30 years ago yesterday, I started my first full-time job as a journalist. On Monday 24 January 1994 I walked into 54 Park Street, Sydney, nervously signed myself in at the security desk, and headed up to level 6 to begin my role as “product writer” for PC Week, an enterprise computing newspaper.
I’d never worked as a journalist before. I barely knew what an enterprise was. But I was on my way. And astonishingly, give the parlous state of journalism and editing, I’m still doing it.
I was carrying a briefcase (a graduation gift) and wearing a tie which I’d purchased from Roger David the week before. I wouldn’t do either of those now.
I wasn’t a total neophyte writer. I’d had a handful of articles published in The Amstrad User and enjoyed a brief stint writing wine columns for free for my local paper in Armidale. But everything I know about being a journalist and editor I learned on the job, and that started 30 years ago at Computer Publications.
I didn’t get a whole lot done in the first two days. Monday and Tuesday were the big news page send days at PC Week, so I was pinged across to sister title LAN Magazine, given a huge pile of press releases and asked to find out local pricing for every product mentioned in them. Wednesday was the Australia Day public holiday, and hence I didn’t really get to know any of my actual colleagues until Thursday.
I worked in that building for 7 years, and there’s far more involved that can be crammed into one post, even if I leave out the messy stuff about sex in broom closets and people nicknamed “Chookie”. So you can expect some more reminiscences about my writing career past as the year goes on.
Pedant note: yes, I can see it says February on my security pass too. It took a couple of weeks to score that cherished pass.
You had to wait until a designated timeslot to get your photograph taken, at the mysterious level 6A photography area which could only be accessed using a totally separate lift.
Actually, I still have recurring dreams about the Park Street lifts. Don’t know what that’s all about.
Leave a Reply