Sometimes my job can feel more like a vacation, once I eat my vegetables

Many jobs can be drudgery. You go to work because you have to, not because you want to.

Sure, bright moments happen and hopefully you have people you enjoy working with, and there's the satisfaction of a job well done. But if you could be rich, travel and choose where you want to volunteer or the business you really want to start, you’d probably opt out of that 9-to-5 or 3-to-11 or overnight shift routine.

I want to tell you about the part of my job that feels like being rich and traveling, but before you get to the dessert, you have to read about the vegetables, please.

When you're a reporter, a lot of times the assignments are the “have to” kind – budgets and tax rates, road construction – where you try to explain what is happening but usually the details aren’t all that exciting. You do feel like you've accomplished something if you're able to present the information in a way that helps people, but it's not how you dream about spending your time.

Then there are the follow-up stories when you say to yourself, “If I have to write about this one more time I’m going to throw something!”

One speaker at a journalism conference I attended years ago said follow-up stories are the broccoli of journalism – you don’t like it but it’s good for you and your readers. Don’t get me wrong, I like broccoli but I need it to be smothered with cheese or in a salad like my mom made with bacon, celery, raisins and a dressing that’s on the sweet side.

One part of our job as journalists is to make the broccoli more appealing.

Then there are shootings, fatal crashes and allegations that someone did something wrong and you have to check it out. Thankfully, they’re not part of my usual “beat,” which is real estate, development and business stories.

Often the stories on my beat are interesting, writing about about businesses that are planned or when a new library is proposed. Those topics also can be a little tense, though, when residents are upset about something they don’t want to be built. We have to talk to both sides, trying to walk the tightrope in our story without leaning toward one side or the other. Sometimes you fall, but there’s an editor or colleague with a net to help pull you back up.

Then every once in a while, a plum assignment is presented to you. Sometimes at first, I don’t even realize it. My initial reaction is resistance because it’s another story I wasn’t planning on right now. I already have stories I’m working on and others I need to get to.

But after that tantrum and after finishing a story that was a little stressful, there’s a chance to breathe and look more closely at that plum assignment. A story like that is one of the enjoyable parts of this job, the sweet dressing on the broccoli salad.

My most recent plum assignment was on fall bird watching, or “birding” if you’re more serious about the hobby. I got to go to Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge southeast of Smyrna and look for birds. I felt a little guilty getting paid to do that. And it once again showed how important it is to get back to nature, slow down, look, listen, sniff the air – to balance out your life after hectic moments.

Bombay Hook is a popular place for birders and so a lot of times there are cars passing by where you’ve stopped to take a photo. But when the crackling of the tires on the gravel fades and you’re left alone beside a pond, the chirping and clicking of insects rises in volume along with the quacks of ducks and honks of geese. Butterflies flutter among the tall grass and wildflowers.

You turn and see a tree that looks like it has clumps of snow all over it, but it’s a group of egrets perched and preening in the sun. Then one takes off, with what looks like slow-motion movements of its long wings, rising higher and higher with its long, spindly legs dangling.

An egret glides over a pond at Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge southeast of Smyrna on Sept. 4, 2024.

The sights and sounds are beautiful and relaxing – and thank goodness I wasn’t pestered by one mosquito or horsefly. Cooler autumn weather chases away those pests and makes the wildlife refuge more enjoyable.

Ben Mace

That story was a fun one to research and write, with help from experts on birding who were kind enough to spend time talking with me. And I really did get paid for it.

Now pass the broccoli.

Reach reporter Ben Mace at [email protected].

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This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Sometimes my job can feel more like a vacation, once I eat my vegetables