I'm a PM, and I spent time as a writer and editor of my high school newspaper that was probably more useful to my career than anything else I did in high school or college. Learning how to ask the right questions, understand people's perspectives and biases and to take a bunch of related information and turn it into a coherent narrative that keeps people engaged are useful skills just about everything and certainly in this job.
They never found out who stole it! The bus story became somewhat of an urban legend.
And I'm with ya. I learned so much working for the paper. Perhaps one unexpected skill was cold calling. In sales getting over that fear is an enormously important barrier to cross. Once you do it though, it makes a lot of things in life easier.
For stories I'd have to call people or go find them, frequently when they screwed up, frequently when they did not want to talk to me. Just like the story above—the transit manager did not want to talk to me, but I spent a day and a half hunting him down. He didn't answer my calls, so I went down to where the buses get dispatched from in the afternoon and asked a driver where to find him. That "Somebody just didn't want to wait" quote came from that interaction.
About a year later I started a coupon website. I went door-to-door trying to get local business to buy in. That's probably not something I could have done, if I hadn't worked for the paper first.
Man, good for you - I hate hate hate hate hate cold calling. I think the job I would want least in life is outbound cold calling. But I totally agree with you - I wouldn't say I ever really developed the skill, but I learned just shove the anxiety down deep and go do it, because it's gotta be done. That has served me pretty well.
Did they find out who stole the bus??