Between a recession and a depression

Last Monday, the wife and I rode together to the University of California Medical Center. Ever since, I've been waiting for a phone call telling me the results of the wife's biopsy. When my cell phone rang this morning as I rode to work on the No. 82 bus, I had several seconds to worry as I fished the phone out of my pants pocket.

When I opened the phone I was relieved to see it wasn't the wife or UCDMC. Caller-ID showed the generic Sacramento Bee number. OK, I thought to myself, the office is calling.

I get calls in the morning from the letters editor when something goes wrong with the database I created for tracking letters. For 17 years, I was the editor responsible for selecting and packaging letters for the daily newspaper. During that time, I created a number of time-saving Web-based applications. This is a self-taught skill set well beyond the current letters editor.

But it wasn't the letters editor on the phone or my immediate supervisor, David Holwerk, the editor of the editorial and opinion pages. Instead, it was Joyce Terhaar, the managing editor of the newspaper. I had no idea why I would be getting a call from Terhaar. Had something happened to Holwerk? My confusion only grew when she asked if I had seen the announcement that The Bee's publisher had released that morning.

"No," I said, not appreciating how this could possibly have anything to do with me.

Terhaar explained that the publisher had announced that there would be a 10-percent reduction in the work force through layoffs.

I started at The Bee in 1980 as a night shift part-time copy editor while still working full time days as the news editor for the Lodi News-Sentinel. I worked my way into a full-time job at The Bee and then earned a job as an assistant city editor. Not long after that, I moved to the Capitol bureau, where I did similar work as the bureau news editor. As a bonus I got to work for McClatchy Newspapers at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco that saw the Mondale-Ferraro ticket crowned in July 1984. In 1987, I moved back to 21st and Q to take the job as production editor for the editorial page, which included responsibilities for letters. At the time, there were three production editors. A staff reorganization reduced that to two editors a few years ago and then another reorganization following buyouts left just me as the lone production editor responsible for all of the editorial and Op-Ed pages and the weekend Forum section.

The job is a bitch, but as the last surviving editor responsible for the production of that many pages, I figured I was buying myself some job security.

"Your position is on the list of layoffs," Terhaar told me over the phone.

That didn't register at first.

"There's a meeting today at 10:30 that you need to attend," Terhaar said. "People there will explain what is happening."

Still unclear on what was happening, I asked, "Are you saying I'm being laid off?"

"I can't tell you that," Terhaar said. "You have to go to that meeting."

In 1980, Ronald Reagan, while running for president, would quip: "A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours." Of course, his punch line was, "And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his."

I must admit I see the difference between a recession and a depression, but I doubt that even George W. Bush losing his job will help this time.