INTERNSHIP 6: In the Office with Ben

Most week days from June 18-July 3^rd, 2008

The StreetWise office soon feels like home. I share an office with Ben, a former Chicago Center student himself; he interned at StreetWise, got a job after a summer of work here and has now moved on to running the magazine. He writes articles, takes photos and most importantly designs the entirety of the magazine: managing content, finding photos, doing layout, editing stories to make them fit, designing a cover and each subsequent page. He is the one that gets the magazine to press each week and makes sure it’s good. While other people handle the selling of ads and the vendor aspect of the publication, Ben is the reason that there is a magazine to sell each week.

At first, the office was quiet. We smiled at each other, he got me set up with an internet hook up and gave me a few directions. It was peaceful. Often, besides Ryan, the desk attendant, we were the only two in the office so early. I enjoyed his presence as I spent my mornings researching. But one day we started talking and after that, we never wanted to stop.

Since then, Ben has become my unofficial guide to the city, to StreetWise, to working with the homeless, to the Chicago Center, to life in college and after college. He gives me the inside scoop on the dealings and the people at StreetWise. I have started to him each time I formulate a suspicion or an observation. I begin my sentences with “I have noticed Grace…” or “I was talking to the vendor…” or “When I am on the bus, I feel…” Inevitably, Ben has an explanation and has stories and understands completely where I am coming from. Yes, our backgrounds are similar. He, like me, is from Kansas and remember, he first came to StreetWise as an intern with the Chicago center. I have began to trust him like no other to understand where I am coming from and to explain what I am seeing.  When I mentioned to him one of my worst realizations in Chicago—that I am prone to revert to close minded stereotypes about people—he even had a name for it: Oh, he said, like it was utterly natural, something we all went through, you are just Caucasian-ing out.

That’s it, I thought, so simple and so true.

With him, I also have the remarkable friendship that I have with other journalists—friendships that I have found with my good friend Sonya, another journalism student, or John, a photographer. It is a friendship of people who love people, love their stories and are incredibly eager to share them. Ben wants to know about everyone that I have met and tells me incredible stories about the woman with the cigar store he wrote a story about once or the vendor who began to tell him about seeing Jesus in a cemetery. I return to the office bursting with new information and experiences and know that Ben will love to hear it all.

He and I also share a loving way of noticing other people’s quirks and loving the stories they create. He uses this loving sense of humor to let me know how to deal with the people around me. We laugh together when Suzanne, our editor, arrives in at two pm (Ben has been there since 8.15 am but accepts that Suzanne is just like that), when Greg talks about StreetWise TV (the weekly public access edition that has about two viewers but Greg adores), when Grace arrives with her perfectly coordinated outfit and perfectly portioned yuppie sack lunch or when I engage in a long, winding conversation with a vendor who normally does that, according to Ben.

Ben’s friendship with his restaurant recommendations, 411 on the workings of StreetWise, brilliant sense of humor and ear ready to listen has been an incredible part of my summer in Chicago. Yes, it has meant hours of office time spent in conversation and not necessarily in research. But at the same time, the knowledge I have accumulated could not be found anywhere.