Sometime the summer before last, the Reader team gathered in person for an all-staff event organized to review our guiding policies and mission statement, take staff photos, and welcome new team members. Among longtime staffers who hadn’t seen each other since the start of the pandemic, there was a palpable mix of awkward excitement about reconnecting face-to-face, along with the equally awkward giddiness of finally meeting new colleagues we’d only known through their work or brief Zoom appearances.
It was a warm, lovely day, and I was grateful for the chance to connect one-on-one with the editorial team for the first time as a new managing editor. Yet, admittedly, what stayed with me most—and became a recurring topic in side conversations—was my trip to the event, spent in the backseat of a rideshare driven by a candidate for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District commissioner.
“You’re just the person I wanted to see!” they exclaimed after our polite introductions revealed who we were to each other. The feeling was mutual. I’d always wanted to meet a political candidate in a casual setting, hoping it might reveal a less media-attentive side of their personality.
Continue reading the People Issue 2024 introduction here >>