$15-20K/year FT position

Tue whole "make your age in wages" is a dream for me. Between my current paper and previous paper, the company is smaller, the population area is more than double, but the circulation is the same. So I make $6k less than I used to make. I'm really greatful my wife makes more than twice my wage. Her money supports our basics (housing, bills, groceries, health care) and mine is for paying down debts, then luxuries like new furniture or vacation. I'm under little pressure to make a professional wage. Doesn't mean I'm at all happy about it, but I'm also in a position in which my health won't hold up to a full-time schedule in the future. I expect to be working part time or even freelancing before I'm 40. If I were healthy, I would worry more about my future and how to find a completely different career. Good luck to those of you trying to make something better happen.

 

I am glad some people at smaller papers have found the time to work a second job. Experience with my friends has been they busted their ass and worked all kinds of crazy hours for the 20K or whatever pay.

Most of them did move up to good jobs, but I thought they were crazy for the devotion they showed.

However, I think it would probably be very hard to move on from a smaller paper if you are stopping at 40 hours and saying you aren't covering the Podunk High game on Friday because you have a shift at Old Navy.

 

For our paper (and many others, I assume) it's the other way around.

The person covering Podunk High is a stringer who already has a regular job and is doing this for extra money (or because he kind of likes it).

That being said, we have a handful of deskers who teach at colleges on the side.

 

In my experience the harder you work (or the better you are at you job – not always the same thing), the more flexible your schedule. The schedule is sometimes a boss's only reliable tool for rewarding good employees.

If you're good at your job, and you put in an honest 40 hours, most bosses are happy to give you the flexibility you need with your scheduling. If you suck, or if your 40 hour-work week includes 20 hours of Web surfing and chit-chatting, then probably not.

 

In my experience, if it's a smaller paper and you are the Sports Editor (and the sports staff) you may or may not have a boss checking your hours, but the work still needs to get done.

If Podunk High is the main school in town, you are probably not going to let a freelancer handle the game for you, unless it's a wedding, funeral or just a soccer game.

 

She makes about five times what I make. You should see her cackle when she sees my paychecks. She then says: "Good thing you're cute."

To which I say: "I ain't saying I'm a golddigger, but I ain't messing with no broke lawyer."

The funniest was during the stock market rebound in 2009-2010. I was making $18,000 at my job and made $6,000 on my investments in the market. There were days I made more off United States Steel stock earnings than my actual job.

 

This.

You guys sound like a bunch of old hens in a henhouse with all this bitching around here.

You don't like it? Quit.

 

That's brilliant.

 

I've spent 32 years doing something I love and --- thanks in large part to my former shop --- have saved a ton of money for retirement.

If that's being used . . .

 

Yeah, I don't feel like I'm being used. I choose to do this. When I move on to something else, I'll miss it.

 

Though the two shops I've worked at over the past five years haven't been anywhere near perfect, I have to say my experiences are in line with the previous few posts. Shop No. 1 took a chance on me after I'd been out of full-time work for two years and looked at my overall body of work and breadth of experience rather than my actual qualifications for the job, which weren't a perfect fit. It then stuck with me during a transition period that had a lot of rough patches. At Shop No. 2, I generally like the work, and my co-workers. The workload is often as heavy as anything I've experienced, but the boss does everything he can to make sure we don't burn out (to the point of jumping in as a rimmer or designer on heavy nights). There's never a problem with him as long as we arrive on time, work hard and display a good attitude. So no, I don't feel used. It could end tomorrow with cutbacks and layoffs and devolve into a sweatshop in a hurry, but until then I'll stick with it.

 

A good boss can make all the difference. Now more than ever, maybe.