Have you given up?

I "gave up" last summer.

I started out as an SE at a small daily. After a few years, moved on to a larger paper. After a few more years, moved on to an even larger paper. I always thought that as I moved up the ladder, I'd be more content. That wasn't the case. The hours and pay weren't very good, but I understood that when I got in the business. I got in because I liked to write and I loved sports. But my knowledge of sports, combined with my skills as an editor and designer, got me chained to the desk. And sports quickly became a job instead of something fun. I knew then that moving on to a metro wouldn't do anything to help me. So I got out.

I make almost twice as much as I did at my last newspaper job. I go home at 5 every night. I have weekends off. I get holidays off. I can take vacations in the fall. I enjoy sports again. The job isn't as exciting as newspaper, but I work with great people and am much happier than I was at my last paper. And I can always go back to stringing if I feel the need to get that rush again.

One of my best friends bolted the business about a month after I did. We frequently ask each other: "Why didn't we do this sooner?"

 

It seems like papers make dumb decisions left and right. Oh, we lost a penny? Space cuts!! Oh damn, two pennies? Cut staff!! A dollar? Hack the limbs! They won't grow back!

But yet I love my job. Ya, I'm doing about a third more work than I did a few years ago due to staff departures but I still love going to the high school and college events. I can't say the same for others in this profession.

I've been told by some people that I have a face for radio and could do voiceover work, but the trouble is how to break into the profession.

 

Hacky, thank you for your post.

I've been having civil disagreements with my mother. She wants me to be a librarian or work for a non-profit organization like New York Cares because she thinks that those groups won't experience layoffs and "maybe you find that you love working for the library (or the non-profit) more than you love writing."

My mother's attitude is frustrating and depressing because I've tried every way I know to explain to her that writing is what I do. It's what I went to school for. I'd feel like I was settling if I gave up writing for a nine-to-five. I don't want to be one of those people who give up their dreams and spend the rest of their lives wondering if they could have made it.

I know I'm not Bill Plaschke or Mike Vaccaro. I'm not Chuck Culpepper. But I know I can write a good story. And that's why I'm not giving up.

 

And eats up what percentage of said revenue? Printing presses, equipment to make plates for the presses, ginormous rolls of paper, ginormous tubs of ink, people to run the presses, people to insert the ads ... how much of print's revenue is eaten up by print's expenses?

(Yeah, I know ... that's another topic entirely. Maybe I'll start it. Meantime, consider the question rhetorical for now.)

 

See it seems like a lot of you are saying you left the business. And someone earlier said you could get so many more jobs with a journalism degree.
My question is......what jobs? I'm not kidding when I say I can't imagine any other job. I really can't.

 

My question, too. I've heard it said that this degree can translate into other fields, but I've looked and I certainly haven't found any.

 

See, for those who think I am relentlessly negative about our profession, this sort of thing is the reason why: I pull for the soldiers in this biz, the grunts who have done this job for the right reasons, never have gotten or will get rich and often sacrifice other parts of their lives for it. Used to be, management took that for granted but tried not to let you know it blatantly. They'd throw a 3 percent raise your way once in a while.

Now management doesn't even want many of us around. It would rather grab back $10K or $20K of what we've earned to have a staffer back at starting salary. It doesn't value the sources we've developed, the knowledge of the market, the name recognition in the community, the actualy quality of our work, etcetera. We are line items on the ledger, and every dollar that goes into our pockets is seen as a dollar not going into theirs. Our "love" of what we do? Hell, they laugh at us for viewing work that way.

That's why I'm so negative. The soldiers in this business sh-- bigger than the people running it nowadays. I'd rather be locked in a room for five days with most reporters and copy editors from the front lines, than locked in that same room with the suits for five hours.

Guess I'm at the point where I see the bosses as abusive, unshaven, childish drunks in their wife-beater undershirts. No more do I root for the battered spouses to patch things up and live more peacefully. I root now for the battered spouses to up and leave, 'cause they deserve better.

 

Every company/organization has to have some type of communications: flyers, brochures, newsletters, etc. They need someone to design, write and edit those communications.

If you have page design, copy editing and writing skills? Man, you have a kick-ass resume.

Think about a company/organization you'd like to work for. Or if not a specific one, the type of company/organization you'd like to work for.

Or...go to careerbuilder.com. Type in your zip code and click the right search criteria. Try the same at Monster (they have a category for Sports).

You'd be surprised.

 

Moddy, I look at it this way -- and maybe I'm being idealistic when I say it -- is the ones who are griping the loudest about it may be the ones leading these papers/companies in the future, and maybe the culture to change it could start with us.

Laughable? Maybe. But if it brightens up the board...

 

I should say, too, that I didn't have a passion for writing and reporting. I though I did, at first. But it turns out I just liked writing -- maybe loved it, sometimes -- but I didn't have a true passion for it. (or for the deskers, a passion for layout, copy editing, putting a paper out)

Which, of course, made it easier to walk away.

Now, if you're passion covers all the cracks in the foundation. God bless you.

(and maybe get a part-time job to help with bills)

 

Three points:

1) Money can't buy happiness, but it helps. There's no point arguing otherwise. It makes life easier. And passion helps, too. You won't do this job as well as you can if you don't love it.

2) If you want some personal satisfaction, and also an ace resume-builder, write a book. Even if it doesn't sell, so long as it's published, it will do wonders for your self-confidence and for your career. It will take some sack and some effort, but perhaps you will also find the joy you're missing in that kind of gas-lamp work.

3) Double Down's post of the year about how every writer sees something better on the horizon, no matter their stature or success, is absolutely true. I love my job. I plan on writing for a while yet. I don't plan on writing, as I do it now, on being the last job I ever have. I think when I'm forty, I'll move on to something else. It won't be a nine-to-five something else, but it will be something else. I think it's rare these days for someone to have a job and say to themselves, This is the job that I want for the rest of my life.