D-Day Has Arrived At My Shop. Wish Me Luck.

Sorry to hear of what's happening at your place Pete.
Have to agree with Moderator I and BYH. No sense of jumping out of the water before you have to. Get the money and anythng else that they are giving.

 

I am glad everything is OK.

I think you are planted in your current location for a spell, but hopefully if this happens again, these past 24 hours can be used as a learning experience.

Jesus, what shitty times we are living in right now.

 

Inky, I can sympathize. I have a son turning one in a few days, and dread the day when news like this gets delivered here. So far, it hasn't. I consider myself lucky.

 

Inky, glad to hear you're still gainfully employed and I hope this status continues.

Zeke and Mizzou are right. When I was unemployed in 2002-2003, I couldn't even get a nibble at Barnes & Noble or Sport Chalet, let alone the newspapers I was applying at. And that economy was better than this one by a longshot.

 

Not to be newsy, but what did you find Bird?

 

Drip, I got incredibly lucky. After 10 months of unemployment, I latched on at a PR firm I worked with when I was a writer. Best move I ever made.

Turned out getting fired from my last newspaper job at that time was a blessing.

 

I clearly see the logic here, BYH, but the longer you wait to look for a new job, the more glutted the market's going to be. Not the decision lynchpin, perhaps, but something to consider nonetheless.

 

Okay. Here's the final verdict — and I feel bad.

Our rag, which it will soon become because we lost GREAT designers and it will be laid out at a sister paper in a town 45 minutes away, laid off 11 people — not 13 as I was originally told.

We lost every single copy editor/paginator/layout person/desker (choose your term).
We lost our sports editor (who assigns and edits my assignments and lays out the three- to four-page sports section).
We lost our opinion page and lifestyles editors (same tasks as above).
We lost a reporter.
We lost the full-time, paid intern.
We lost one photographer.

All those were in the union.

We also lost our news/web editor and night editor from management.

One of the copy editors arrived here two years ago after I encouraged her to come to "a very good paper that treats its employees well." Boy, I was wrong. She moved across the country for the job.

The lifestyles editor has a newborn, maybe four months old. He's never reported. Ever. So he can't bump anyone.

The night editor moved here from 14 hours away in November. It's his second layoff in three years.

The intern quit her well-playing, decent job because "she had a passion for journalism and thought she'd be happier" at a newspaper. Her husband was recently laid off from a manufacturing job.

The opinion page editor will accept a huge severance and retire comfortably.

The sports editor, the only person who can bump me in seniority, will do so — if management deems him to have the skills to do so. I don't think he will because he hasn't taken a photo in a dog's age and hasn't written in longer. And he's never blogged.

However, if he does bump me, I will bump into news. Which is fine. It'll be a good break and good for my resume.

The photog is an admitted flaky hippie type and is just "gonna go back to school." He's a cool dude. Nothing affects him. Ever.

That's that. I'm still employed. Barely. I'm ahead of one photographer and one reporter on the seniority list. But just because I'm employed, doesn't mean I'm happy. I feel for these folks. I went in to see my friend the copy editor tonight and we went for coffee. I know it's not much, but I bought all those working tonight and were laid off the nightly coffee.

This industry is cruel and sad right now, folks.

 

Good luck, Pete and everybody at your shop. I was laid off a few weeks ago on my off day. It's never good when you get called in to a meeting with the top editor on your off day.

Reading this thread just emphasizes why I'm looking for jobs outside the industry

 

I know what it's like to survive the chopping block.

At my two jobs ago gig, I was one of three people brought in to be researchers at a publishing company in October of 2003. In November or December, the company hired someone else to do a different job.

In February 2004, the company cut four positions. Normally, that would mean I'd be out on my ear. However, they laid off the two people who were hired the same day I was and the person who was hired afterward. They also laid off a guy in another department who had just bought a house with his wife. I was very pointedly spared.

I found out later how I was spared. During the management meetings when they were discussing the layoffs, my name was mentioned. The vice president for technology (not the department I worked for) spoke up and said he noticed I was constantly on the phone and working and he sacrificed one of his own employees so I could keep my job.

I can still remember seeing the e-mail from the big boss and being scared out of my mind. I remember seeing one of the women who was let go (she was one of the people who started the same day I did) when she visited my office to say goodbye and gave me a hug.

I know how a day like that can play with your emotions, even if you're one of the ones who's safe for now. You know that if there's another round of cuts, you may be next. And that's never a good place to be.

It's time to update that resume and send it out again. But I'm sure you already knew that.

 

Glad you still have a job Pete.

At least no one asked what you did there!

 

Ain't that the truth. It's like your "overqualified" for everything. Even jobs where the pay sucks.