Gannett - 1st quarter furloughs

Is Gannett the worst company in the history of the United States?

 

Ditto. I've always taken the approach that I can't dictate the decisions and philosophy of my employers. If they have no soul and treat people badly for sport, that's their decision. If my reaction to that is to stay there, half-ass work and put little effort into my daily output, then it shows who I am as a person and worker, and that I'm no better than Gannett or any other evil corporate entity.

Probably not in the bottom 20 percent, unfortunately.

 

Agree that mailing it in is a difficult button to push, lest you find yourself unable to un-push it.

But it can be deployed effectively in small doses, those occasions when you actually have to make a decision between real life and "a li'l more work," and you opt for the former in that instance. Maybe it's just staying bed when you wake up thinking you need to swap out a verb or something, rather than getting up, turning on the computer and messing with it.

Some folks work so far above the mail-it-in threshold that a little bit of that would do them some good if their employers are operating at take-it-or-leave-it level.

 

The reason newspaper employees can't mail it is, is the business is "in their blood." It's one of the reasons news organizations have been able to get so much work, bleed so much work out of their employees, for such little pay and no overtime pay. Wink wink on the overtime, sports people. Work 50, paid for 40. But great post. You can "mail it in" on little things and still care greatly about the product that is "in your blood."

 

If murder was legal, a bunch of newspaper CEOs would be dead.

 

For me, it has nothing to do with the business I'm in. It's my work ethic. It was my work ethic long before I got into the news business. I was working holidays as a teen in a pet shop and giving up spring break to work through college.

Yeah, it's in my blood, but that has nothing to do with the field I am in.

 

Good deal. You obviously are a hard worker.
But you also admitted it is in your blood.
Many of us put in the work necessary because it is what a good editor or writer does, case closed. We don't need the approval of some asshole behind the glass door and we don't get it obviously with furloughs, pay freezes and the attitude that you are just lucky to have a job. Newspapers are lucky it is in the blood of many of their employees cause most people would tell them to take the job and shove it.

 

I'm just the opposite. Journalism is the only thing I've ever really cared about since I first began working for my high school newspaper as a freshman. I routinely was the first one in and last one out of my high school and college newspaper offices every day (or, in high school, on the weekends we worked on the paper). I work my ass off in journalism, but I coasted by in class and in my other jobs that I had leading up to my junior year of college (since which point I haven't had to take a job in any other field, thankfully).

I'm lucky that my hard work and dedication has, so far, led me to a rewarding career. Sure, I've dealt with furloughs and seen coworkers get laid off, but my bosses have been fair to me. I've gotten promotions and (small) raises. I've moved up from a mid-sized paper to a big one. And I've done it partially by being good at my job but moreover by caring a lot -- too much, many of my more dispirited coworkers say.

That said, every time these furloughs and layoffs are posted on this board or elsewhere, I'm reminded that my good, hard work isn't going to keep me employed. And I don't have any idea what I would get into if this well ever dried up for me because this is the only thing I've cared about for years. It's the type of thing I think about most at 4 a.m. when I'm on my third bourbon and pretty comfortable with the website for the night and about to go to bed.

 

In some states, Florida for one, that week thing applies, but it's cumulative. So if you're off for a week in the first quarter and off for a week in the second quarter, you can claim for the second quarter as long as you filed in the first.

And never, ever take advice on such things from HR. But then you knew that.

 

For me, "mailing it in" means that I'm not going to sweat the small details anymore, and I'm not going to worry if things get messed up.

One time in the early-middle of my Gannett tenure, I forgot to do some minor end-of-the-night procedural thing (nothing to do with actually putting out the paper), which I remembered as soon as I got home. I drove 20 minutes back to the office, turned on the computer (which took 10 minutes in itself to log on), did the procedural thing, and drove back home. An hour of my life in the middle of the night, gone.

By the end of my time there, I forgot to do the procedural thing a couple of times. I didn't care if anyone complained. And funny thing is, no one did. A manager just asked me once what happened. Told him I forgot. He shrugged and asked me not to forget next time. I shrugged. And didn't care. That manager got laid off before me. The procedural thing ended up being dropped when he left.

There were also times that I'd worry into the night that I did a head-bust, or that a story didn't end. That worrying ended once the layoffs hit, where I saw some very good people get dumped. People who won awards (yeah, I know, but to Gannett, that's a big thing). People who toed the company line to the letter. I saw that it didn't matter to Gannett. So I stopped caring. I didn't check things as closely as before (not that I had the time to now anyways with less people). I didn't wake up in the middle of the night worrying about a potential mistake.

In other words, I treated it like a business. Just like Gannett was treating it.

.

 

Excellent post, Baron. This is what the clueless "give it away for free" Internet people, thinktankers who look out for themselves, and suits have done to our business.
You are a true pro, but don't sweat it anymore. Good for you!
Very very nice post. Glad I read it. I'm going to try to do what you do in the future.

 

Hell, no. Not even close. Ever heard of Enron? (Or are you too young to remember them.)