Is there a negative stigma to covering high school sports?

Weekend fun? Yeah, I lived that life for a while and it sucked. I lived for the weekends and hated every other morning when the alarm went off. I won't fault someone for wanting to make good money, but I personally wanted something more stimulating for 40 hours of my life Monday-Friday.

 

Sometimes, it's about timing. You might not care to be a well-paid pharmacist in your 20s, or even you're 30s, and would opt every time, then, for sports journalism.

In your 40's and beyond, it may very well be a dream job. Especially if it pays that much.

Seriously, perspective is key, and that tends to change with age and circumstances. If you've done everything you wanted to do in sports writing, and/or everything that your abilities/opportunities are likely to allow, I could see a life change to a new season that might include an (especially, relatively) well-paying pharmacist job.

 

If I may add on ... while I covered local sports for 18 of my 23 years in the business, and loved every second of the grind, it got to be old and repetitive which is why I switched over to the news side.

 

This is absolutely true. I think I was pretty happy in newspapers, up until the final five years or so when the chain's dedication toward print eroded fast. And the annual merit increases added up over time. But now that I'm in a second career completely away from journalism, I find myself half as wealthy and twice as happy. I never considered that employees might be treated with more respect by their bosses.

 

Yes, but there's that certain something about being in a newsroom that I miss.

 

Me, too. Definitely. But a couple of factors there. I always said I missed writing -- on 13 Friday nights each year. I could have done without most of the rest. And second, those last five years I referred to weren't spent in a newsroom. The newsroom was a block away in a business park. The production staff worked in a concrete cubicle in the press plant.

 

Stable hours, flexibility, security. I might consider selling out for those things.

I was talking to a former employee at my first shop, where one editor lamented how so many good journalists had started only to eventually leave th business. That paper paid poorly at best, and he pointed out, people want to own houses and start families and actually see those families. And if they want those things, a sellout might be just what the doctor ordered (prescribed?)

 

At least two hours of my day each day are spent scanning nursing-home discharge notices and logging them. And I don't mind it at all. You get into a rhythm. (Plus, the rest of the day is a wide variety of duties, in and out of the office.)

 

I have three friends and one neighbor who are all pharmacists. They all hate their jobs. They have all told me I made the right decision following a career I loved. To each his own. I choose to believe them.

 

Now this I can agree with. Well said, Write.

 

There’s an interesting hair to split here.

I love my job. I don’t really like what my job does to my life. I’m sure they’ll say they hate their jobs and following the dream is great (the grass is probably greener for us all). Then if they were to be asked, how would you like working 3-11 Tuesday-Saturday mug of your 20s and always be at risk having to interrupt a night out with friends becuase some college kid tweeted he tore his ACL at 9 pm? Well, they might like their shift work. (And I’m probably understating the crushingness of a really dull job).

And I like that job, but I can see the appeal of taking two weeks in Europe in the fall. I’ve got friend who do it every other year. The only fall trips I’ll take are for weddings and funerals.

 

While we're hair splitting, this:

Is 'negative stigma' redundant?

(Insert career on the copy desk joke here _____.)