Anybody else with helpful co-workers?

Iowa opens its playoffs on Wednesday night (don't ask, it's a philosophy I can't explain). Even better, the next round is on the following Monday.

Last year, our biggest local high school played its first-round playoff game at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls, which is about a 2 1/2-hour bus ride. The game was scheduled to start at 8:30 p.m. (there was another first-round game at the same site). It actually started closer to 9. I think the team got home around 2 a.m.


Anyway, back to the thread...

 

For what?

No direct threat of physical harm.

No attempt to justify inadequate work (i.e. arguing I didn't miss deadline or that it shouldn't matter) which theoretically could be interpreted as a form of insubordination.

At most, I'd probably get written up for "hostile behavior," which would bring a swift counter-complaint from me against Peanut Gallery Boy for overstepping the organizational line of command.

 

Gee I don't know, maybe cussing at a co-worker and yelling something about porn. Most places would give you a lecture/write you up but some wouldn't put up with one reporter cussing at another in a very hostile manner.

 

Of course, but the fact is the "organizational line of command" Peanut Gallery Boy is overstepping is the one that has the head honchos at the top of it, and if middle-level peons are allowed to overstep the OLOC it won't be very long before everybody starts doing it.

And, in fact, he DOES surf porn. The IT guys were pissing and moaning about having to de-virus half the computers in the office a month or so ago because he had surfed to some skeezy porn page and ended up mailing out viruses to half his email groups.

 

1. He should be out of a job for surfing porn. I don't care who you are, if you cause computers to get viruses because you were surfing porn at work you should be in the unemployment line.

2. Yeah he's overstepping, yes he's a prick, no you shouldn't go off on him for a relatively small comment that while highly annoying, isn't a major issue in the grand scheme of things. Pick your battles. Short quips from a co-worker can be easily ignored and brushed off. Be pissed off but that is not an example of a time to cuss someone out. Those times should be saved for when they are absolutely necessary.

 

Our press crew has our back, in stark contrast to a long-gone circulation director who threw us under the bus first and got the facts later. And it wasn't so much that he got the facts as somebody straightened his ass out.

 

You know zilch about the newsroom, apparently.

 

You know, 15 years ago it was kinda funny when people got fired for surfing porn on work computers and seriously argued they thought they could get away with it.

Since about the turn of the century anybody caught doing it should be fired on the spot, not for the porn, but for abject stupidity beyond the borders of functional intelligence.

 

Yeah, Starman, that's what I was referring to, someone getting fired for accessing porn on a work computer, not complaining about co-workers.

 

Man, I've had a few of those. You plan your entire section around this darn game because of its (perceived) importance. And then you (1) can't get a photo or (2) game runs til almost deadline and you have to chose between settling for 10 inches of bare-bone PBP or blowing deadline big-time.

And, of course, the public doesn't understand when they pick up their paper at 5 a.m. why you don't have three pages worth of stuff on it.

 

That happened at my first daily shop when the local Cinderella made the Section playoffs for the first time. This was way before email and other ways to send photos were common and the game was an hour's drive away, so we figured, why bother? At least we had a reporter there. I was covering a juco basketball tournament that night and one of the guys on the scoring table was a teacher at the school was listening to the game on radio. He kept feeding me scores all night, and I didn't believe him until I got into my car and heard for myself. When I got back to the office, I told the sports editor what was going on and he remade the page to have that game stripped across the top.

Next day I'm in, I see the sports editor talking on the phone to someone, then hanging up abruptly, which he rarely does. He told me some fan was calling wondering why we didn't have photos of the big game and he explained it all to him, and hung up when the caller said, "Well, can't you just move back the deadline?"

 

Move the deadline? Now, why didn't we think of that?! See, this is why readers will always be smarter than us -- you know, the people who actually know what we're doing.