and teachers are counting the days to the end

of school and I have the honor of typing up the high

school graduation lists.

Sports dude Boylan spends

his time dodging balls - fall footballs and soccer

balls, winter basketballs and spring baseballs. So how is

the workplace? If my work space shrinks anymore, I'll

have to type standing up. Between Knickknack Queen and

Amazing Spreader, I have a teeny tiny corner, with a

teeny tiny desk and a teen tiny chair that I squeeze into

through a teeny tiny space. Coffee cups, jars of coffee,

assorted agendas and newspapers seep into my teeny tiny

cubby, courtesy of the Amazing Spreader.

At least twice a day, I

accidentally roll Knickknack Queen's brass bowling bowl

off its pedestal and ruffle the feather pen on purpose. I

open the window, they close it. So is my workplace

pleasant? "It's great!" I tell the kids.

Especially the aroma of pork rinds and tuna emanating

from the Amazing Spreader's desk larder.

They scribble a

"yes" onto their printed forms and move onto

the big question. What is the starting salary for a

reporter/photographer. I could fib and tell them I make

big bucks, or joke and say "I'd be a rich woman if I

lived in a third-world country."

But instead I tell them the

modest range I saw in Parade Magazine for what people

make. The featured reporter lived in Oregon and made a

livable wage. "That much?" the students look at

me in awe. It's obvious they have never worked.

Mike notes that the perks

even out the difference between our salaries and Bill

Gates' annual take. Things like circus tickets and passes

to Fisharama, an occasional free meal or a nice thank you

gift for a job well done. The stuff that makes life

great.

I tell the girls that

journalism is a wonderful field for women. Michael tells

the boys that covering sports is awesome. By the end of

the morning, we even believe it ourselves.

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