Day 1 at the Chicago Tribune
If there’s one way to describe my first day at the Chicago Tribune, it’d be imposter syndrome.
I walked up to the daunting gate outside the Freedom Center in River West nervous beyond belief, and I was only picking up my equipment from the tech team ahead of my first day. There was zero pressure, but I had practiced saying “Hi, I’m a new hire here to pick up my equipment” ahead of interacting with the intercom outside the gate at least 20 times on the commute there. It had been a dream of mine to work at the Chicago Tribune since I got into journalism and had the idea of moving to Chicago. I didn’t think I’d be there at this point in my career, nor did I think a job like this would ever come up.
Weeks later, it was time to log on for my first day. Working as a content editor with the audience team, my job is entirely remote, which makes it convenient to work the weekend hours that many people dislike. With remote work, however, comes technical difficulties.
Between Wifi connection issues that resulted in location changes and the inability to connect to the company VPN without contacting the help desks/remote support, I can safely say that everyone I met and trained with remotely that day was nothing but calm, kind and patient as I got all of these difficulties hashed out. My training sessions were one on one, giving me ample opportunity to ask questions about my responsibilities and workflow at the Tribune in general. When those short sessions were complete, I was met with written step-by-step guides, with videos in some cases, to refer to anytime. By the end of the day, I was posting wire stories from the Associated Press to our website to circulate across Tribune Publishing markets. Throughout my first weekend, I made posts to Twitter and Facebook and helped craft language for our web, app and email alerts. By my third weekend at the job, I was prepped to work a solo shift on Christmas Eve.
I “walked” into a job I never thought I could achieve while still in undergrad, and I logged off my first day, and first weekend, feeling comfortable and capable to do the work assigned and grow at this publication.
written by
KATE LINDERMAN
Kate is a senior pursuing a B.A. in Journalism. She is currently a content editor for the Chicago Tribune.
