Being in the news business, you don’t really know what to expect day to day.
What you don’t expect, however, is suddenly not having access to your office and having to relocate. Our staff has been dealing with that the past couple of weeks after a broken water pipe flooded our office.
I got the call on a Saturday morning. One of the company vice presidents met me there, and we knew right away it would be some time before we could work there again. I made a round of calls to our staff and told them to expect to work out of the Journal building in Albuquerque for awhile.
They all took the news in stride. Maybe COVID had given them a practiced hand in these types of situations, maybe not. But they all adapted without missing a beat. Monday morning — less than 12 hours after I suddenly lost my beloved dog, as I wrote about last week — the team was all hands on deck to transition to our temporary work setup. On top of it all, each one was very understanding about my need to leave early, after setup was complete, in order to handle arrangements for Stark.
I would be remiss not to also mention the outstanding efforts of the IT department. They managed to not only find us all work stations but also get our computers and servers out of the Observer office and moved to the Journal building. They have been very patient with us as we, almost daily, find something we need addressed. We wouldn’t have been able to get the last few editions out without them.
Despite being set up in Albuquerque, our staff has been devoted to making sure there has been no slack in the coverage of events in and around Rio Rancho. It’s just taken some more preplanning in order to minimize how many times we’re crossing the river daily.
Despite all the obstacles we’ve faced in regards to workspaces over the past few weeks, our product has thrived, not just survived. I am grateful to the staff for not missing a beat during all of this, and for forgiving those moments where my grief has taken over.
No matter how long it takes for us to get back to “normal,” I promise we will make every effort to not only continue our coverage of this community but to improve it. As always, if you have a news tip or story idea, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]. We always love hearing from our community.
