Job Opportunity Dilemma: Love Location or Love Cash. WWYD?

Maybe it’s because you get used to it, with so many job changes in the media business (and other industries too), but other than when I left my first full time job, I don’t remember being emotional on my last day. Actually, in a couple cases, I was quite excited to be leaving.

Yes, you leave behind colleagues you enjoyed working with and some of whom became good friends. But as a rule I pack my box of belongings, wish everyone good luck and walk out the door without looking back.

 

None of my friends — people who would bail me out or get in trouble with me — are from newspapers. Those newsroom friends I made were of a time and place that no longer exists. I have fond memories of folks I worked and hung out with, but I’m not really in contact with any of them.

 

One thing I never got was the weepy goodbye column. If you’ve been in the same place for 20 years or more, OK maybe. But even then it’s easy to let ego overinflate the role you play in the life of the community.

My first two stops I was a one-man department and I stayed roughly 13 months at each. I tacked on a single sentence at the end of my last column and called it good.

 

Agreed. The old days were great, but it's all business now below the surface.

With some exceptions, of course.

 

Someone I worked with a while ago left the newspaper world and got a spokesperson job in government (in a smallish city). She quickly learned that the speed of government is slow, slower and slowest — especially compared to being on deadline at a daily newspaper.

 

I do some side work in government comms. It is as slow as molasses. So many approvals are needed. We're so used to operating without a safety net in the newsroom and dealing with the consequences of messing up later, which is probably not the way it should be.

 

I've worked at one newspaper in a small town for 25+ years. Almost every week I meet somebody who has no freaking clue who I am, and I always assume most people don't know me.
Hopefully I'm able to go out on my own terms some day and be able to write a farewell column. I'll still assume nobody knows who I am or cares all that much. Even if I stay here forever, other people come and go often enough that there are always new faces.

 

I worked for a suburban newspaper chain for 25 years, going between the two biggest papers and sometimes working for both at the same time - wherever they needed me, I went - I was the Swiss army knife, if you will (which I still am at my current job). I worked in several areas at the papers - sports, news, business, special sections, copy editing, online editing, photography - so I knew a lot of people across the 20 communities.

I did not write a goodbye column when I left to take a public-sector job. I have many great memories from that quarter-century, but it would have been an exercise in ego. No thanks.

 

Agree with several posters. I had a wonderful career full of special experiences, but nothing memorable enough to leave an imprint on the average listener/reader.

Even if you're Cronkite, Scully, Bisher, Royko or Herb Caen, somebody will wind up replacing you. Hell, Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon and NASA found more astronauts after he retired.

Employment in any industry is a negotiated two-party deal that can be ended by either side without further obligation. I've been fired and I've left on my own terms. But I never felt the need to explain my reasons for leaving to anyone outside of the building. There were dozens of sports editors at the Rocky Mount Evening Telegram before my name showed up on the page and plenty more have taken the job in the 25 years since I left.

Don't let work define your worth as a person. But to the original post: Take the better job now, take the better life as soon as you don't need the job any more.

 

Wise words. This is definitely a paycheck job. Like coaching Purdue football. Once it’s done (I’m overpaid) and they will toss me aside, I’ll be off to return to the beach. Can’t wait.

It’s a weird place to be now. The pay is great but, once the bean counters take a look, I’ll get shown the door probably in a couple years. Living frugally so I can walk to my next stage with my retirement account waiting — and lots of curiosity for whatever wil be next.