Gannett 1-week furloughs

I guess I would answer it this way. I have a seven-month old and a mortgage. Right now, a paycheck (even one that's 2 percent smaller than I thought it was going to be) is more important than feeling disrespected. Like you said, some of us have other considerations besides our feelings.

One of the guys on my beat, who had been covering this program for 15 years, was laid off recently. Not because he was doing a bad job - in fact, he was quite good - but because he cost too much. He was a veteran, who had earned every single raise he had received, and yet he was still unceremoniously dumped.

Now he's a substitue teacher.

I'm thinking, and hell, maybe I'm completely wrong, that he would trade places - and paychecks - with me in half a heartbeat. Whether he felt "respected" or not.

Look, it's not like I think Gannett is some noble corporation and I certainly don't believe this is going to mean the end of layoffs. But shit, which chain should I be working for? Every time I get on this board there's a new thread about horrific layoffs. At the very least --- and I mean that --- I still have a job right now. In my case, and in most I would think, that beats the alternative.

 

As he said, any paycheck right now would be worth sucking up your pride if conditions are tough enough. Sure, you feel disrespected with the furlough or knowing Q2 or Q3 might be include your number. But that's five or eight months down the road and 20 or 30 paychecks.

Advance.

 

What I find interesting is that the furloughs aren't just for the full-timers, they're for part-timers, too. Including those who work just 8 hours a week.

 

Thank you, shifty.

FH, yes, everyone gets to enjoy the furlough.

 

I see where you're coming from, chili. I really do. And I think I showed that a bit in my most recent post. I don't think there's a blanket you can throw over anyone because everybody's situation is different.

But for me, in my situation, if I were at one of these Gannett papers? Depending on where it was, I might just rather get fired and take my chances elsewhere. And that's not to say anything remotely bad about someone who feels otherwise. Just to say there are two sides to the story.

 

Fair enough. Either way you slice it or dice it, this industry pretty much sucks right now. I think we all can agree on that.

And what makes things even worse for most of us is that we REALLY REALLY like our jobs.

 

Well-said.

 

Me too. That obviously has something to do with Internet only, slash 3/4s of the current staffs and go all Web mostly with citizen journalists. Just do it, Gannett, you know you want to.

 

Give it time. Gannett will do that sooner than most expect. I think it might happen within the next year.

 

I would think gannett going web only will make others quickly shift to do so as well. I would agree. I think this year is the year newspapers in the print form completely die. I wonder if newspaper publishers in their ego-driven state will order 10-20 print copies be produced to continue to have a "historical record" of the day's happenings. That would require the few copy editors left to actually lay out a real paper of say, 4 pages, to go with the Internet work.

 

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