Getting out ... just to get out

In 30 years I had only three or four decent managers, and the rest of them didn't want ambitious talent. They just wanted the desk to make deadline. That mentality was stupefying and infuriating: "Just dumb it down to match everyone else, and don't make waves."

These were big papers, too. The corporate bureaucracy killed the kind of creative spirit that used to make newspapers great, and when the layoffs got to me in the seventh or eighth round, I had been ready and waiting to leave for two years.

I wasn't going to quit, though. Not when they were the ones quitting on the veterans.

I wonder what's next. I have one or two "mission jobs" left in me, but I haven't found anything along that line yet. So I'm working contract jobs while I keep looking for something good.

 

Is this job open? Where do I apply?

 

Sellout!

 

I got out because I hated my situation. I was working at one news organization and freelancing as a sports writer after hours. Did that for 10, 11 years and realized that the only job satisfaction I got -- which was from writing -- had to come under a pseudonym. That was wrong.

So I joined Peace Corps. Absolutely worse hours and a 90 percent pay cut. Yet I felt it did love me back. Or at least parts of it did, way more than sports journalism, anyway.

And now I'm in disaster relief. I miss writing and reporting, but I can honestly look and see tangible results of how my talents positively affect people. I write a grant for $50k and see people move back into their homes as a result of it. I still tell stories and report, I just do it about something else.

I also have a supervisor who, daily, tells me I rock. Journalism isn't the only industry I've ever been in, but that's a first for me. I love my life right now.

Granted, I'm not getting kids scholarships, but it's satisfying.

Next up, inchallah, is foreign service, but I'm now hoping to delay that so that I can stay where I am until fall and try to finish the rebuild here. It's weird, because I subsist on about $200 a week right now, but this is BY FAR the most satisfying job I've ever had. I have a mission -- literally.

I miss the people and the rush, but I still have my journalist friends and I get the rush from other ways. No plans to go back.

As for why I'm still on SportsJournalists.com, well, it's not like I left behind everything when I jumped the Atlantic (and later, the Pacific). I still maintain my friendships from my previous lives, and I don't see why I should be obligated to walk out on this just because I no longer work in the industry. It seems only a small portion of this board is related to the industry anyway.

 

Really, for anyone to suggest that we shouldn't be a part of this board after dedicating most of our lives to journalism -- and when the game was a lot more about real journalism, not the diluted corporate mess it has devolved into -- is pretty fucking offensive.

Might be a good time to come back and retract that douchebaggery.

 

A friend asked me what I thought about his writing under a pseudonym. I didn't know what to say. I knew that he loved writing but I told him I felt something was wrong if he couldn't use his name. Was that the wrong advice? By the way, he's trying to get out of the business for monetary reasons.

 

I got out (well, I emphasized to my boss that I wouldn't be disappointed in the least if I was next to be laid off) and earned my masters in education. My wish was granted with a book deal in hand, so that helped things a bit. But now I teach English at a community college and have a second book deal with the same publisher. I'd rather spend 2-3 years researching and writing a book than 20-30 years on the Titanic knowing it will ultimately sink with me on board.

 

This seems about right, though I'd personally flip No. 1 and 2.

The hours and the fact that I'm salary and essentially on call has sapped family time and put the brakes on any kind of fulfilling social life. I could care less about the money ... yeah, I'd love to make more, but after nine years I've learned to manage at $20-30K/year and would gladly make around the same again if it meant "normal" hours and work-free weekends.

 

My father beat me as a child, and my mother made me eat my vegtables.

 

I stick around here for the pro wrestling discussion.

 

That attitude is not limited to the newspaper industry.

 

Well, I'm not going back now.