At 1 a.m. my phone is still ringing—things to double-check, photos to re-edit. I’ve learned that this job is not one you leave when you walk out of the office. Always keep your phone on and always be prepared to answer calls. 

Walking home from the gym, sitting in class, while I sleep. I should always be expecting a call. And not just from my photographers or other editors. All day I think about photographing and editing, and then I go to work for a five-hour shift at night. Up the next day for class at 9 a.m. and ready to go again.

On days when big protests happen or important people come to the Bay Area, I have to listen extra hard for my phone–call after call. E-mails pile in, text messages too. I need to coordinate “X” number of photographers to go to “Y” place by “Z” time, while I sit and listen to my professor talk about Incan and Aztec architecture.

And though this may sound hellish, it is a great job. The adrenaline rush when I go on a new assignment is such a high (not that I get to go on assignments very often anymore). It may be a 40+ hour-a-week job, but to be an editor you have to love what you do, and however much I may gripe about being tired and overworked, I wouldn’t trade my job for anything.

So the calls at 1 a.m., or later, are worth it if I know I’ll see a good paper on the stands in just a few short hours. This job may never sleep, but it is important that, once in a while, we do.

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