Lens or thermos?

This little story bought back a memory for me. Years ago, whilst a young, junior snapper on the Leicester Mercury – my first job – I was captioning my prints outside the darkroom when the editor marched up, howling, as he was want to do. Alex his name was, and everyone was terrified of him, especially my picture editor. I was just a noob who hadn’t really learnt when to keep his head down and stfu whilst in the newsroom.

Up strides Alex, parting the waves as he cut through the office. All the other photographers skulked back into the darkroom (where the ed would refuse to go, thank God) demanding to know what the days pics were. My timid pic ed started to show him the 12×8’s laid out on the table. Just then Alex’s eyes alighted upon an item on the window sill. Bear in mind the editor made all the decisions about what kit the snappers were allowed ( sod all). He started to shout at my picture ed. I can still remember it almost word for word.

Ed: What’s that?
pic ed: what?
Ed: That lens on the window sill..
Pic ed: what lens on the window sill?

I was sat quietly nearby, pretending to be busy, but I could see what was happening. One of the other togs had left their new thermos flask out. It was black, admittedly, but it had a cup, a large handle, and it said THERMOS in large letters down the side. It was bloody obviously a thermos flask..

So, I decided to chip in..everyone has a sense of humour, right? Not Alex. Oh no, not Alex.

“It’s our new 300 2.8” I quipped.

Big mistake.

Ed to pic ed:” What the f*** are you doing buying new lenses without my say so?”
Pic ed to ed: What? we haven’t…I…

I realised then that I’d chosen to say the wrong thing, as I have done many, many times. My pic ed was about to get a royal bollocking, and it was going to all be my fault. So I thought I’d try and save the situation…

“It’s not really a new lens Alex, it’s a thermos flask” said I, thinking that would calm things down. Wrong. I suppose I had just made the Ed look stupid, though I didn’t realise it at the time…

I can remember this exchange absolutely word for word:

Ed: “What the f*** do you mean? Are you taking the f****** piss? Who the F*** do you think you are? You’re just a f***** junior…what the f*** do you think you’re doing taking the piss out of me? I’ll have your f****** job faster than you can sneeze you f******* little shit”

Ooops.

My pic ed was as white as a sheet. The deputy was backing away. The newsroom was silent.

I apologised, which didn’t work, and skulked off into the darkroom. Ten minutes later the pic ed came in, and told me that I had to leave the office for the rest of the day because if the editor saw me again that day he was going to rip me to pieces. I did as I was told.

A week later, at a football match 150 miles away in Leeds, one of the Leeds togs came up to me and asked “Are you Dave White?” I answered. “I heard about you and the Thermos flask. Brilliant, we’ve been having a right laugh about that” So within a week the story had done the rounds.

That editor never spoke to me again until the day of my resignation. That suited me fine.

I’ve never understood why so many editors feel it necessary to speak to their newsroom like shit on their shoe. Moral of this story: beware of lenses that say Thermos down the side. Or editors called Alex. Or something like that.