In the newsroom

It's weird being in an office knowing that you're probably the least qualified among them all. To steal a phrase from Chris, I'm among the media elite! Liberal media elite, he'd probably add. It's really pretty intimidating, and invigorating all at the same time. I feel a bit useless today, just because everyone's too busy with inauguration preparation stuff or not busy enough yet to give me something to work on.

I've been trying though! And it's not that I didn't do anything today. I went along with Nikita, one of the metro section reporters, to interview a wholesaler who orders Obama merchandise from China to sell to vendors, who then jack up the price four times to sell to fanatic tourists on the streets! hahaha, it was a really entertaining interview. Then I went to my IT (computer software) training session, ate lunch in the cafeteria, and later chatted with a bunch of the reporters around me. I sit beside a woman named April, who I thought hated me yesterday, but then today she asked me to get coffee with her! So we're going at 5 p.m. That was sweet. I also stopped in to say hi to Dana Priest, who asked me in the spring when she was in Eau Claire to visit her once I got here. I didn't see that she had someone in her office, though, but she told me to come back in a little bit.

Also, did one of you post to my last entry? There was an anonymous poster who asked me to call them, but I don't know who to call!

OK, back to yesterday, my first day. So Peter Perl? The man who I'd been playing phone tag with and who had lost my e-mails? Not such a bad guy after all. He was actually really nice. After talking to Nick, last year's Devory fellow, and from my own experiences, I expected Perl to be a real flake and that he wouldn't give me much time.

I was terrified from the time I woke up yesterday at 6 a.m. until I got there at 9 a.m., and then until someone showed up to get me from the Post lobby. During breakfast when my "host dad" Craig was questioning his son Sam's outfit (it was also his first day, but he has an internship with the Spanish embassy), he told him that he should be overdressed on the first day, just in case. I was like "Oh shit, am I not dressed up enough?" I had my hair up, with grey dress pants, a black shirt and a black and white tweed blazer with black boots (Just like I promised, Dot! The boots were my sister's Christmas present). But I knew that changing would just ruin my hair that I spent a half-hour on (something I never, ever do normally). So I ran out the door with Craig, and I was so spacey that I would have missed my metro stop had he not been there to remind me. Then as I was leaving the station, the gate wouldn't read my metro farecard, because it had demagnetized! Seriously? The station manager told me to go to Metro Center later that day to replace it, and then finally, I made it to the Post. But then, security wouldn't let me through because they said Peter and the people I was supposed to meet weren't there yet, if they would even be there at all that day. Seriously? But I sat in the lobby with another new girl who was really nice. She's a recent Northwestern University grad who had been signed on to help the newsroom merge with washingtonpost.com (I might get to help them for a day!).

Something Peter told me yesterday at lunch, that I think is worth remembering: Don't bleed before you're cut. Which means that you shouldn't act as if you're cut and bleeding before you even have a cut. Don't worry before you need to. We were talking about something entirely unrelated, but I feel like it really applies to how I had been feeling in preparation for these three weeks. For some reason, I had all of these images of being way in over my head. And maybe I am, but I'm not too concerned anymore. But it hasn't been bad, not bad at all! I have my own door pass with a photo ID, a nameplate, my own desk and computer login. The people are wonderful -- I'm sitting in a cubicle next to David Nakamura and behind Jackie Spinner, who's writing a second book about reporting in Iraq. Jackie has been so nice to me, and offered to have dinner with me and "tell me everything she knows," from her last 13+ years of working for the Post.

Anyway, so Peter took me out for lunch at the Post Pub (a block over from the Post, but it's not affiliated), because their managing editor Phil Bennett had just resigned and because Peter handles all personnel issues as the assistant managing editor, he said we should eat out of the building so we could chat without being bombarded with questions from other Post people. I was trying so hard to sound intelligent and ask a lot of questions, especially on our grand tour of the newsroom. At one point he told me I had asked a good question, but I don't even remember what the question was because I was so excited to hear I had done something right! Then we were going downstairs to get my security pass and I asked him if I'd need an ID. He told me that I'll be a great reporter because I can think and plan ahead. Thanks, Mom! I'm finally starting to learn that from you after all these years. He also told me I thought I had a "personable" manner that would serve me well as a journalist, and then someone complimented my blazer!

But of course, I made an ass of myself at least once, mainly when Bob McCartney, the Metro news editor, introduced himself and asked who my editor would be for the next three weeks. I told him it was Bob. "Bob? Um... that's me." Really, I meant Bill (Miller), but I've been trying to learn so many new names the past two days that I got them confused. Smooth, Janie. Then Bob said, "I knew Ann (Devroy). I was her editor and she was the best reporter I've ever met." Real smooth. Ann probably would never have confused the two.

Yesterday I did my first interview; I called a woman from Tennessee who's trying to sell orders of custom-labeled bottled water with Obama's face on them to his galas and balls. Her big dream is for Obama to drink her water! It's really kind of silly, but sweet and sad all at the same time. But if I'm lucky, part of what I wrote based on the interview will make it into Nikita's vendor story. Yesterday and today have been pretty slow, just because I'm trying to get everything set up here. Tomorrow is when I fight to find something to do. I talked to the head of the Metro section (Bill-- I got his name right!) and we're going to catch up in the morning to find something for me to work on, and then he said they'll probably need help with inauguration stuff on Thursday.