I was out one midmorning this week at a local store buying some painkiller for Olivia's twisted ankle when I ran into a friend of mine.

"What, not going into work today?" she joked, eying my sweat shirt and baseball cap - not typical work wear for 10 a.m.

I didn't bother to explain that my schedule is not one that follows the 8 a.m.-to-5 p.m. shift.

I never work 8 to 5. Now, with a 1-month-old baby at home, my schedule is even more inconsistent.

So what does an editor do? What are my hours? What parts of the paper do I oversee?

No two days are alike. The hours vary, the focus changes day to day, and new things arise weekly that I've never dealt with before.

But the goal of what I work for is always the same: Put out the best print and online news possible for Columbia and Marquette counties, being fair and accurate in all that we do.

A lot of what I do involves the intangibles of newspapering. I try to set a tone in the newsroom of how we go about covering stories, the types of stories we cover, what they should include, and how we treat our information sources. It's not easy to describe, and it takes years to develop.

It's day after day working with the staff and listening to them and them listening to me to know how we should handle the myriad events that come up. It's learning about the community and what its interests are. It's pulling from the experience of the staff and how they have handled things in previous situations. Still, new things happen all the time that I've never dealt with before.

That's part of the fun.

As I've said many times, I'm lucky to have the staff I do ... and in turn, the community is lucky to have the staff covering the stories important to the region.

I'm lucky because I can be flexible. I don't have to be here all the time. The staff members know the expectations. They get the job done. A big part of my job is to set expectations that will carry on whether I am in the office or not.

I don't assign all the stories you see in the newspaper. The reporters are expected to come up with most of them on their own. But I get news tips all the time, and I assign stories to reporters to work on.

As far as my hours, my "regular" schedule is working Sunday through Friday. There are some things I do every day. I edit all the stories for the next day's paper other than those in the Sports section. I put together what we call a "budget" of stories for the next day's edition, working with Assistant Editor Michael Thompson. I work with reporters, answer questions from the community, read letters to the editor, coordinate with other departments in the building, etc., etc., etc. I even write a news story every now and then. And I'm back to writing this column every week.

And there are always other things. Completing performance reviews (I'm responsible for 10 employees). Working on computer training. Communicating with my boss, Publisher George Althoff.

I'm constantly catching up with e-mails and phone calls. I'm checking on news Web sites, including The Associated Press. I'm coordinating with other Capital Newspapers editors. I'm posting breaking news to our Web site or posting online photo galleries.

I work from about 5 p.m. to midnight most Sundays. I edit stories and design pages for Monday's edition.

On Mondays and Tuesdays, I'm in during the day, although it's not 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It's more like 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. or so.

On Mondays, we have a newsroom staff meeting. I usually get the Advice pages ready for the week and do all the other things I've already mentioned.

On Wednesday, Thursdays and Fridays, I help "close" the paper, which means I stay until the print deadline (11:45 p.m.) editing stories and laying out pages, along with Michael. Craig Spychalla, our features editor, does that job on Mondays and Tuesdays.

It's different every day. There is a framework of things I have to do, and the rest is fighting fires.

I like being the editor here because I'm "hands-on." I edit stories and design pages and write the occasional story. At larger newspapers than this one, the job can become administrative.

So the job definitely varies from paper to paper, but the title of editor has a certain romance to it. Some people think the editor is in charge of the entire newspaper.

It's an interesting notion. With all due respect to my friends in the advertising department, no one thinks the advertising manager is in charge of the entire paper.

I think it's because first and foremost we are a "news" paper. Editors in movies and books and television shows have been portrayed with a great deal of power.

There is power that comes with being an editor, but I see the job as being neutral in most ways. The key job of newspapers is to inform and reflect the community. In rare occasions we play an advocacy role, however. For example, we spearheaded the Portage Cares effort to help the children found in the West Oneida Street house in 2007. It has about $30,000 in the fund.

I'm always looking for feedback. Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. Enjoy the warm weekend.

Jason Maddux is editor of the Daily Register. Reach him at jmaddux@capitalnewspapers.com or at 745-3517.