I have a healthy fear of authority.
This can definitely get in the way when you’re in journalism, so most of the time I just squash it down, and stash it somewhere quick before someone with any authority notices. But every once in a while it will pop up again, especially when we have VIMWVIPs (that translates to Very Important Meetings with Very Important People for those who don’t like to use acronyms to abbreviate ridiculous things no one else could translate either).
These meetings unfortunately, occur pretty regularly at the Daily. Just last Wednesday, the Mustang Daily staff sat down with Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong for a quick (i.e. one-hour) chat on his first year here as president. We covered a ton of topics (hence the hour-long convo) so definitely be looking out for some great factoids from the president in our articles coming up.
But I digress.
Back to the topic of VIMWVIPs (yes, I am going to use the ridiculous acronym several more times). Before the meeting I was freaking out because No. 1 I didn’t know what to wear and No.2 I didn’t really have any questions lined up for him. The first one was solved after 20 minutes of pulling every shirt from my closet and discovering the one in the back that I love but thought I’d lost. The second was a bit more difficult.
I had previously asked all of the section editors to submit a list of topics they were planning on talking about, so Armstrong could actually come prepared with answers and not vague, “I don’t know right now” responses. The bad part was that I asked them to do this on Friday, the start of a three-day weekend, so you can imagine where that got me: a big fat nothing.
So I’m basically going into this meeting blind, with no clue what my staff is going to ask him. They could be planning on discussing student success fees (which they were) or boxers versus briefs (thank God they weren’t).
Luckily, the entirety of the news team assembled in the newsroom with a plan, so I was more or less off the hook when it came to talking. The only time I really had to say anything was in that awkward moment when nobody wants to be the first person to ask a question, and at least I managed to blather my way through that one.
All in all, the meeting actually turned out quite well. We got several awesome story ideas out of it, and its always nice to know what the president is thinking about Cal Poly. I managed to not make a huge fool of myself so I count it as a success, and this means no more meetings for a while, right?
Then our adviser informed me the Cal Poly Administration is going to send people to film us exemplifying Learn By Doing. (Or in acronym speak, SPFUELBD).
I think I’m going to hide in my office.