Change is overrated

"Don't know what ya got til' it's gone."

The glam rock band Cinderella was certainly not the first to say this, but it's the song that's been running through my head since I got up this morning.

Today, one of my colleagues, someone who has been in the proverbial trenches with me for seven years, is leaving.

Come 5 o'clock today, Torence White will leave the office of the Business Journal for the last time.

Tomorrow, I'll come to work, I'll check my e-mails, my voice mails, I'll pound away on my keyboard and try to create something coherent enough that I can pass off to my editor as a column.

It's the same thing I do every day.

But Torence won't be there.

The stories will get written. The last minute calls will have to be made to answer the last minute questions of my editors. The last minute corrections will be done to the galleys before the paper goes out the door.

Life goes on. The deadlines and the routine goes on just the same.

But it won't be the same.

A friend will be gone.

And that is what Torence had become.

In the harsh reality of this business — when your worth is mostly measured by what story you have coming next, versus the masterpiece you already did — your co-workers become your friends.

They keep you sane.

They keep you coming back.

The world of journalism is changing at break-neck speed — much of the change for the worse, I and others would say. But amid those changes, there were some things — at least for seven years — that stayed the same.

Now it all changes.

Again.

The routine will go on.

Same as it ever was.

But different.

Torence, you will be missed!

Thanks maximum volume!

While my colleague at maximum volume was late to the Facebook party, he has been a huge help in my attempts to try this thing that's called blogging.

It is, in a way anathema to journalists, such as myself. It has become a tool by which anyone with a keyboard and half a brain can now claim to be a journalist -- posting random items as news.

It can be insulting, and frustrating to journalists, such as myself, that still have to rely on those pesky things called FACTS, before we put our byline on something.

However, maybe there is something to this. The freedom to write something that is my own -- my own thoughts, opinions, on ... whatever.

And maybe, by putting my own thought, opinions, and whatnot out there, I'll learn what it means to be a true writer.

Not just a journalist, with facts and figures and quotes at her disposal, but a writer, with thoughts, feelings and opinions — to be shared, and perhaps criticized by others.

We'll see. ...

First people have to find me!

But for what it's worth, thanks maximum volume!

Hello, world!