Rules to live by

This is one of the best lists I've seen so far about how to conduct yourself in the workplace. Certainly there's a niche here, as it's specific to working in sports, and working in the press box, but it could easily be applied to the corporate world, working in the government, just about anywhere.

Also consider, the business of professional sports is where I learned the vast majority of what I know about how to work. That could be good or bad. There's certainly the fact that we got paid squat -- lots of free tickets to events you couldn't go to anyway because you were working them, and lots of free giveaway hats & tshirts you wouldn't wear anyway because they were ugly (not that it stopped anyone, I just spotted a Caps giveaway hat while hiking in the woods about 3 hours from DC last month) -- and that we had no concept of a 40-hour work week, but we loved what we did, and we got to go watch a game just about every night.

There was a list of "House Rules" that would get circulated by the team president as a gentle reminder, every season usually the afternoon of the first preseason game. All the good ones were on there... be on time, be presentable, we don't speak ill of our team, etc (still trying to dig up an old copy).

This one was tweeted by a good friend who was the de facto for hockey PR guys. The fact that he thinks these apply, should essentially make them gospel (not that I needed any convincing):

For Ron Drogo.

THE YOUNG REPORTER’S GUIDE TO PRESS BOX DECORUM AND ETIQUETTE

1. No cheering.

2. Let me repeat that, because it’s pretty important: Cheering in a press box is the moral equivalent of shitting on the floor beside a delicious Chinese buffet that’s hosting a children’s birthday party and then going outside and killing a kindly, mystical hobo and using his stiffened corpse to derail a speeding locomotive, spilling a tanker filled with toxic chemicals into the world’s last pristine river and killing all the fish, including the aged and orphans among them.

3. You probably shouldn’t cheer.

4. The regular beat writers will have regular seats. Home beat writers will have the best seats. Visitors will have seats that are somewhat less good but still decent. At most professional-level events, all seats will be assigned. Sit in your assigned seat. You will need to have a pretty terrible seat—for instance, one in the parking lot—to feel justified in complaining about it.

5. A note on attire: No team paraphernalia**, even if the team is not playing, even if the team doesn’t play the same sport.

6. Instead, dress the way you might dress for a meal with a woman (or a man) at a good but not ridiculously high-end restaurant. Unless you’re covering baseball, in which case you can show up looking like Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski.***

7. If the team provides free food, eat it (unless you’re trying to avoid heart disease and stroke). That wet hot dog won’t change the score or your reporting of it.

8. If the team charges for its food, pay for it, collect a receipt, and invoice your employer for it.

9. In the whimsical, clockless case of baseball, never say something like, “Jeez, Larry, this game’s really zipping along!” That quick little game will instantly turn into a five-hour, thirteen-inning death march and everyone will hate you, especially Larry. Larry will get all up in your shit.

10. If a fellow reporter goes to the bathroom and misses a play or needs to fill in a few squares in his playbook, it’s good form to help him out. If a fellow reporter asks you for information that you’ve worked hard to acquire, tell him to go to hell.

11. Watch the fucking game.****

12. If you’re not sure about how to act, ask. Once, however long ago, we were all in a press box for the first time. We know you don’t know what you’re doing, because we didn’t know, either. Don’t bluff; don’t act like you’ve been there; don’t put on airs you haven’t earned. Just be cool. Smile. Be polite. Watch a lot. Listen a lot. Don’t talk very much. You’ll figure it out.

13. Don’t forget to have fun.

14. Even after you’ve spent whole entire years of your life in press boxes, try not to fall out of love with the game that you’re covering.

15. Try to remember how it felt that first time for the rest of the time.

*Actually of Columbus, Ohio.

**This applies especially to New York Yankees caps, most especially to New York Yankees caps that aren’t dark blue.

***No pop culture metaphors. They’re hacky bullshit.

****This might seem like an obvious point, but it’s not. In press boxes across North America, I’ve watched sportswriters surf the Web, email, text, download music, listen to music, play games, watch movies, talk on the phone, talk to each other, make origami frogs and cranes, design and build a perpetual motion machine, sleep, doze, nap, catch forty winks, cut their fingernails, not cut their fingernails for years, and eat a whiffy homemade sandwich filled with what I’m pretty sure was cat food. Every now and then, you should remember that there’s a game going on, in front of you, and you need to be watching it, closely, at a level that’s beyond the watching undertaken by mere mortals. That’s why you have your name on a seat in the press box, and they don’t.*****

*****When I was a young beat writer, I tried to learn by watching guys I admired. He doesn’t know it, but I watched Buster Olney a lot. He was covering the New York Yankees then, for The New York Times. That guy was born for the beat. He did everything perfectly. In the locker room, he never stood with the crowd of lesser reporters, the guys who thought by sticking together, they wouldn’t miss the big story. (Even if it meant they missed a hundred little ones instead.) Buster was always off talking to a different player about something meaningful. He earned the respect of the players by asking good questions, by being friendly but never fawning, and by knowing his stuff. He knew his stuff because he watched the game. Nobody watched the game like Buster. He kept a meticulous playbook, which he would carefully monitor for patterns, signs, and the smallest tells. He kept pitching charts. He looked for those little details that might form the heart of a great narrative three months down the road. He planned. He reported as though he were covering city hall. He was unassuming. He was nice. He was very, very good at his job, but he didn’t make a show of it. He didn’t have to. Everybody just knew that sooner or later, they were going to pick up the Times, and Buster was going to have them stone-cold beat.

16. Be like Buster Olney, Chris LaMacchia. Beat them by being better than them. If you do that—if you’re a pro’s pro—that will be the one fact you’ll never have to report. You’ll never have to write the words, Chris LaMacchia has learned…

Because we’ll already know: It had to be you.

Kim seems to think that Harry needs to pay particular attention to #12:

If you’re not sure about how to act, ask. Once, however long ago, we were all in a press box for the first time. We know you don’t know what you’re doing, because we didn’t know, either. Don’t bluff; don’t act like you’ve been there; don’t put on airs you haven’t earned. Just be cool. Smile. Be polite. Watch a lot. Listen a lot. Don’t talk very much. You’ll figure it out.

He's getting there. He asks a lot about how to do things, sometimes even to a fault, but there are indeed lots of "I meant to do that" and "I was going to say that." THese are the ones that get on my nerves. It doesn't matter how many times I tell him it's okay to be wrong, and that it actually sounds worse to keep "putting on airs" about what you do & don't know... I'm guessing right now, maybe it doesn't.

Groundhog Day

My kids live on yogurt. hat's pretty much it.
Inspired by "Eat this, not that for kids" we had a special dinner tonight: "Groundhogs in blankets" (low fat mini hot dogs wrapped in reduced calorie crescent rolls) and little tater tots hiding in (spinach) leaves and whole carrots, because they are groundhog food. The only thing left on Harry's plate was the tater tots. Ainsley did not clear her plate, but she did eat most of everything. Including the carrot! They talked about their food and they were excited about it. It went so well that I was thinking tomorrow's theme would be "Groundhog Day - the movie!"