Stretched-thin folk: How do you deal with no overtime?

I agree with your post, Zag, especially this one, as one of my colleagues is this guy.

I will say, however, that it doesn't prevent me from working pretty close to "only" 40 hours each week. And I'm not worried about my job a la your No. 2, because I bust my ass for those 40 hours, and I'm fairly confident, based on feedback, that my work has been acknowledged and valued from above.

 

I don't doubt that the numbers are tight, economically, for them, but it seems silly to me that they're going to take it out on sports. That is the one thing that makes you really distinctive from the other papers in your coverage area, since the news product pales in comparison to the other shops. If anything, they should be sacking some of the news staff and editors, and in turn relying more on freelance for those areas. They run a lot of profile and event coverage anyway, not hard-nosed investigative stories, so it's not like you're asking a college kid to do too much for the $25 to $50 per story.

 

Until you're asked to cover JV dance.

 

Thanks for the kind words. I wish you were in charge here.

 

So, update time.

Got an email from some big wig complaining that we're not updating our web site often enough. Sent a reply to our ads manager (who forwarded me said email) and told her we're not updating the site because we don't have the time to do so.

Not 20 minutes later, the news editor sends me an email back "demanding" that we make it a priority to update these sites and put our photos up for sale or he'll "find people that will".

Luckily, I'm the calm type so I'm going to our editorial meeting Monday and am going to give him the lo-down. Either we get paid the time to do it, or he tells us how we're suppose to cover everything we're suppose to cover IN ADDITION to all the trivial shit he wants us to do.

His response is going to be "Well, make it work", at which point we'll scale back our coverage and scale back on the pages we take.

Needless to say, this is going to be fun ...

 

Don't back down, and good luck.

 

I'm rooting for you, but I have serious doubts this will turn out well for you. I've been in the same boat. In fact, I'm manning one of the oars right now. I'm on my 20th consecutive day of work with no real end game in sight. The best I get from any of them is "Hey, I know you're busy, but we need you guys to do this, this, this and this, too." When I ask them just how we're supposed to pull this stuff out of our ass or what things can we drop in order to do what they ask, their reply always is to not drop anything.

I'd quit if I could, but I know no matter how good I am or think I might be, there are hordes of people out there who can replace me. Plenty who actually are probably better at this than me. The bosses know that, too.

Sucks to be in this biz right now.

 

Typical corporate jackass response to say, "Make it work."

What you should do is put him on the spot by asking him what, exactly, he wants you to do to make it work. Have him spell out what work that he will expect to be sacrificed in order for you and your staff to do this extra work. And tell him that if he expects more, then he should expect overtime. And if he threatens you with firing again, threaten him with a report to the Department of Labor. (Keep a hidden tape recorder for your meeting too, for proof).

And Freddie, working 20 straight days is not healthy, not to mention utterly ridiculous. Take some time off. If management won't let you, remind them of the labor laws, too.

 

Start documenting everything and sue when you leave your job.

 

Best of luck. Go in with a plan of exactly what you're going to say. It will be hard, but calmly stick to your guns.
Otherwise you'll end up working 20 consecutive days like Freddie.

 

I was actually all gung ho about going into the office, on my own time, and counting every single person's bylines/photo bylines for the last two months to show the amount of work we do and how it's at least TWICE as much as everyone else but Friday, we learned a local football coach who we all really liked was killed in a car crash and that kind of took away all the venom I had.

Still thinking about doing it, just to show that we're already doing a ton of stuff and to ask us to do more is unfair. Anyone think this is a bad move?

(And FWIW, I'd be counting byline stories and byline photos & calculating the amount of pages we've paginated.)

 

Never leave the office and fill the section with roundups and press releases.