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So yesterday, I came home from work about 6:15 p.m. and after changing out of my work clothes, thought I’d just sort of lounge on the bed for a minute. Take a little catnap. I put on my sleeping mask (yes, I use one) and dozed off.

I woke up some time later and glanced at my watch. 7:15. My apartment was quite light, and it was cloudy outside. I looked at my alarm clock. 7:15. I got up, amazed I’d just slept 13 hours, ate breakfast, made coffee, took a shower, blow-dried my hair, got dressed, put my coffee in my travel mug and went to pack my bag to leave. Only then did I look at my cell phone and see it was 19:50. 7:50 p.m.

This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this.

I’m not really the scatterbrained type. Yes, I lose my work ID in my office a lot, and yes sometimes I can’t find my keys, but generally, on the day-to-day, I know what’s going on. I am lately, though, really really tired. For example, Saturday I slept from about 11 p.m. Friday night until 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon. And while I was sleeping, I was dreaming about going on vacation to this splendid vacation house with a very comfy bed and sleeping in that. I was dreaming about sleeping. That’s how sleeping I was.

My mother called me, and I told her what had happened. “That’s devastating,” she said. She really sounded concerned. “That’s how tired you are,” she said. “Your body can’t even tell the difference in how you feel after sleeping one hour versus thirteen hours.” I started to freak out a little. “What about now?” I asked. “What if this is sleeping? Is this real? Am I losing my mind?”

She assured me it was real, and that I wasn’t crazy, but that I should rest more. I honestly don’t know when I’d get to that resting.

The other day, I confessed to a friend that if I had a husband and children to take care of, cook for, do laundry for, a house to clean with a yard to mow, I’d honestly need some kind of serious amphetamine addiction to get through. As it is, I don’t know how I manage taking care of my work and life, and I don’t do a whole lot of life-care (like I don’t have furniture, like my cable has been out for 3 weeks and I haven’t called about it, like there are still boxes I haven’t unpacked and I moved here in August). I don’t get it. My mom raised me mostly by herself, while working more than full time. When did she have time for that? Granted, we mostly lived in condos (no yard) and had a nanny to watch me after school and do some daily chores, but still, my mom did all cooking, most cleaning, and still worked, and dealt with me. (My unruly, toddler self who did things like park her tricycle on top of a water moccasin.)

What changed? Is work harder now? More time consuming? Are the techno-media advances really hurting us after all? Is my never-ending email/BlackBerry/iPhone to-do list crushing me? And if it is, what’s my alternative? It’s not like I could remove media from my job (it’s 100% media), or change my own media consumption habits  (I have to stay informed, you know, and read for entertainment too). What else can I quit to stop feeling so rushed/spread thin/worn out?

“My goal is to always come from a place of love … but sometimes you just have to break it down for a motherfucker.”
- Ru Paul

I love my job. Straight-out, slap-drag love it. I’m sad to leave every night, I’m happy to go every morning and honestly, over the weekend, I get sad and miss it. Last week I worked at least 60 hours. I’ll be working this weekend. And next week, I will probably work another 60+ hours. And I will love every single minute.

I am the adviser to a student media program with a quarterly print magazine, an online newspaper and a 24/7 online radio station at a small fine-arts college.

For a while,  I taught a college class, and I’ve never really been able to fully articulate why I prefer advising to teaching. Then, a couple days ago, I saw this RuPaul quote. Seriously. Nothing much I’ve ever read before has explained my feelings so well.

In teaching, success is always your outcome. I helped students become better writers because that was the course objective. I helped them write essays, then I helped them write better essays. In advising, sometimes, success isn’t your goal. Learning is always my goal. Providing an environment for maximum learning is my goal. Sometimes that means students go all-out on an overambitious idea, and they don’t make it. But they learn a lot. In a classroom, they wouldn’t get an A, but down here, the process, the learning, is the goal — not the outcome. And sometimes, that means I have to have really tough conversations.

Now, I’m 29. Most of the students I work with are between 18-28. This isn’t like I am automatically respected for my age or experience. I have to earn my respect by demonstrating my knowledge and ability to be straightforward and direct. My skill in, for lack of a better word, breaking it down for a motherfucker. Sometimes I have to say, hey, you know what, this isn’t going to work, but I seriously am going to back you up every step of the way, and I will be there to help you every minute. And then when it’s over, and no matter how it turns out, I’ll still be there. You won’t get an F, but we are going to have a serious talk about what went wrong, and how it’s going to be different next time, and what exactly you are going to do to make sure it’s different. For some people, having to endure that conversation is worse than just getting an F and walking away. But for other people, for the students who get the most out of working in student media, it’s one of the most valuable learning experiences they get in college.

RuPaul has it right. I’m always coming from a place of love and support and I-am-here-for-you-no-matter-what, but sometimes, out of love and support and all that, you gotta say some pretty difficult things. Because I am willing to have these difficult conversations, and because I feel like it’s an exceptional real-world learning opportunity for the students, I love my job. And while I can’t really say I’m happy do have these conversations, I am grateful to facilitate, and be a part of, a one-of-a-kind learning experience.

And did I mention I get to do this every single day? And I get paid for it? Seriously. If just everyone could have the experience of a job that makes them feel this kind of satisfied, honestly, the whole world would be a better place.

John McIntyre is a copy editor at the Baltimore Sun. The Baltimore Sun has won 15 Pulitzer Prizes, and is the paper for which Henry Louis Mencken* wrote from 1906-1948. In short, The Sun, and Mr. McIntyre, are class acts all around.

A few weeks ago, Mr. M wrote this entry in his blog: Skip the team talk; there’s work to be done. Go ahead and go read it. This blog will still be here when you get back.

Read? Great. He’s a genius.

In my years of leadership, especially leadership on college campuses where lots of these sort of “leadership” workshop things happen, I have never really gotten it. Half the time, I couldn’t get into it because it was so hokey. And the other half I couldn’t get into because I was too busy thinking about what was waiting on my desk back in my office. Revisions. Another issue of the campus paper. Budget proposals. Emails. Whatever. And, horribly, because I am one of those awful, disgusting persons who loves — and lives for — my work, I would rather have been at my own desk, doing the work. Because, as Mr. M says, “You build a team by doing the team’s work, the way an orchestra becomes a team by playing the music in rehearsal, not by pretending to be ninjas.”

The team works by putting out the paper, or the magazine, or the web-based news site, or the radio broadcast that plays 24/7, or the ad, or the copy, or the book, et cetera ad nauseum. Whatever it is, and whoever it is, you learn to be a team the best by doing the thing you’re doing. End of story. Period.

And yes, I pretended I was crossing a lava field on carpet squares. And yes, I helped haul people over a wall. And yes, I blindfolded myself and let people lead me around. But when I left, we all went back to our jobs, where we were at team already, and we were working together already because we were doing our jobs well.

Maybe that’s the thing for people in media. Maybe, instead of going out on retreats and to ropes courses or teambuilder games, coworkers from other industries should have to put on a 3-hour news broadcast from 5-8 a.m. 7 days a week. Or put a magazine together once a month. Or a tabloid newspaper once a week with college students. Or keep a radio station running all day every day. Maybe they should have to feel that “holy crap it’s deadline and the designer and copy editor are standing over my shoulder waiting for my story and I can’t remember if this guy’s name was Thompson or Thompsen” feeling.

Because there’s the feeling that a team supports you when you’re doing trust falls, and it’s a lot different than the feeling that a team supports you when it’s 11 p.m. and you’re banging out 800 words while the whole team is waiting because they’re not done until you’re done.

In my leadership roles, I’ve tried hard to be a worker bee. I’ve tried hard to be the first one there and the last one to leave. I don’t ever want to be resting on my laurels or awards. It always must be “What’s next?” not “Hey, look what we did.” I’m not big on complaining or blaming, but I am big on fixing processes and looking ahead. I’m also big on work.

(Side note: I am one of those really bizarre, weird people who believe that the feeling of having done, and completed, an arduous task is the best reward for it. Knowing I did hard work is the best reward for hard work there is. I don’t care if this makes me a freak. I love it. I thrive on that energy of daunting tasks and things people say can’t be done. In the words of Jay-Z, “Difficult takes a day; impossible takes a week.”)

I hope I’ve succeeded. But even if I haven’t, I’m still young(ish), and at least I’ve identified a goal for myself as a leader. And that’s progress, too.

*HLM was kind enough to write his own epitaph, but it isn’t on his tombstone: “If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.” He died in his sleep, which sounds like a pretty lovely way to go.