So what's everybody doing?

The Tribune salad days (37% stock increase one year, sandwiched around a couple of stock splits) boosted it from about $40,000 to $200,000+ in a couple of years. And when Zell paid $34/share for the 8,000 shares of Tribune I still had, I just threw it into a money-market retirement fund.

That's why my 401(k) is down only about 11% from its high. 60% of it is in a money-market fund.

 

This is an idea I'm really beginning to embrace. What will get your degree in, what will you teach?

 

Amen.

And biting the bullet and trying to figure out my escape plan.

 

I'm still gainfully employed, thank God.

I'm keeping my mind off things by throwing myself into outside-work activities. I run my kids' T-ball league. So four nights a week, I go out and drag the field, put down the lines, make sure it's mowed, pull weeds, etc. I do little things around the ballpark that make it look nicer and make it more "big timey" for the kids.

At home, I try to find things to occupy my time, like doing extra work on landscaping, organizing papers, etc. I went through my closet and found all the old things I don't wear anymore, and gave them to the Salvation Army.

On weekends, I take walks with the dog and work with my sons on their homework and their baseball. We watch movies now and then, and I clean when possible, and do some laundry to help out, since my wife works full-time, too.

It's all a matter of keeping my mind occupied. It's a lot harder to worry about things when you're trying to figure out how to wire a light fixture or not crash a mower into the outfield fence.

And frankly, I've found something in the work at the ballpark makes me feel peaceful inside. It's manual labor that I enjoy.

 

Yeah, more lawyers, that's exactly what we need.

 

Don't bank on the idea of teaching. I earned my master's degree in 2006 with the hope of teaching at the college level (community college or university, it didn't matter to me). I've picked up plenty of adjunct gigs since then, but I'm still searching for that elusive full-time job.

 

Still employed full-time with my paper, 27 with one wife and no kids. I've taken 2 of 12 classes for a master's in human resource management. It was an easy program to get in to and convenient, and I can get into the material. Problem is, I'm not real motivated to keep going with it. Spending the money is one thing, but in my last class, the professor said the top two positions being laid off in the business world are middle management and human resources.
For money and time reasons, I'm not going full-time, but holding out hope that my job will carry me through until I finish it, if I finish.

 

WS, I knew you were a youngster

Seriously, good luck to everyone as the industry continues its shifting.
Someone talked about the idea of college teaching.
To me, that seems like a really cool option.

 

You know, regardless of my political ideology differences, I think of those of you who are out of the biz and out of a job and the shape of the newspaper industry as a microcasm of the stupidity of the corporate world in general and I do say a few prayers that those who are still working keep working and those who aren't somehow bounce back soon. Then again, I also pray this prayer for the millions of hurting people out there in other trades and I thankful for the grace that has allowed me to be among the fortunate to have a job. The whole situation is sad and it's not because the journalism industry isn't doing it's job or has become less relevant. You can't help you work for idiots.

I pray that these people become more recognizable to the world for who they are. May God break a leg on each so we will know them by their limp.

God speed to all.

 

I'm getting my master's in journalism. I hope to teach journalism at the college level after I get my master's. While there may not always be a need for teachers that know newspapers, there will always be a need for teachers of human communication and mass communication.... That isn't going anywhere. So even as newspaper-style journalism evolves, the need for the teaching of mass communication will be there. Hopefully.