Associate Editor
by Mike—Age 24—Cleveland, OH
I have a job as an associate editor at a magazine that you don’t read. I’m not offended; I don’t read it either.
I don’t associate with other editors, as my title would lead some to believe. No, I’m quite lonesome in my little cube, up to my ears in stories about this month’s featured business leader. I associate only with my stories, which are often bland.
I spend my mornings sipping tepid coffee and working with the words of men and women charged with leading other men and women. They surprise me with their ingenuity one moment and with their hypocrisy the next (a gentleman I interviewed today told me he treats everyone equally, even if they are just a factory worker.)
At precisely 11:59 I stand up, stretch and grab my lunch from the fridge in the lunchroom. This is the only time I associate with other editors and we talk about Hugh Grant and professional wrestling.
A little after one I go back to my desk and respond to e-mails.
Sometime between two and three in the afternoon I like to sneak a copy of whatever book I’m reading into my pocket and use the restroom (today I read a Steve Almond story called “Skull.” Like most of Almond’s work it was touching, hilarious and erotically charged.). I always check to make sure the restroom is empty because I prefer the handicap stall—it’s far roomier and always cleaner.
Between three and four I write my half of a healthy e-mail exchange to an old college friend. She’s miserable and lonely and wanting so much more. She’s an assistant director at a university. But she doesn’t assist her director any more than I associate with other editors. We commiserate on what we were going to be.
I pack it in about a quarter to five, though I’m in the office until almost six. I merely open up things that need to be edited and read them. I look for myself in the stories to see what it is I do. I see quotes lined with transitions I typed, but no fingerprints.
When roughly half of the people in the office have left, I turn off my computer monitor, pour out my half-empty Cleveland Cavaliers coffee mug and go to my car. It’s not depressing. Or enlightening. It’s just a day.
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