A new beginning

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Man, what a week. The editorial department took over the third floor of our building at 708 N. Center St., essentially doubling the size of the operation. I wish I’d had a video camera to record the efforts of we weak and spindly editors moving massive steel desks up a stairway with a 90-degree turn in it. Needless to say, we couldn’t have accomplished our task without the Herculean encouragement and motivational curiosity of our sales and operations staffs.

I should say in print that I developed new respect for our arts editor Peter Thompson. Man, what I wouldn’t give for a little youthful exuberance. And despite our carrying the various loads, you’ll be pleased to know no one on the editorial staff suffered hernias, broken bones or superficial skin traumas that required a trip to the emergency room.

In the move, I got an unbelievable office. It’s got all the size and ostentatiousness of a Fortune 100 CEO’s office. The windows are too high for me to stare dreamily out when I’m supposed to be working, but I do have room for a small dance floor and plenty of wall space to hang all the ephemera I’ve collected over the years.

So what does all this opulence mean to you? How will this improve the overall quality of the newspaper and give you new reasons to pick us up? I haven’t figured that out yet—although I can imagine our sales and business crew downstairs will be able to function much more efficiently when they’re not all boxed into to tiny work areas. There’s even room for expansion.

So, anyway, I’d have to say we’re 75 percent moved—some of the staff more than others. One of the cool things about a move like this is it allows people to break old bad habits and develop new good ones. For example, it should be easier to keep my office less cluttered when I’ve thrown out all the old notes and documents from stories I did five years ago.