Last Saturday I attended a fundraiser for a local hospital. The hospital is a client of the engineering firm my significant other works for and since she’s heavily involved in a major building project for them and her firm was a sponsor of that evening’s cocktail hour, attendance was mandatory.
Surprisingly, I had a better time than I thought I would. I also found myself answering the inevitable question, “What do you do?”
I sometimes joke that one of the biggest conversation killers at a party is when I used to answer that question by saying, “I’m a writer.” Their next question, “What do you write about?” And I reply, “The office technology industry.” That would usually be when the conversation comes to a standstill.
As one of the last true journalists covering the office technology imaging industry, I don’t care when that happens anymore. I take a lot of pride in that, especially when one sees what’s happened to print publications over the past decade. Sometimes I consider myself one of the luckiest people on the face of the earth to still be standing after 27 years in the industry. And that’s what I told people who asked me what I did last Saturday night: I’m one of the few true journalists still covering the office technology space and I love what I do, writing about office technology, services and software, and the people who sell it.
And for those of you reading who are still earning a living in this space whether you’re a dealer, an OEM or a solutions or services provider, I hope you can answer that question in social situations as easily as I can now without killing the conversation. After all, many of you are still standing after all these years.
Don’t forget to give me a holler if you’ve got a good story for me to cover.
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