“Lean on me, when you’re not strong...”
So sang Bill Withers in what some (like me) call a classic song and others (like my wife) call, ‘overrated! It’s too catchy. Turn it off! I’m not listening! LALALALA!”
Okay, maybe she doesn’t hate it that much... but it’s not her favorite. As much as I love the song, I struggle to actually practice its message, and I think I came by it naturally.
I missed a few events last week including homecoming (Thanks to Wyndi and Danielle Meador for pitching in!). This is because my dad had to have a surgery and I wanted to be available to help while he was in recuperation.
That mainly meant Wyndi and I put together a meal plan that would work following the operation and driving to pick up anything my parents need. Dad accepted the help for what felt like a few hours then I had to insist on doing things he was fine ‘to do by himself.’
It all sounded familiar because I’ve sounded just like my dad around this office when workers or my wife offered to take a task from me when I fell behind. That has led to moments where we are several hours behind partially because my pride (or being over-nice) prevents me from accepting help when I’m in need.
It was only when I was confronted about it that I realized that I not only delayed others by trying not to inconvenience them, but the refusal of help appeared like I didn’t trust them to do the task. It was an insult I didn’t mean so sometimes you can cause more harm by being nice.
We finished a 52-page Erath County guide/ magazine that will be inserted in the Oct. 9 edition before building a 28-page paper last week so I really appreciate all the assistance I got from Wyndi and others while I was out.
Wyndi and I have been in this business for about 20 years each and work most nights so our workloads are often heavy. However, we both feel it is worth it to provide regular coverage of meetings like Dublin and Stephenville City Council, School Board, EDC, Commissioners Court as well as new business stories, sport events, feature stories, hard news and others.
If you’re one of our regular readers, you know that we cover all this and we strive for unbiased honesty and professionalism as we do so. We’ve had to report on troubling news involving people we knew and present viewpoints that don’t always align with our own, but this paper is meant to reflect Dublin and the Erath County area, not us. Another failure of mine is usually in self-promotion, but it’s not only me, but Wyndi, Cindy, Deborah and Jerry (our delivery team) and those that take time to give us information and who take time to make sure we are answering the community’s questions. We work long hours and the fruit of those efforts is only $37/year for a print subscription in county and only $30 for digital subscribers.
If you’re not one of our 10,000 followers on Facebook, you might not know we share large picture galleries of games and events as well as calendars, stories and more. Wyndi is the social media guru for our office and she does a great job pushing all that out to the public.
It’s a lot of work, but we appreciate getting to serve all of you and we get by with a little help from our friends. (I listen to too much music...)
— Paul Gaudette is the Managing Editor of The Dublin Citizen and yes, he does get by with a little help from his community. He can be reached via email at publisher@dublincitizen.com