BLOG: Career affects friendships

I never thought my career path would affect my friendships, but suddenly, it has.

First, there was the whole “fraternity formal gets busted by the cops,” story. I made a meme about it, and everything went to hell. I started getting angry texts from my friends in Greek life, and I think I lost a couple friends. Then it was Betsey Horton’s column. We ran the thing because, hey, would there be any reason to believe it didn’t happen? We’ve all been to fraternities and seen some less than reputable behavior.

So, I got more angry texts. How dare I run that! How dare I soil some fraternity’s spotless reputation!

Here’s the thing guys; I’m just doing my job. It’s like when a cop pulls you over and you hate him, but realize that it’s probably a good thing he stopped you doing 90 mph in a 65 mph zone. Someone could get killed.

While I never thought I would relate to a police officer, I’m going through the same thing. People are angry with me for simply doing my job.

My job as Verve Editor, in case you didn’t know, is to inform and entertain the students at the University of South Dakota. My job is to let our bloggers and columnists voice their opinion (within reason) and publish factual news stories about events happening on campus that fall into the arts and entertainment category. My job is to make people want to read The Volante, and frankly, all this controversy has done just that.

I don’t want to lose any friends, but any friend who doesn’t understand that I’m simply doing my job is probably not someone I want to hang out with anyway.  I do make mistakes, and I can be a little abrasive, but please don’t hate me. Put yourself in my shoes, and while you’re at it, if you have an opinion, come write for me. You can get paid for your thoughts, instead of just texting them to me.