my sneaking suspicion

I have a sneaking suspicion that all that time Gus* (name changed because this is, after all, a published site) spends away from the office he is NOT covering stories.

Oh, sure, a lot of the time he is. He goes and gets the updates from the sheriff's office and the police department. But I also know that he's pretty chummy with those cops. So I bet a lot of that time is spent visiting. And I know he runs his errands during work hours (although we all do that). Maybe tomorrow I'll go out driving around looking for wild art (random pictures to put in the paper). In between the time I'm writing yet another uranium story, taking pictures of marching band practice, and laying out pages for Wednesday's issue.

So why do I suspect this about Gus, aside from the fact that I stretch my time away from the office too? Because my very first day, he spent the morning driving me around, introducing me to people and showing me important places. Very helpful, considerate, and even job-related. But did we actually cover anything that morning? No. And then, when I got robbed, he spent an afternoon driving me around to look at apartments. Helpful? Yes. Am I grateful? Of course. I guess the bottom line here is that Gus is pretty much his own boss and no one questions it when he is gone for hours at a time.

I don't think anyone questions when anyone is gone for hours at a time, for that matter. Jay (another name change) himself told me that I could take a long lunch once in awhile if I wanted and everyone would just assume I was out on assignment anyway. It's pretty laid back around here. Not that I am complaining. I pretty much have the perfect work environment. If I did have any complaints, I wish it was just a little busier. We have plenty of busy days, but also plenty of slow days in between. Of course, years from now, when I'm working at a bigger paper, hopefully one of the major ones, I'll probably long for the lazy days back in Beeville. Funny how that works.

It sure is a different world down here. I knew that, from my time living in Corpus. But I still had to get reacclimated after living back in civilization for a few years. I realized today that I have now lived here in Beeville for slightly longer than I lived in San Antonio. When September arrives, I will have been here longer than anywhere else I've been in the past year. And by November, I will have been here longer than anywhere else since I left Corpus in July 2008. Wow. I thought that would make me feel trapped, but (even though I definitely don't want to stay here forever) it actually makes me feel less out of control than I usually do. I say "usually," but maybe that's just because I've felt out of control during the past couple of years of bouncing around. Who knows. Anyway, that's all for today.