Photo: Getty Images

There are a million good reasons to come to work every day at O; one of the best is getting to hang out with editor at large Gayle King. Whether we're kicking around story ideas or reviewing layouts, she is an unbridled enthusiast, finding the gentlest ways to register displeasure on the rare occasions when she feels it. (Confronted with an oblique photo or a confusing headline, she'll sweetly leave it at, "I don't know, y'all....")

A lot of Gayle's work happens outside the office as well, at one of the dozen or so events—private movie screenings, Broadway premieres, glittering benefits—she's invited to each week. At the end of a long day, when the rest of us are feeling a bit bedraggled, it isn't unusual to run into Gayle in the ladies' room, shimmying into some knockout gown (a pile of rejects flopped over the top of the stall) and needing a hand with her zipper. Then there's the next day's download: Whether she ended up losing her BlackBerry at the Drake concert, enduring a hot flash on the red carpet at the Time 100 dinner, or wearing the same dress as Alfre Woodard at the Tony Awards, we find ourselves tearing up with laughter and marveling at the ground she covers. Says Gayle, "A friend of mine recently told me, 'You're the only person I know who in the space of one week could go to a state dinner at the White House, a clearance sale at Neiman Marcus, a Carrie Underwood concert, and Shake Shack with your kids and love it all.' And I really do!"