I’d been working at The News & Observer for at least 10 years when a new assistant managing editor told me I had to quit spitting tobacco juice in newsroom trash cans. That was a nasty habit, he said. The cleaning crew didn’t like it and ought not have to put up with it.
Oh, sure, I know, he was right. And I knew that then. But I had issues with him so I told him he needed to check my employment contract — I had permission from the executive editor.
I didn’t actually have a contract, not a written one anyway. But I did have a verbal agreement that gave me the right to spit in any trash can in the newsroom –mine, yours, anybody’s.
When Executive Editor Claude Sitton offered me a job in 1971 I told him I chewed tobacco, Red Man mostly, and I asked him, “If I come to work here can I spit in the trash cans?”
He said yes.
I don’t know if that AME talked to Sitton, I guess he did because I didn’t hear any more about it. I did notice, however, that within a day or two the trash cans in the newsroom had plastic bag liners.
Coming Monday: The Football Coach Made More Than Dean