This is tangential to Diva's post, but I wanted to share. We met an extraordinary woman yesterday. -- (edited)
Posted by
David (aka David)
Dec 7 '23, 10:21
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The long story short is that within months of Kim moving to Knoxville, The News-Sentinel bought a building and moved the entire staff there.
Over the years, the attrition in the newspaper industry caused some parts of this *massive* space to go unused.
During the same timeframe, Kim's tremendous skill earned her respect and promotions, ending with her acquisition of the coveted corner office on the first floor.
This happened the year before the pandemic. Once the world ended, it became clear she wasn't ever going back to the office. For more than three years, I've tried to persuade her to go get her stuff.
Recently, Gannett has *finally* found people willing to rent parts of the building. So, Kim HAD to clean out her office yesterday so that the new company could move in. She was trying to hide it, but she was a bundle of emotions.
When we got there, it was eerie, like something out of a horror movie. NOBODY had been in that office for ages. To wit, even though the front desk manager knew Kim was coming, we had to wait 20-30 minutes for her to unlock the door for us.
We're talking about a place that could host thousands of office staff. That first floor was abandoned!
After Kim got done with her stuff, the kindly woman showed us the cart she'd brought so that we could get her belongings to the car easily.
In conversing with her, it became clear that she's basically been the lighthouse keeper for the past four years. This woman has sat alone at the front desk and kept the lights on at a time when nobody was visiting the place. She joked that she'd become the go-fer who knew where everything was. People who were never coming back to the office would call her and say, "I need you to find..." Since there was nobody else, that became her job.
She just kept talking about how lonely she'd been, and I could totally see it. This office was once so vibrant and active. Now, it felt almost ghoulish, like the ghost scenes from The Shining.
The worst part is that the woman recently earned her 40 years pin with the company. Now that there's two new businesses coming to the building, she's not even sure she'll have a job in a few months. Her reward for keeping the lights on in an impossible circumstance is a fear for her job.
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