Does your shop force you to take breaks?

Six. Pages. Ago.

Your publisher has to insist on accurate timecards. She has to tell you to follow the law.

Make sure your timecard follows the law, and do things the way you want to do them.

This really is not difficult.

 

See, no. You can't have labor laws and then allow people to exempt themselves from them. Because then the people who don't exempt themselves from the laws will inevitably end up being punished, implicitly or explicitly, for that choice.

 

Instead of tripleheaders, cover two games and get a break in.

 

Not possible. We have a two-man staff which has to cover enough events to fill at least three-four pages of six different weekly sections. Very little crossover, no wire, no non-hyper local coverage.

The way to solve this issue is to find reliable freelancers but in our area that's rather difficult, especially for the crap we're willing to pay.

 

The other way to solve this issue is writing more features. Game coverage in a weekly is mostly a waste of time. If that's what you're doing, you're doing it wrong.

 

Very valid criticism. I wish there were a way to do just that but, often, we don't have the luxury of taking the proper time to come up with a good feature. Not to mention that there is a heavy demand for gamers in our papers (We tried a couple years back to get rid of them and it failed).

 

Here's the difference - I got to a game and write a feature on the game. It's why my 'game stories' are pretty damn good.
We have to do this schedule to get newer events in. We have six papers to put out in three days. The quicker I can get my work done, the quicker I can get home.
My publisher needs to decide which is a higher priority - accurate timecards or taking a break. She can't have both because the schedule I work on doesn't go like that.

 

Rules are rules.

 

If you think you're publisher doesn't know what she's talking about, give her a detailed breakdown of your day and ask what can be eliminated so you can take a break.

 

You're probably going to have to bend on one. I'm guessing all your gamers aren't feature worthy (and if they are, I'd love to come work in your area). If you're covering so much local stuff, I'm sure you'll have enough are for a feature or two.

 

I offered this to her three times and each time her response was "Just make it work". She didn't want to work with us to see how to make it happen. In fact, I'm pretty sure she'd do a dance of joy if she could just eliminate that whole pesky "running a newspaper" thing from her day-to-day job description.

 

She doesn't want to run a newspaper?

You don't want to fill out a timecard she finds acceptable.

Guess who trumps?

Fill out a fucking timecard that won't buy you trouble, or accept that you're getting the trouble because you want it.