Mike Fancher / Times executive editor
Our Sunday magazine works at exploring role of work in our lives

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The Kathys are Kathy Andrisevic, editor of Pacific Northwest magazine, and Kathleen Triesch Saul, the magazine's associate editor. The interview topic was "Money and Meaning," the magazine's new series examining the role of work in our lives.

Dietrich kicked off the series last week with a fascinating cover story titled "The Changing Face of Work. Competing for money and meaning in a new world order." Typical of his writing, the piece was thoughtful, penetrating and provocative.

He comes back today with an article about "doing a job well, perhaps better than anyone in the world."

All I wanted from the Kathys was to know why we decided to undertake the series and how we will do it. I was bombarded with everything from aerobics classes to quotes from Woody Allen. I felt like a badminton birdie, as they verbally batted me back and forth.

Family life and work.

The work ethic of baby boomers.

Local woes with Boeing.

Outsourcing and foreign competition.

Tech's boom and bust.

Haves and have-nots.
 
Generations at war with each other at work.

The emergence of a creative class.

Jobs, the economy and the election.

I tried to take notes, but it was impossible. I did get this quote from Triesch: "All of this stuff kind of converges and says, 'The topic of the year is work.' "

That explains the why of the series. As for the how, here are a couple of other quotes.

Triesch: "We lock Bill in a room and babble at him until he screams."

Andrisevic: "We sit down and keep talking until he can't stand it any more."

Understanding why I don't often see Dietrich in the newsroom, I sent him an e-mail to get his take on the series. He wrote back that this series is like "Changing Visions," a Pacific Northwest series last year that explored urban development.

Series of this sort, he wrote, "arise from the belief of the magazine editors that traditional stories about specific events, people, or places don't always get to the heart of what people are thinking about: where they live, what they do, why they do it, and time."

Pacific Northwest "has space and license for comment that allows it to tell stories in a different way."

"This new series began with a staff retreat this spring in which editor Kathy Andrisevic was expressing her tug of war between a job she loves, raising her daughters and feeling exhausted and overscheduled. The rest of us weighed in with our own angst. Finally she said something about 'money and meaning' and I said, 'That could be the heading for this series you want.' So we came away with that theme."

Dietrich's piece last week gave a broad overview and posed some of the questions the series will explore.

For example, "does the word 'work' adequately cover the gamut from ditch-digging and hash-slinging to theoretical physics and kayak instruction? Hasn't it just become another word for life? In America, isn't what you do who you are?"

If you missed it, the story is online at www.seattletimes.com. Click the link to Pacific Northwest then click the link to previous issues. Don't fail to appreciate the ingenious photo illustrations by Tom Reese. (Yes, that was a face on the cover.)

Dietrich proposed today's story on Port Townsend sailmaker Carol Hasse before the editors settled on "money and meaning" as the series theme, "but she so exemplified the theme that we swapped the schedule and put her the week after the opening essay."

Dietrich added, "There is no set schedule (for the series) and no ideology: We hope the series will develop with input from readers." So, send in your suggestions.

The Kathys have worked their magic, enlisting an array of writers and photographers to do different pieces of the series. Some of the committed topics include unique jobs that defy outsourcing, jobs that have special meaning in our region, and iconic Northwest companies that succeed and treat employees decently.

I swear I don't know how they do it. (Triesch says, "She yells and I cry.") But Pacific Northwest is an amazing success story of its own. Most newspapers have abandoned their Sunday magazines, but Pacific Northwest is a huge success with readers and advertisers.

I guess the magazine is its own example of "money and meaning." Andrisevic has been its editor and guiding spirit since 1980.

Before that, we all worked together putting out the first morning edition of The Times. Andrisevic ran the night photo desk, Triesch the night copy desk and I the night city desk.

It truly was the inmates running the asylum, and nothing that fun can fairly be called work.

If you have a comment on news coverage, write to Michael R. Fancher, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111, call 206-464-3310 or send e-mail to mfancher@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists