Everybody's a critic

Apparently, some person named Kat Powers - an editor, no less, at the Somerville Journal - was not a big fan of the story I did the other day about working at UPS for a day. She hated it enough to call me out for it, which is an odd thing to do when a good chunk of your public output looks like this.

But let's get back to the UPS story.

It wasn't a piece I'd put in my all-time Top 10. But as a newspaper writer trying to pump out basically a story a day this month for our Spending Smart series, I was just trying to think a bit creatively. Seemed to me if I planned to write about people getting second jobs, it wouldn't hurt to leave my desk and experience another job for a day or two. Apparently, that's elitist. I've dabbled in trying to participate in a story before. I'd say this piece was pulled off a lot better.

With the UPS story, I tried, early on, to make it clear to readers that yes, I understood this wasn't the same as having a real second job.

Of course, I could play the role of part-time worker for a few days, as sort of a labor experiment. But let's be straight. Pretending to moonlight is nothing like what Beth Goncalo goes through. The Fall River mother starts her day at a hospital at 5:30 a.m. and gets off work at 4 p.m. That's a full day (and then some) for most. But then she works her shift at Blount Fine Foods, known for its soups and clam chowder. She works most Saturdays and Sundays to help her son afford tuition at Westfield State College.

"I am exhausted," says Goncalo, who is 43. "But you have to do what you have to do. I would work three jobs if I had no choice."

But the part of the story I regret, after re-reading, has to be the kicker. I talk about my shift at the b. good in Harvard Square.

Nobody questioned why I was working there or where I'd come from. Apparently, in this economy, they understood why a seemingly fast-thinking, clean-cut adult might want to sign on for a $9 an hour burger job. Probably for the same reason they were there: the paycheck.

Ouch. "Fast-thinking" and "clean-cut." That makes me come off as a slightly more pompous version of Blair on "The Facts of Life."

If I had spent more time thinking about it or simply re-read the piece with a fresh set of eyes before it ran, I'd have found a better way of making my point without somehow making it sound as if the folks at b. good were operating on a lower level than I. They're not. My point was that in this job climate, it's not that odd for somebody to come in off the street, get up to speed quickly and for nobody to wonder why he or she is so interested in a $9-a-hour gig.

Geoff Edgers hustles to keep up with UPS deliveries on Boylston Street. (Globe Staff Photo / Mark Wilson)