Getting out ... just to get out

Yeah, have some respect for those who came before, etc., etc.

Doc Holliday, you ever see young soldiers say "WTF you doing here?" to former service personnel at a parade or social gathering?

Didn't think so.

 

Had a fucker do that and had the nerve to sit right in my face eating it. Wasn't a pleasant day in the newsroom that day.

 

Doc's anger seems strange to me.

No one is saying Doc should get out. They are explaining why it was the right choice for them.

I think the reasons generally fall into three, completely defensible categories, ranked in order of importance (most important first):

(1) Money.

(2) Hours.

(3) Professional limitations - i.e. lack of space to write, expected to contribute to too many platforms, frustrated with covering preps or colleges or just sports in general, etc., etc.

 

4. Job security.

Actually, that's No. 1, or at least 1A, I would think.

 

Yes, some people are saying that very thing.

Here's one response in this discussion:

"Get out while you still have your sanity, and find some semblance of a life."

 

I stand corrected.

Well, no one is saying that Doc is any lesser of a person for staying in. Just trying to led some voices of experience. As we all know, what's important at 25 is different from what's important at 35.

 

Understood. And as a 51-year-old with 29 years in the business, I see a lot of generalities about the business being tossed around by people who, perhaps, haven't been in it long enough to build their career to a point where "getting out just to get out" may not be such a good idea.

Sure, at some (many) stops the pay and work conditions suck. But at my previous stop, I was making $74K with 5 weeks vacation and a 4-percent match on top of any 401(k) contribution exceeding 6 percent. That was the good. The bad? A newsroom that had been slashed from 369 to 150, page modules and talk of all the design/copy editing being outsourced to Chicago in the months ahead (never happened yet, BTW)

I did wind up leaving that job --- purely because I saw job security tenuous and a change of scenery and lower cost of living elsewhere enticing. But I still stayed in the business. And I would never advise any of the people who are still at my former place to get out. Most there are pretty darn happy, despite the carnage of the past 4 years.

 

I think that one thing the business does is teach people to devalue themselves. I mean, Double Down had to sheepishly and almost embarrassingly admit to making more than $40K a year upon graduation. People clearly think that kind of money is just crazy pay. I think Stockholm Syndrome sets in wherein people cannot fathom making more than $25K-$30K a year.

I don't care how much you love the job. I don't care if the job is screwing Mila Kunis for eight hours a day. Living on that is, for most people, unsustainable in the long term. But a lot of young newspaper journalists don't realize that. And they don't realize that $40K isn't crazy, silly money. And $60K isn't crazy, silly money. And $74K isn't crazy, silly money. That kind of money, and much, much more, is available to the talented people toiling in the business, but they just don't realize it. And they don't realize that they don't have to be miserable to make it.

 

But as happy as they might be, their jobs might very well not exist next year. Or even next month. And given the "carnage" that has apparently occurred there recently, they assuredly know that.

That's the part I can't deal with. I don't care if I'm offered $100,000, it isn't worth that kind of stress/worry/uncertainty. Not to me, at least.

 

I think that's pretty much the effect those who respond to you here are going for.

Individual happiness is never a reason to tell someone else what to do, or what to think.

My path worked for me. If others are interested in a similar path, I will give whatever advice is sought. But my path would not work for everyone.

 

It wasn't a good idea Norrin as he quickly discovered.

 

I get why people stay in the business... I probably would have stayed in it for the rest of my career if I hadn't gotten the boot...

It's scary to walk away from the job that you've done for your entire adult life. I think many people who are in a situation similar to mine, where they view it as a bit of a blessing in disguise, but I'll be the first to admit that it took me a few years to feel that way.

I think more people are leaving on their own than ever before in large part because watching so many around them get the boot scares people enough that they start looking for other options...