If you've worked at the same job for a number of years, you've probably had the same reaction as I did last week while posting the OnMilwaukee.com Weekend Preview.
As I Photoshopped some random heads on a background, I asked myself just how many times I've done this over the 11 years since I launched the company from my dining room table (probably not wearing pants at the time, but I can't be sure).
I knew the answer was "a lot," but I wanted to know an exact number. Fortunately, we have an archive of such things, and it turned out to be 465 times. Granted, there have been a few weeks here and there when someone else hit "save and review," but for the most part, that was me uploading it (writing the "WP," however, is a team effort). Playing "posting monkey" is not the most glamorous aspect of my job, but it's certainly among the most repetitive.
I took a few minutes to count up other things I've done over and over and over again, as well as a few other amazing and less amazing figures. With a little help from Quickbooks, our content management system and my own fading memory, it wasn't really that hard.
Take every statistic with a grain of salt, though, considering that for every repetitive task, someone else has filled in once in a while, and that some of these metrics aren't perfect, either.
I'm sure you, too, have similar stats to share. I'd love to hear them through our Talkbacks below.
4,591: Checks I've signed since 2000.
$.03: The smallest check we ever received, from an affiliate program that we promptly canceled (no, we didn't cash it).
$21,495.25: Largest individual check we ever received from a client.
$20,539.83: Total amount spent on buying weather data from AccuWeather (since 2000).
36: Number of salaried employees in history of OnMilwaukee.com, LLC.
5: Number of people we've fired.
2: Employees who married each other.
8: Number of children born to current employees since they started here.
730: Active and expired articles, blogs and briefs I've written with my byline.
Unknown: Briefs I've written with "OnMilwaukee Staff Writer" byline.
3: Number of original Violent Femmes I have interviewed.
745: Readers polls I've posted on OnMilwaukee.com.
107: Total number of freelancers we've used.
28: Bobblehead dolls that have found their way into my office.
1: Desktop computers I've owned since summer of 2004.
3,701: E-mails I've sent since my mail program crashed on Jan. 15, 2007.
1: Number of sitting presidents who have been in my office.
1: Number of "American Idol" winners who have been in my office.
1: Number of Hall of Fame baseball players who have been in my office.
1: Number of Milwaukee mayors who have been in my office.
1: Number of known pimps who have been to the office.
2: Number of medical procedures I have traded for advertising.
68,809: Talkbacks that our staff has read and approved since we implemented our current system on May 30, 2005.
1,289: Talkbacks that we've declined during that time.
64: User bans we've implemented for spamming or otherwise offensive reasons.
77: Talkbacks to my blog, "I hate Cubs fans."
88: Talkbacks to my blog, "McCain throws in the towel with vexing veep pick."
1: Talkback to my 2004 interview with Mayor Tom Barrett.
167: Number of active URLs that OnMilwaukee.com owns.
5,309,524: Unique visitors to OnMilwaukee.com over the last 36 months (according to Google Analytics).
5,627,967: Population of the Wisconsin in July, 2008 (according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division).
125: Number of "tweets" since I gave up my objection to Twitter on July 25, 2009.
141: Following my Twitter feed, reading insightful comments like "Running while pushing a baby is waaaaay harder. Unless you're a baby, then it's probably waaaaay easier."
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
