Copy editor, New Jersey

good. sadly, though, i'm guessing management will not receive the message, though.

 

It's a big loss for them. He carried a lot of the load. He paginated the weekly entertainment section, which believe me, was a huge pain in the ass, aside from his night desk duties.
Unlike his peers, they didn't have to worry about him calling out once a week. (By the way, we never referred to it as calling out 'sick.' If we had, these people would've been in the burn ward. It was always bullshit, and everyone knew it. Sadly, no one with any actual power called 'em on it.)
Back to my friend. He came in and did his job, like an adult.
When the two of us worked together, stories would get read, pages would get proofed, facts would get checked, deadlines would get met. Granted, I'm not saying the finished product was anything special. Believe me, it wasn't. But it wasn't a total embarrassment. And I'm aware enough to admit that if you put us in the same situation at the Times down the road, the two of us would've been in way over our heads.
But this was the Trentonian. A totally different animal. If you didn't fuck up too bad, no one would be any the wiser. Jelenic was too busy doing the math for girls field hockey box scores to ever give a shit about what we did.
It's a total clusterfuck, now more than ever.
When I worked there, we had one guy who would show up 2 to 2 1/2 hours late every night. And when he did finally amble in, he was baked out of his mind. Good guy in a lot of other ways, just the antithesis of a dependable copy editor.
Another guy would spend half the night on his Everquest site when he wasn't playing his Gameboy or had his feet propped up on the other side of the newsroom watching Cops. And then he had the audacity to let loose these disapproving sighs as if he were being unfairly overworked. Again, a decent guy in a lot of other ways, but, to put it kindly, not at all cut out for a copy desk.
True story: One night, I asked him to type in a cutline that went with our Desperate Housewives story on the living page. It was a photo of all the five gals all lined up in their evening gowns.
When I proofed the page, it read: Felicite Huffman, Eve Longoria, Terry Hatcher, Nicollete Sherdan and Marcica Cross. Five for fucking five. Most places, you're ass would be raw from the editor's butt chewing. Me? I shook my had, chuckled and made the changes.
Throw in the Tony Soprano's mother putting in 12 hour days to crank out the obits and the functionally illiterate Asst. City Editor with a room temperture IQ to go along with her burping problem, I guess it's safe to say no one ever confused us with the Washington Post.
All I know, the Trentonian just got worse with the Mick's departure. Hard to fathom.

 

Here's what I would say to ask yourself.

There are shops where it is bad for pretty much everybody... low pay, bad assignments, no future at the place - and it affects eight out of 10 people.

Logic would indicate that eight people would be seriously looking for a job. But the reality of that situation usually is that a couple of people are seriously looking, and maybe one or two are looking but not real intense, not real serious, and not real effective. I've been in newspaper and other places, and I can say that isn't the case... people talk about doing something to improve their situation but they don't actually DO anything. Human nature as I have observed it.

 

AND THEN THERE WERE TWO​

Ten little copy editors, sitting on the desk
One flew off because his travel expenses weren't met.

Nine little copy editors, trying to do their best
One flew to ESPN, leaving the horrid Trenton nest.

Eight little copy editors, getting through the night
A little guy got disgruntled, and gave up the fight.

Seven little copy editors doing much, much more
One was canned by the publisher, for a mistake in a box score.

Six little copy editors, the workload doesn't stop
One was called by the publisher, and fired on the spot.

Five little copy editors, that Alfa system is a thriller
One gave her notice, overwork was the killer

Four little copy editors, way too much to do
One said he was leaving, and a gave hearty "f--k you!"

Three little copy editors, wondering how they'd cope
One gave his notice, 'cause he wasn't no dope.

Now there are two little copy editors, left to pull the load
If both of them were smart, they'd soon hit the road!

In memory of a once-fine Sports Department ruined by JRC's cruel and inhumane treatment of its employees ...

 

No, it's not posssible.

 

If Aaron doesn't succumb to the dark side, he should be fine.

 

Boots, Aaron has already succumb to the dark side. He is a bigger DeRienzo than DeRienzo is, if that's even possible. Congrats really should go to Jelenic, Murray, DeRienzo, etc. for finding Aaron. Aaron should seriously be promoted, and in a hurry. He's managed to make the department so pathetic, or at least more pathetic than previously, that in three months since his arrival, one copy editor has been fired and now three others have resigned, including one on Tuesday and one yesterday. As Sinking Ship so creatively wrote, the department will have only two copy editors/paginators left in two weeks. Something is clearly wrong when three of his six copy editors resign within a week of each other and one other is fired a few weeks before that. Aaron is often mean to his employees, has suggested that 2 or 3 should find other jobs, knowingly violates the contract by telling employees they have no choice but to work OT, leaves the building early while deadlines are being blown by one hour, two hours and the current record of two hours and 28 minutes, allowed an employee to be fired without even suggesting to the publisher that the employee was valuable, and he keeps making it clear that the employees are the problem and that the Trentonian/JRC is not so bad. The guy is a clown, he's unqualified to be a manager and he's driving employees right out the door. He is JRC material if anyone ever was.

I'm sorry if he is your friend or has in the past been a nice guy or good employee. Maybe he is a nice guy elsewhere. But, sadly, the Aaron Bracy who works at the Trentonian is really a terrible person.

 

The Trentonian is a cruel and inhumane place to work. Anyone who buys the newspaper is supporting a company that mentally tortures its employees.

 

Memo From: A.B., Sports Editor

To: My Remaining Sports Staff

Subject: Morale and Negativity


Despite the fact that our staff will be down to two full-time paginators in the next two weeks, I would like to remind those of you who choose to remain that I will not tolerate any more negative comments directed towards Journal Register Company. Since I came onboard three months ago, I have concluded that the problem lies not with the Company, but with disgruntled employees who feel that they should have the world handed to them on a silver platter. So what if our benefits have been cut? You are lucky to have them. So what if we are switching to a complicated, convoluted German-based computer system that no other publishing company in America now uses? You should be lucky you are among the first people to be using it, and should throw yourself 110 percent into learning it ... and quickly.

I am not upset at the three resignations this week - far from it. I am happy they are leaving. The new people I intend to hire will not be negative, and will make The Trentonian a happy place to work. As far as I am concerned, the cancer has been cut out of the Sports Department. And as soon as new people are hired (I did a boffo phone interview with an ex-con who claims he is a whiz at page layout yesterday), I will be able to get my own writing career back on track - the true reason why, despite many, many people telling me that The Trentonian was like the Black Hole of Calcutta - I decided to take the sports editor position. Yes folks, Roger Clemens may make a rehab start with the Trenton Thunder, and I intend to whip out my tape recorder, put on my best suit, shine my gorgeous pate, and head on out to the ballpark. It's the only way I will ever get a major-league beat someday.

To summarize: If you don't like it here, please leave.

cc: Bill Murray
Union

 

Let me see if I understand all of this correctly. From reading this message board, the other 34-page debate about this place (http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/36706/), reading http://jrcbites.blogspot.com, and being in contact with some people, the following is the information I gather from the happenings at The Trentonian.

*Next Saturday will be Mr. Bracy's 3 month anniversary with The Trentonian.

*When he started at the paper on Feb. 26, 2007, the Sports Department there had a staff of 10 workers.

*In not even three months of work, under Mr. Bracy's watch, the staff is currently down to 2 writers, 2 phone answerers/local roundup writers, and two paginators. He has hired no one, although he has forced Rider student making $8 an hour and maxed out at 15 hours a week to work five nights a week.

*Mr. Bracy demanded his employees work overtime two weeks ago, telling them it's not an option and they can hit the road if they choose not to.

*The Sports Department at The Trentonian was told that they have three times as large of a sports staff as every other JRC paper in the chain and to stop complaining. What's 6 divided by 3? 2?

*Under his watch, Mr. Bracy has seen three employees get suspended and one get fired. He's also had 3 workers (2 of which have been with the company over a decade) give their two-weeks notice all within 90 hours of one another, leaving only 2 paginators left on staff (both of which have previously been harrassed and tried to get fired).

*Mr. Bracy has managed to not lay out one page in the newspaper, but he has managed to write 3 columns, 4 articles, and two "here i am, the new sports editor" briefs with his photo in the paper five times, and his name on the back page once: (Bracy: A Game To Remember). Mr. Bracy's also managed to heavily critique and demean a rookie/converted writer's layout in front of the whole department to humiliate this worker.

*Mr. Bracy has heavily promoted four blogs in the paper, one of which already no longer exists because that employee was fired. Soon, two more will no longer exist since those two workers quit. The one remaining blog hasn't been updated in a month. So, the "blog experiment" was a smashing success.

*Mr. Bracy has told 2 employees, if they don't like it to leave, and has told three employees they need to "step it up."

*Mr. Bracy has threatened to quit once but claimed his wife talked him out of it.

*Mr. Bracy has been seen crying on the job at least twice.

*Mr. Bracy comforted a 39-year sports deparment veteran by saying it's no big deal if they do fire this worker since this worker was going to retire in the next couple of years anyways. This worker has been suspended twice in the last four months and given a last-chance warning four weeks ago.

*Mr. Bracy told another worker who has a family to provide for who also was receiving similar threats from above of getting fired, that don't worry if he gets fired since he has a lot of contacts in the Philadelphia area that could get him a job. That writer was fired soon after, and Mr. Bracy hasn't contacted him since or helped him find another job.

*Under Mr. Bracy's watch, the paper hasn't hit deadline once, has been within an hour of hitting deadline three times, and has been one hour over deadline 77 times, and over two hours past deadline 37 times.

*Mr. Bracy has apparently told a prospective employee when that employee questioned him about the horrific stories he heard about the place that it's just a bunch of disgruntled ex-workers and the place is fine. This worker also apparently has a family and it's claimed the worker is moving 300 miles to Trenton.

*Also, in the past 8 months, 7 sports-staff workers have quit and 3 have been fired. None of their full-time positions have yet to be replaced, however one new full-time position was created for a writer/phone answerer/local roundup writer. Two part-time employees were replaced but one of the two was fired within the first 3 weeks on the job. Of the seven that have quit, two were seconds away from getting fired had the previous managing editor not vetoed the publisher's demand.

*The paper went 19 1/2 months without a Sports Editor. The paper has almost now gone 6 months without an Assistant Sports Editor.


Is this all true? Can it really be? And, yet, JRC's still able to con people to pack their bags, move to the Tri-State area, and work for The Trentonian. Sickens me if this all is true. Just pray for the new batch that they bring in when suddenly the "hiring freeze" conventienly no longer applies.

 

weeeeell shit, when you say it that way ...

 

So in 90 publication days, the Sports Editor has:

Written 3 columns and 6 articles/briefs;

Laid out zero (0) pages;

Missed deadline Ninety (90) times (several hundred if you count separate editions);

Had 60 percent of his staff leave, all under unhappy circumstances.

Awesome.

I think somewhere in the other thread I gave 90 days as his life expectancy. At this point, he's already pushing the over.

But as Hobbs points out, that makes him not a candidate for immediate unemployment, but probably corporate promotion.