Get the paper out.

In this business, that's never a choice. It doesn't matter if it's a holiday or if there's a driving snowstorm that has shut down the rest of the community. People expect their daily newspaper to be available, and it's our job to meet that expectation.

Thanks to the dedication of a many people who work here, we've managed to adhere to the “no excuses” policy a couple of times in the past two weeks despite some major unforeseen obstacles.

The first time, which certainly seemed like a big deal when it happened, turned out to be minor compared with the second case. But both required staffers in all departments to rise to the challenge. And for those of us who have the privilege of managing employees in our building, this effort was not surprising.

Two weeks ago, we experienced a power failure in the building that effectively took our front-end newsroom computer system off line - and cut us off from the Internet - during a key part of the day in which many of our stories and photos are coming together. The staff didn't panic, though. They came up with contingency plans to get work back on track while other people worked hard to get the technical problem fixed as quickly as possible. When it was all done, the paper got out the door on time.

The second stroke of bad luck took place this past Wednesday, when a major part on our printing press broke. That part couldn't be replaced immediately - it had to be overnighted from a distant location. So it meant we had to line up another site to publish the Thursday edition.

The Finger Lakes Times in Geneva graciously allowed us to print on their press, but they had their own products to put out, too. So that meant we had to get the paper done early.

The newsroom team jumped right in. Reporters worked hard to file their stories, photographers got their images processed and the copy editors and page designers squeezed an eight-hour process into about five hours. But the paper still had plenty of strong local news, sports and features content.

When the newsroom work was done, people in other departments took over. We had someone driving the metal press plates that we made in Auburn over to Geneva, we had some of our people in Geneva to oversee the process and we had someone rent a truck that was loaded with all the papers and brought back to Auburn.

Our mailroom staff then dove in and got inserts put into the papers and got the bundles ready for our delivery team, which then got the final products to the doorsteps, paper boxes, racks and stores.

There were far too many people who shined in this situation to start giving a list of names, but it's worth mentioning one behind-the-scenes hero. Matt Lang, our production director, led the effort from start to finish. By the time he headed for home at 5:45 a.m. Thursday, he had logged more than 24 straight hours.

Executive editor Jeremy Boyer's columns run Saturdays in The Citizen and he can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net