The Overlook Hotel

Often forgotten among the additional stress, additional work and additional drinking that go hand in hand with smaller, "more-with-less" staffs in a shrinking newsroom are the intangibles. Like the dearth of personality manifested through a lack of photographs.

You don't need a private detective to figure me out. Just look at the pictures and whatnot on my desk. That I'm a father of three who loves The Simpsons and going to baseball games across the country is obvious to any dolt who might happen by. The autographed photograph of Taj Mahal says something about my taste in blues. And the sheet music for Nearer, My God, to Thee, goes to the heart of my irreverance.

But there are a lot of empty desks in newsrooms these days, and on my worse days, it seems like our workplace is somewhat reminiscent of the Overlook Hotel. But instead of empty rooms and countless ghosts, we work in a venue with a whole lotta vacant desks -- and countless ghosts.

Those desks were occupied not long ago by people who had lives outside the newsroom. And those lives were reflected on the pictures and children's artwork that were plastered in their cubicles. I miss walking by Liz Fitzsimons' desk and seeing pictures of her beloved Natalie growing year by year. Or handpainted works of something or other from Miranda Barfield to her father, Chet, that underscored a daughter's undying love for her father. Or the smiling photos of Alex Roth shortly after he met a wonderful woman who would beccome his wife. Or the endless supply of almonds on Ray Kipp's desk, in an office surrounded by whimsical, um, art. Everyone has their little space, and how each person decorated that space, from Terry Rodgers to Cheryl Clark to Mark Sauer and Ruth McKinnie Braun, told you something about them.

I really miss that.