Distractions from the everyday are what make life fun.

Those of us who work every day like it when a day at the office &8212; or even a few minutes &8212; turns into something abnormal.

The world&8217;s students like it when a day at school takes them out of the classroom and maybe out of the building.

For a handful of our newspaper employees and about 15 Trinity Episcopal Day School seventh-graders, Monday was, well, fun.

Cathy Davis&8217;s current events class loaded up on the bus just after lunch and came our way for a little exposure to how the local current events get to your doorstep every day.

The class assignment &8212; as I understand it &8212; is to pick a job at the newspaper, learn a little about it and write a report. Eventually they&8217;ll make their own newspaper.

The students &8212; all boys &8212; picked their job title several weeks ago. One chose to sell ads, one to be the publisher, some to be reporters and one even wants to be me. (Maybe all the other jobs were taken by the time they got to him.)

In the time before the field trip the students were supposed to contact their corresponding Democrat employee to learn a little more about us.

Rick, one of the sports guys here, got an e-mail from his student early on. But in proper newspaper-employee-in-training form, the rest of the group procrastinated. (Ms. Davis, don&8217;t get mad.)

Around 5 p.m. Sunday afternoon we got a call at the office for our sports editor Tim. And at 10:53 p.m. Sunday, I got an e-mail from the managing editor in training.

&8220;I chose to be the managing editor like you because I like to be in charge and it sounds fun,&8221; young Joseph McClatchy said.

Read: All the sports jobs were taken, so I&8217;m stuck with you.

That&8217;s OK Joseph, I sometimes have fun too. I just don&8217;t get into the football games free. Life goes on.

Come Monday, the boys bounded into our office for the tour.

Tours aren&8217;t that unusual for us. We do several a year, classes, scout troops, etc. And, really, we&8217;ve got some cool stuff here to see &8212; 900 pound rolls of paper, a tank of ink and a giant machine that makes a newspaper.

And the students were duly awed. We worked our way through the pressroom, into advertising, by circulation and finally to the thing they came to see &8212; the sports department.

The first part of the tour lasted about an hour, and by the time we got to the newsroom, I knew I&8217;d better cut straight to the main event. Not that I could stop it.

Both our sports guys were here &8212; I think they were looking forward to this part too &8212; and in mere seconds, they were surrounded. The students literally swarmed.

They talked about Stevan Ridley, shared their predictions for the season and told the boys a little about a typical Friday night full of football coverage.

We showed them some never-before-seen photos of a Trinity football game, and gave them a preview of the next day&8217;s sports page.

Then the bus came.

According to Ms. Davis, the murmurs through the group were &8220;two hours already,&8221; and &8220;it&8217;s time to go already?&8221;

We were glad to provide an educational distraction from the everyday for the students, but the distraction goes both ways.

The second the pack was pulled away from Rick, he starting shaking his head in awe of their energy.

Both sports guys had no option but to feel like superstars. And to feel like they have the coolest jobs in the world.

So, while we hope the students learned a little bit about current events, we know we learned a lot from them. Children and teens can quickly restore the energy into any room or any job.

Maybe career days and job fairs aren&8217;t really for the kids, but for the adults. What better way to gain a new understanding of your job than to see it through somebody else&8217;s eyes? Plus, we all need distractions.

Julie Finley

is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at

julie.finley@natchezdemocrat.com

or 601-445-3551.