Seattle Times seeking Kraken/NHL reporter

Seems pretty clear they made the move to beat the deadline for when she would have Guild protection.

So that would leave this either/or question ...

1) They thought she was doing fine, had little problem with her performance, and decided to fire her anyway.

2) They had issues with her performance and decided to fire her.

 

Did the Kraken play a part?

 

If there were issues, it shouldn’t have been a surprise to her.

 

It would seriously surprise me if they thought she was doing fine, had little problem with her performance, and whacked her anyways. Even for this industry and especially considering the optics of the situation.

 

And the timing, to whack the beat writer halfway through the season? Makes zero sense for them to do that for no reason at all.

 

Reading the responses to Portnoy’s tweet, someone mentioned that she was let go from the Herald, implying it was a performance issue. It wasn’t. It was early in the pandemic when the company was looking to cut costs. They let several people go around the same time.

 

small point, she says it was a surprise, who knows if she was warned or given direction that she didnt take? The Times isnt gonna say, nor should they.

 

Riddle me this. If you’ve got to get rid of some people, budget notwithstanding, are you gonna lay off your best performers or the ones who’ve been a pain in the ass that you’ve had to warn a bunch of times to chill out?

 

If the Guild has a last-in, first-out rule, your decisions are made for you.

You could do what the Baltimore Sun did years ago, promoting the younger and cheaper employees to exempt positions so they could get further up the seniority list, but most places aren't that Machiavellian.

Someone is not telling the truth here. I'm interested to see whom it is.

 

Does it matter that they are firing her and advertising to fill that position? So it isn't a layoff by any stretch.

 

That might be the case but if her version of events is true and it just came out of nowhere, either that’s bad management or she has even less self-awareness than I do.

 

I know a few of the other people the company let go at the same time. It was not performance with them.