Joy Daggett

Joy Daggett, the infamous ‘pyooter-lady at the mighty Mezz, the one that hired me, is retiring.
I predict sonorous blustering from West Bridgewater about turnover at the mighty Mezz, but I don’t think retirement qualifies as turnover.
Joy was mostly unlike me, but given a challenge, she was like me. Not the Connor “gimme that,” but “let me see that. I bet I can fix that.”
(She used to carry screwdrivers.)
Like most people at the mighty Mezz, she fell into what she was doing. “If we gotta fix this to get a paper out, let’s fix it.”
The ones who stayed at the mighty Mezz were those that cared; and caring prompted learning as much as they did.
The Mezz hired to fill specific needs, but the ones that flowered were those that performed beyond the specific need.
“If we have to figure this out to get a quality paper out, let’s do it.”
The mighty Mezz reflected that.
So here I was, a stroke-survivor, grandly messed up, but from what she could see, one who cared. (I had already worked there for weeks as an unpaid intern.)
“I’d like to hire him, but I don’t know if he’ll get along.”
My employment advisor took her aside and told her “Well, he has had a stroke. That probably severly compromised his social skills.”
“All right,” Joy said. “We’ll give it a shot.”
I’m sure others weighed in; e.g. George Ewing Sr., the owner of the newspaper, and “Boss-man” Bob Matson, the Executive-Editor of the paper.
But it was her decision. I was hiring into her department.
Quickly 20 hours per week became 36+, and I got asked to do one-thing-after-another.
“Compromised social-skills we can deal with as long as he fixes things.”
“He wants us to be a class act,” the Executive-Editor said. “He insists on doing it right.”
The Executive vice-president, a chain-smoking REPUBLICAN, wanted to lay me off, mainly because I didn’t worship him.
But “Wait a minute,” Boss-man said. “How can I lay off somebody who’s giving me letters-to-the-editor hand-over-fist? How can I lay off the only one at his level who knows how to drive that OCR-scanner — the only one who cared to learn it?”
So eventually the Executive Veep was fired and I was kept. (There were many other faux pas besides me.)
The person Joy hired turned into a faithful 10-year employee that conquered many challenges.
“How’d you do that?” Boss-man used to say.
“You’re running on seven cylinders?” Poobah said. “Your seven cylinders is more than most people at eight.”
The most significant thing Joy did was when I was on vacation and had ridden the mighty Kow out to Charlie Gardiner’s in Vermont.
It was a Saturday night, when I usually worked from 4 p.m. until 3 a.m. getting the Sunday-paper out.
Joy was working for me, since I was on vacation, pasting-up and dousing fires — what I usually did.
I called them all up from Charlie’s house, and they were thrilled.
Joy, etc. were worried about me. I had had a stroke, and here I was riding motorbike to Vermont.
A few years ago, Executive-Veep wanted to cut my hours. Okay, but that would have put me back on Social-Security Disability, which would have limited my income even more.
Boss-man wanted me to be able to work as much as I had, but Social-Security was making that untenable.
So: “what will it take for you to have the same monthly income you had with SSDI without SSDI?” Boss-man asked.
I was given a huge raise that meant I could drop SSDI and become full-time.
Joy was eventually kicked upstairs at the mighty Mezz. The Messenger’s purchase of the Post papers included their computer-guru, who made Joy redundent. —Plus she wasn’t as ‘pyooter-literate as the guru.
Guru was another fall-in. He had started at the bottom at the Post, but was interested in ‘pyooters, and eventually became their ‘pyooter-guru.
400-pound Frank Brown at the mighty Mezz is like that. No college, but his interest in ‘pyooters has taken him far beyond the bottom. Frank Brown was my boss in paste-up. I think the world of him too.
Joy had also dabbled in purchasing at the Messenger, so they made her “Purchasing Director” at Messenger-Post Newspapers.
She’s in her late 60s — maybe 70 — so retirement-age. She had cut back to three days a week to take the pressure off.
I’m sure she doesn’t want to retire — working at the mighty Mezz was (is) rewarding. But it’s up-for-sale too. Time to get out before you get dumped. Time to get out before the mighty Mezz becomes part of the vast Gannett empire — pablum.