Amber Ramble: An anti-roast in defense of The Anchor staff

In the previous issue of The Anchor, my Co-Editor-in-Chief Adam, self-titled “Angry Adam,” decided to use his platform to gruesomely roast most of The Anchor staff. As a preface to his previous column, it is important to note the contents of the roast were only Adam’s opinions and could hardly be said to be based in any facts. (For example, it is very unlikely that Sarah Downing, one of our Campus Co-Editors, had been planning to set our office ablaze—although, now she probably is planning well-justified revenge.) In an attempt to regain the tentative balance of our newspaper family, I will emphasize my position as the peaceful yang to Adam’s rage-filled yin and deliver an anti-roast of The Anchor staff.

I will skip defending myself, as Adam’s comments were mainly that I do too much work and make him look bad, which is generally pretty true. The first staff member to receive Adam’s speculation was Marty. To be honest, Marty doesn’t need much defending either, as Adam’s main criticism was that Marty is “too efficient.” Adam deemed this supernatural efficiency to be sketchy, but the reality is just that Marty has been putting in a good amount of work to figure out our ad policies, which isn’t easy considering that our ad training binder is approximately ten years old and a total of four pages. Not only has he been making sure each issue has a steady stream of ads, but Marty already has plans to create a more informational ad training binder so that future Ad Managers will be better prepared.

The next innocent editor in Adam’s rampaging path was the previously mentioned Sarah Downing, whom Adam claimed “is that quiet girl that doesn’t say much but always has that look like she’s up to something” and is “probably plotting some kind of Anchor downfall or coup.” While at this point it would be completely understandable for her to set fire to our office, Sarah has been the main person responsible for the Campus section existing. For a few issues, Sarah had to manage the two Campus pages as the sole editor, which was only made more difficult by Adam’s paranoid delusions. Hopefully with the arrival of new Campus Co-Editor Alayna, production of the Campus pages will run smoothly.

Now we move to our Webmaster Melissa/Georgia, whom Adam had the tenacity to insinuate didn’t do much work. Our fantastic new website, and its continuous upkeep, is the only evidence needed to prove that Melissa has proved her worth as our heroic Webmaster. Those who have seen our old website know how much work was put in to make sure our new website was no longer terrible. If you had never seen our old website, consider yourself lucky. The main point of Adam’s roast of Melissa was that she only “came into the office today for combined seventy-two seconds.” However, he failed to mention the reason she left so soon–none of us had any pages ready for her to upload to the website. Our lack of productivity shouldn’t be pushed onto Melissa’s hard-working shoulders.

In another resurgence of his paranoia, Adam also fears that Features Editor Amanda is planning to overthrow us, alongside Sarah. Amanda always comes in early and churns out her creative and informational Features page, with the occasional help of her intern Audrey. I’m beginning to suspect that Adam is irrationally afraid of productivity.

Now to our lovely Copy Editor, Emily, who for some reason receives an unfair amount of sass from Adam, even though for multiple issues she basically copy edited every page single-handedly. The only returning Copy Editor from last year, Emily keeps us from sounding like idiots– well, there’s only so much she can do on that front– and is always a strong example of AP eloquence. And that sass that Adam complained about is what keeps us all entertained during the long hours of production night.

Finally, there’s our dedicated Anchor advisor, Mark. Through all of the staff’s craziness and disorganization, Mark has stuck with us and offered his support in advancing the quality and productivity of our paper. During our training week for new staff members, only Mark had the guts to tell a group that was still holding control of our office to get out—and they did! Without Mark, we would be on our own in the wild jungle of administration, and we are forever grateful for his continued help and support. Mark is like our parent— no one is as proud of us as he is.
Despite our nonstop bickering and shenanigans, The Anchor staff is a family that will always stick together and persist long after graduation. Through the highs and lows of production night, our bond will remain.