Holy cow, I need to lay off the SpoJo

I think I've been here since 2003. If not earlier. Fuck, I'm old.

 

It's incredible I haven't posted under my original screen name in 10 years and I'm still in the top five. What a fucking looser.

To echo @Driftwood, I don't mind whatever snafu happened that forced me to sign up under a different handle. I was younger, much dumber (hard to believe, I know) and less secure in myself back then. I went thru a lot that forced me to finally grow up during the back half of the BYH handle (lost my Mom, fell out of the biz for a while, became a Dad) and I hope I'm a much better person now than I was then. Arguing online is dumb and pointless. I feel bad about all the nonsense I got into back in the day. My apologies to @hondo in particular...I was a jerk. I even feel bad about the stuff with @outofplace, though he is wrong about everything.

It's sort of wild how this place was the original Twitter, where we'd come to rage engage and yell shit at complete strangers about everything. But it feels like almost all of that has disappeared...perhaps b/c of a combo of Twitter turning completely toxic, the business thinning out and the base level of respect we all have for one another as current or former journalists. Anyone here automatically has something in common with everyone else and that seems to take precedence over any disagreements. Anyway, enough of that kumbaya shit, Tom Wilson is a punk and if I ever see @Cosmo again I'm going to punch him in the face.

 

Question BYH - does it stand for Bless Your Heart? The southern version of GFY?

 

If you don't know, FUCK YOU!!!!

Believe it or not, it's BitterYoungHack. I was 29 when I started here! I think Moddy was the first to ask what the hell I was thinking. But the biz still felt like one dominated by older, more experienced journos and I was still in my first decade in the biz. Long time ago!

 

What does DO stand for?


(Just teasing.)

 

Great post.

 

Speaking of being a bitter young hack, oh Mother Mary was I a bitter hack in my 30s. I was was working 60-65 hours a week for peanuts, and my life's schedule was dictated by local sports teams.
"Oh, you scheduled vacation six months ago and have tickets and reservations? Sorry, the local U12 tiddlywinks team made the state sub sectionals, so you'll have to cover that. It's important. Try to beg your way into the hospitality room to eat because the paper can't afford to give you per diem."

It's probably best I started afresh after six years away. I'd probably be embarrassed to see what the bitter young me might have posted here.

 

Its truly amazing how poorly newspapers treated employees. I don't know if newsrooms were worse because they took advantage of the "its a calling" BS j-schools infect in students on young people. I know I was full-on "joe reporter" 24/7, cared about the community, felt an obligation to the profession and the readers to make sacrifices - Boy was I dumb. Got the usual, HR needs to see you and walked out the door by the editor when I was let go. Oregon has lost 80 percent of its journos since 2000. I was one of those stories (Duh, Dun). FFwd to this week, was promoted to a new position at another facility, had a chance to say goodbye to colleagues I've been working with the last five years, they signed two cards for me because one wasn't big enough. I preferred the latter way to exit.

 

Damn, I was just in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago. We could have staged a showdown somewhere near LGA. Missed opportunity.

 

I think a lot of us were bitter about 20 years ago and just so happened to be in our 20s or early 30s. We'd fought our way into this business in some form or another -- some of us at smaller papers and others at bigger shops -- and saw the nonsense this gig entailed and also probably felt like the last passengers to board the Titanic.

 

I remember distinctly about this time of year in 1997 (my fourth year in the biz), I was covering my fourth or fifth basketball doubleheader of the week and writing in my notebook "Won't be here this time next year." Well, it took me until Aug. 2012 to actually do it, but my life over the last dozen years has been exponentially better.

The last several years of being assistant sports editor, I was an asshole to people I shouldn't have been, especially during basketball season. I'm talking losing my mind over something as simple as not having a seat at the table, which was rectified in about 15 seconds, but I'd lose my mind. "Oh, sorry. We didn't think you'd be here tonight. We'll get you a chair." "I don't know why you didn't think I'd be here. I'm here every time the GD doors are open." "It's basketball homecoming, and the game is going to start a half hour late? JFC you people are assholes. Don't you know people just want to go home?" That sort of thing.
It was bad enough that after I escaped the farm, I was embarrassed enough that I went back and apologized.
I remember one time covering a high school baseball doubleheader. "Ok, cool. We're going to have two 5-inning games, right?" "No. We're going to play a 7-inning game, take a break, totally redo the field, both teams will take infield, and then we'll start the second 7-inning game." I came totally unhinged.

 

Thanks. Belichick is still a fraud.