"I'm leaving the business": How do people react?

My guess is PR of some sort ... because I went up about that much, too.

 

That "free games!" crap always makes me want to go on a shooting spree. If that line of logic was near anything close to the truth, then all men would be gynecologists.

All I can think of is all the great times with my friends that I've missed while covering "free games!" Or the times I've trudged up my driveway at 3 a.m. after driving back from covering "free games!" Or trying to file a story while Cletus P. Fudd from The Small Paper From 150 Miles Out With No Real Reason To Be Here wipes tomato sauce on his 1993 Dallas Cowboys t-shirt and asks "So who should I draft on my fantasy team?" right after covering "free games!"

Odd thing is, whenever I hypothesize about leaving the business, I always get the same reaction: "But this is what you're meant to do!"

Which kind of translates into "Without this, you'd be sitting at home eating Combos while drooling into your own lap."

 

That's exactly what I get, or some variation. Like I said, it's become my entire identity to people.

 

Very early in my career one of my mentors said there's about a 3-year window in our careers where we go from thinking... "Isn't this great..." to "This really isn't that great..."

 

Yup. Took some time off to do some freelancing to get some non-sports experience, then landed a gig as a PR person.

I felt like frickin' millionaire the first six months. Then we had our first baby and my wife took a year off from her job. Oh well.

 

My dad has worked at the same factory for almost 30 years now. He repeatedly tells me that I need to find a "real job." It stings.

 

I think people might understand burnout or simply being sick of something.

That was me for a long time. No amount of free games or free food would have convinced me otherwise.

 

I think there are a ton of people who are either burned out or close to being burned out who were pushed over the edge by the recent layoffs, buyouts and firings that make it painfully obvious that we all have jobs that soon may not exist.

 

It's hypothetical to you, Waylon. It's reality for others. The grass isn't always greener on the other side.

 

I hear this a lot and all I can say is that I know that. But I'm young. I think it's perfectly OK to explore other potential areas of interest. I'm pretty sure that daily newspaper sports journalism isn't where it's at for me long-term. I don't think it's "grass is greener" syndrome. I know myself pretty well, and I'm 99.9 percent sure that I'll leave this eventually, probably sooner than later. I still want to write. I just don't want to be a full-time newspaper sports writer.

 

There's a big difference between thinking the grass is always greener and jumping off a ship before it sinks...

I've been doing this for 12 years and I've never seen people more freaked out about the future of the profession. People who have been doing it a lot longer than I have seem to feel the same way...

 

Everyone I worked with had the same general comment: "You lucky guy. I wish I could leave this place."

Family probably doesn't quite understand, but they don't know what it's like on the inside these days.

I guess I was making really good money compared with a lot of other people on this site, but it was just a brutal shift every time I went into work. Dunno what I'm gonna do next, but ya gotta be happy in life.

Nobody I worked with was happy, and I want to be different from that.