Throughout my young adulthood, I’ve held a few different jobs. I’ve been a shoe salesman, little league umpire and a grounds worker at a golf course. Surprisingly, dealing with ridiculous customers, getting screamed at by overzealous parents and waking up at 4 a.m. to mow lawns (respectively) didn’t do a whole lot for me. For a long time, that was the way my employment went: I would hate going and couldn’t wait to be done working. Finally, I found sanctuary at the North Wind. As sports editor, all my previous problems were solved. The ridiculous customers were the problem of the business staff, I became the fan heckling the officials and could tell my staff reporters to wake up at ridiculous hours to get stories and interviews.

But even more than that, my job as sports editor was something I could finally look forward to every week. Spending 14 hours in the North Wind office every Wednesday was a pleasure unlike anything I’ve known in a previous job.

My favorite part of working at the North Wind was the degree of freedom and creativity the job afforded me. Of course I had to work within general guidelines, such as “get a paper out every week” and “spell things correctly,” but these usually posed few problems.

Everything from headlines to photo selection was up to me, and I enjoyed the fact that the job had very little repetition from week to week.

Another thing I loved about being sports editor was the chance to form personal relationships with many figures within the athletic department. Every single encounter I had with a coach or athlete, whether at the varsity or club level, was enjoyable, painless and useful. The university has done a fantastic job with all of the sports at NMU, and it was a great experience to deal with everyone involved.

I have been an avid fan of Wildcat hockey since I arrived at Northern as a lowly freshman, and this job gave me the chance to experience the team’s season on a whole new level. I’ll remember a lot of my experiences with the team for a long time, from my first post-game interview with head coach Walt Kyle to sitting in the press box at Joe Louis Arena cheering for the team in the CCHA playoffs. This was a great season to end my college career on, and I hope the team will have even more success next year.

I very much doubt that my time at the North Wind would have been as much fun without a fantastic staff surrounding me in the office. Everyone was easy to work with, and we shared a sense of humor that allowed us to make jokes that would likely have gotten us arrested in any other workplace. Granted, if everyone focused on whatever task was at hand, the newspaper could probably have been completed about five hours earlier than usual, but to me, that was part of the fun of the job.

I wish everyone luck in their continued endeavors, whether they are in journalism, poetry, advertising, photography or garbage collection.

Thank you, NMU for the good times and the bad times. As I go forth into the ‘real world’ without an encouraging job prospect, I am sure that my experiences here will remain with me.