Editing for farmers: A love story

For the past few months, as many of you know, I've been freelance editing with a national agriculture magazine. It's been fun, but also an interesting change of pace from the newspaper world I'm used to.

At first, I wasn't sure how well I would adjust. While there's usually enough work to keep me pretty busy, the magazine office seems ... slower. More relaxed. There are deadline pressures, but it's nothing like the frantic last-minute drive I experienced in the newsroom, where there was almost always breaking news to cover and a nightly deadline looming over my head. The magazine office is organized; the newsroom was organized chaos. You get the picture.

So I was a little worried at first that I would get bored or annoyed working in a quieter space at a quieter pace. However, I soon found that there were other things to enjoy about the magazine's culture, and while I loved the newsroom, I LOVE what I'm doing now.

It took me a while to figure it out, but I've finally come up with the reasons why I love my job so much: 

1. The people. And I'm not just talking about the people I work with, though they're all nice, down-to-earth people who place a high value on family and tradition. I love the contributing writers and the readers, too. These people are farmers, and a far cry from the stereotypical manure-shoveling, hayseed-chewing country bumpkin a lot of people associate with the word. They are proud, no-frills businessmen and women, and savvy ones, too. After dealing with newspaper readers for several years (i.e. the general public), serving such a readership is pretty darn refreshing to me.
2. The topics. As an editor, it's pretty easy to get burned out on reading the same old stuff day after day. But the stories I edit are almost always interesting to me on some level. I get a nice variety of science, marketing, technology, mechanics, economics, politics and plain-old-family-feel-good stuff. I'm always learning something new, and I'm guessing our readers are, too. And best of all, I haven't had to edit a single story about some meth head throwing a baby off a bridge. (Is it really any wonder I have no faith in society?)
3. I'm nationwide. People across the country are reading the stories I've edited. Readers nationwide are "seeing" my work. And I get formal credit for it, to boot. Take that, local news.

When I first started into journalism, I remember thinking how cool it would be if I someday reported for some big, important magazine like National Geographic. Well, the work I do now isn't as flashy as that, but I think it's probably more important. Editing for an ag magazine might not sound that exciting, but it's still pretty cool to me.

Changes in the weather

I am writing this during a blizzard. But not just any blizzard; a Missouri blizzard. For those of you who have never experienced snow in Missouri, it's quite a trip. It typically goes something like this:

1. A forecast is given for snow. People get nervous.

2. If the forecast is calling for more than 2 inches of snow, people get really nervous.

3. Those nervous people go to the grocery stores (gotta get bread and milk) and the post office. The forecast "on the street" has suddenly changed to 8 inches of snow with -20 degree wind chills and possible ice.

4. It snows. We get half an inch of accumulation.

Now, this is the typical scenario. What's going on outside right now is a different story. We are actually having a legitimate blizzard, although I really don't think it's going to be as bad as the forecast. We're supposed to get 18-24 inches of snow. I think it will be more like a foot.

But boy, has this weather caused some excitement down here. Grocery stores were practically ransacked. Businesses, schools, even garbage pickups and doctors offices, have shut down. Heck, I've hardly seen a snowplow go by my house. People are freaked out.

That's the thing I've noticed the most since I've moved here. People in different regions handle the weather so much differently. Out here, snow is a monumental event. They don't get that much of it, so they aren't prepared for it. Where I come from in Pennsylvania, everyone is used to snow. And they should be. It snows about 7 months out of the year there. Yes, they complain about the snow, but it's just normal, everyday griping.

Summers are much different. Missourians gripe about the summer heat the way Pennsylvanians gripe about snow. In Missouri, it's not unusual to have weeks of the highs inching up to 100 and the lows a "balmy" 90 degrees. Hence, my lack of sympathy when I hear people in Pennsylvania complain about having a weekend or two of 90-degree heat. If Pennsylvanians had to deal with Missouri heat for a week, they'd all think the world was ending.

But regardless of whether it's snow or heat, I've found that since I've moved I have very little patience for people who complain about the weather. Personally, I like how the weather changes, from day to day and region to region, and I enjoy getting a taste of the unexpected. Moreover, what's the point in complaining? Is the weather really making your life that miserable? If it is, then perhaps you should move.

The weather is one of those things in life that we just can't change. Why complain about it? I'd much rather spend my energy on things I can actually do something about.