Arc de Triomphe (but then, you knew that).

Tuesday, October 1, 2002

So Jill Dutt, the Post's assistant managing editor for business, calls me into her office the first week of August and says the International Herald Tribune is looking for people to replace two editors who are going to Hong Kong for 15 months to start up a new Asian business section. She made one recommendation to Robert McCartney, managing editor of the IHT: moi.

Who else can parachute into Europe, hit the ground running (okay, lumbering) by the October 1 start date, and get the job done? Who else has no wives or carpet-crawlers to accommodate? Who else has been mouthing off for a solid year about our department's inability to make deadline better than one day a month, on average? Who else would just love to see whether these guys really couldn't make a deadline if a gun were held to their heads?

Heedful of our precarious staffing situation, Jill concludes by saying, "If you go, we're really screwed. But better screwed than shot, I figure."

But this relo to the City of Light, the City of Romance, a city that has never made it onto my long list of places to go, depends on the IHT and Bloomberg News inking a deal for this new section. That could come within a few days, McCartney says. And that'd be a good thing, because I have no idea how the hell I can get organized and move to Paris inside of two months.

But do I begin to pack? Do I put my condo on the market? I do not. Do I buy a couple books on Paris? I do. Do I look at the pictures? Yes indeedy. But I don't go beyond that, because if I had a nickel for every time a newspaper's plans have gone agley, I'd be living overseas already (Sydney, not Paris).

To say I "wait" is to overstate my state of anticipation. What I do is drop hints to friends about the possibility of me doing something cool, defer buying a digital TV, and decide not to get tickets to a play at Arena Stage in October. Time passes, a month of Sundays, and of the other days as well. The IHT and Bloomberg News ink the deal at the end of August.

Am I still hot to go? Oh yes. Do I have any idea how I'm going to bust this move in one month? Not a clue.

To say I "panic" is to overstate this emotional state as well. Moving with all deliberate speed, which ain't that fast, and conscious of the fact that I likely won't make it by October 1, I get under way. I buy boxes, tape and bubblewrap, and start packing. One friend researches storage companies. I call my real estate agent. Turns out my leggy, lovely, life-saving therapist has a friend in Paris with an apartment for rent. Other friends have friends, or friends of friends, who may or may not know something. One of the ex-girlfriends who doesn't hate me sends me a lengthy list of web sites for hunters of apartments of Parisian extraction. One merciful soul at the International Herald Tribune sends me tips.

The paper itself does nothing. Now, this will surprise my friends who work in non-newspaper industries, friend who have further endeared themselves to me by asking, "Are they getting you an apartment? When are you going to fly over to look for a place? They're paying your housing expenses, right?" Non, non, non, mon freres and mes jeunes filles.

The funny thing about newspapers is, just about everyone who works in their newsrooms comes from somewhere else. And the IHT, sheesh, an English-language paper headquartered in Paris and co-owned by two American institutions, the Washington Post and the New York Times, not even the mice in the library stacks are French. And newspapers, even in these dire economic times, have been known to hire an editor or reporter or two. Who then must, like, find a place to live. And must research the couple hundred other necessaries, from where to register your car to where to register your rugrat.

But do newspapers, which publish tens of thousands of words per day, ever think to, like, write down any of this vital information for new employees? They do not. (The only exception was the St. Petersburg Times, which put new employees onto a perfectly pleasant apartment complex a few miles away, right on Tampa Bay.) I've been tempted to write a guide for new employees for every paper I've worked for, but ultimately decided that, screw it, it might be fun watching the next new guy dangle a bit, too. And I got too busy. And like that. But I don't understand why someone didn't write guides for me.

So, to recap, I have one month to relocate to Paris, where I will work with 50 or so top-flight journalists, all of whom have already made the move, had time to settle in, and are eminently suited to write about their experiences ... and none of them are writing a word on the topic, despite the occasional plaintive bleat from yours truly.

The only thing that makes this funny is that I did in fact find a place subsequent to my arrival at Chuck de Gaulle Airport at 6:10 a.m. Monday, September 30, and prior to my arrival at the offices of the International Herald Tribune 28 hours later. (To be more precise, that makes it kinda funny to me. It would be absolutely side-splitting to you were I writing this from inside un carton du refrigerateur somewhere in the Marais.) It came off a lead from the one guy at the IHT who sent me tips, a studio located less than a block from the Folies-Bergeres. Since I've been practicing my smooove Pepe Le Pew moves, the location seems apropos.

I move in this weekend, and so inspired am I by the ease with which this relocation has gone that I will not provide my new address until I've actually unpacked.

© copyright 2003 Mark J. McGarry

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