Farewell from La Tricia Ransom

Here's a note from La Tricia Ransom, who left The Chronicle last week:

I'm so glad we had this time togetheerrrr ...

Almost everybody's saying it, so it must be true: there's a heap of great folk working here, and I leave tomorrow with mixed emotions of sadness and excitement for what the next half of my career might be.

I started with the Hearst Examiner 8 1/2 years ago, barely a year before the sale/merger/whatever-the-heck-that-was, first on the night copy desk, then with the features desk. Until early last year, spent all of my Chron years with the late, lamented Friday section.

And yet I have friends all over the newsroom. Maybe it's the shared trauma of learning this Danish masterpiece known as CCI, or maybe just my sparkling personality , but when I was on the CCI SWAT team helping with the training and rollout of this love-to-hate-it system (I personally rather like it, but then that's me), I got the chance to get to know people in other departments that I otherwise would have only nodded hello to, and my job was made all the richer.

In addition, I got to know folks through my participation in the newsroom committee started by Louis Freedberg, and the diversity committee, which I did not start but from the start of the merger, tried to resurrect goose into action. We got some things accomplished, the participants on both these committees. But they were short-lived and ... well, don't let me get started.

My Friday section colleagues became like a family. Now for some folks, that's not necessarily a good thing, but in this case, it was. We shared laughs and private-life stories and lunches and bagels/pastries on Tuesdays and outings to the Tonga Room and film Fridays -- the last three thanks to Deb Brown -- and updates on families and... As you can see, I still miss that and it's been two years since the section was killed.

My Metro Desk colleagues are made up of a couple of Friday friends and plenty of former Examiner desk jockeys, so my arrival and subsequent transition were both pretty easy. It has been great fun getting to know the others I hadn't already worked with, and I will miss you and my Friday folk the most.

I have partied with some of you outside of company-sponsored holiday events (remember those?), and as a consequence have developed some dear, personal friendships that I hope will continue in the absence of the convenience of being in the same building together.

I have had squabbles with a few people, but none were based on animosity or a lack of respect. Just strong-minded, strong-willed people exchanging perspectives. LOL! In those exchanges, I often came away with a new understanding of the issue, and sometimes even changed my position, or theirs. But never felt I had made or become an enemy.

I don't know where my next stop will be -- when I was away rehabbing my elbow this spring, a job search was the last thing I thought I needed to be doing -- but I hope that I will get to work with as many fun, talented, intelligent, passionate people as I have here.