Tales of working on Christmas...

got hired by a certain big paper's newish stepsister about 10 years ago and was told if i'd work xmas, i'd get double pay. afterward, they didn't get my paperwork done so they paid me as a contract freelancer instead and said because i wasn't technically an employee (which i was told i was being hired as) i wasn't eligible for double pay. assholes.

 

Worked every Christmas (heck, every holiday) when I was in newspapers. Easy way to make a bit of extra money while also avoiding most of the family chaos.

Best one ever was the first one after I got married, when I said "F$%# this noise!" and made plans to never have to work Christmas again. Since they're used to it anyway, I can still just tell the relatives I'm working, and spend it with my wife.

The plan is flawless.

 

Christmas of 2002, I believe. Had been working as a part-timer at a 22K shop for about two years while I was still in school, and slowly had been getting more and more responsibilities as I proved myself. I had only been laying out pages for a month or two, and it was usually just wire pages that were simple to do. Had never done a front and jump page before.

Christmas day we get hit with like a foot of snow. Myself and one other sports guy were supposed to work but his car spun into a ditch and he couldn't get there. SE is in Syracuse with his family, ASE is in Maryland, and other full-timer doesn't do pages. So it's me alone. Our ME throws some 75-inch wire story on the front with huge pictures and it jumps to like 3/4 of an inside page with other photos. Tells me I'm on my own to figure out the other three pages while he goes to spend time with his family.

I somehow get the section done not knowing what I'm doing all that well and it didn't look half-bad. From that point on I learned how to do everything as far as laying out pages in case another jam like that happened, and by the time I was hire full time two years later was regularly laying out the section by myself.

Seven years after that Christmas day the same ME who left me on my own that Christmas calls me into his office and tells me I've been laid off due to budget cutbacks. Tells me that I'm a specialty employee who only writes and doesn't contribute to the department in other areas. Tells me if I learn how to lay out pages I'll make myself much more marketable to future employees. I sit forward in my chair, stare him right in the eye and tell him I've been laying out pages for 7 years. His mouth hangs open, I ask if we're done, he tells me I have 15 minutes to clean out my desk, and I was gone.

 

I was wrong.

You win.

 

I win. I've worked every Festivus.

 

Yeah, but at worst, you probably got paid in jambalaya.

I got Burger King.

And neither of us got booted after 7 years of unrecognized work.

 

worked today, laid out three sports sections. working tomorrow, doing the same. much better than last year. cashed an unemployment check for a little over $300 that week.

 

Last night was exceedingly busy for me as I designed and edited the sports section. That bowl game (the Hawaii Bowl) ending right near deadline was no help, either.

 

You could have stopped at "to hear Nick Saban" and you still would have won.

 

We had one of those "New Sheriff In Town" blowhards you come across from time to time in this business take over the department about six weeks before Christmas. He decides he wants to clean house, bring in his own people, etc. His method of driving me out of town was to have me work the late shift on the desk eight straight nights through Christmas, give me one day off, then have me work the late shift nine days through New Year's. At the end of this stint, I ended up being tipped off that the boss was going around telling the higher ups I had a lousy attitude. Gee, wonder why.

Anyway, the good that came out of this was that I used the day off to send out feelers to competitors and one of those contacts directly led to my big career break soon thereafter. So, Merry Christmas.

 

Please tell me you actually got paid overtime for this.

 

Not a dime.