By: Brittany Hill
Working at The Recorder has been a lovely cocktail of chaos mixed with sheer camaraderie.
Before I joined, I never put emphasis on belonging to a club on campus. Little did I know how much it would assist in learning life lessons — not only in regarding my surroundings, but myself as well.
Just like any endeavor, you cannot expect too much. But even so, I am honored to say that, as Managing Editor, it was everything that I expected and more.
It could have very well been the hazy cognition that was our 2 AM layout nights (excuse me, the 3, 4 and 5 AM layout nights) or the fact that I acutely share the same humor with a couple other editors; working here seemed anything but work.
My Editor-in-Chief, Paige Brown, created an environment that encouraged laughter and light heartedness, even at the most stressful of times. And even after spending way too much time in our office, we still managed to hold an equally professional, honest and strangely silly relationship with each other.
It is what leadership is all about. If you cannot be completely open with your colleagues, then you are being unfair to both yourself and them.
As leaders, we each had to find our own way of disciplining writers that are merely a few years younger, while maintaining a friendly repertoire. But what made this possible was our ability to work together as a team.
If you are in charge of a group of people, you need to be able to communicate openly with your coworkers. If you are not on the same page, nothing will work.
Luckily for The Recorder, Paige and I were able to comfortably critique each other’s ideas and faults. In the same breath, we confidently could acknowledge each other’s contributions and talk an idea out; an idea that would equally be hers as it was mine.
But what it really comes down to is how you handle yourself.
Without confidence and strength, one cannot maintain a position of power while considering people’s feelings. It’s important to realize that, as a member of an organization, you need to know yourself best. Know yourself before someone else tries to.
It is not easy to take the mold of a position if you have not your own spine. This experience really made me realize how confident I am in my own self; simply put, it kept me in check.
I learned to reprimand people for not performing their job in an effective and constructive way. Nevertheless, my go-to is always humor. I realized how comfortable people became when everyone could just laugh a little.
For an entire semester, I surrounded myself with people that would listen to me vent, who could make me laugh hysterically and who made me feel so confident with who I am.
The office became an environment in which my mood, personality and silly humor could manifest itself. Although I may not be the strongest writer or reporter, I helped create an environment in which people could feel comfortable being themselves.
And when you can be yourself, you can do your best. I have shown nothing but my true self this past semester and have encouraged the staff to do the same; as their hard work shows, it pays off.
If nothing else has resonated these past few years, one thing certainly has: if you want to be happy, surround yourself with good people. Stay healthy, stay happy.