Is it worth it anymore?

[RickStain]

are they hiring? I have considered working for the census people. Make more money there than at some newspapers. Go around interviewing, collecting and sorting data. Isn't that what a lot of us do in journalism?

Certainly didn't think you meant the United States Census . . . decidedly part-time, intemittent (to say the least) work, with no bennies, and a position where outside workers might bring home
$18/hour tops, before taxes.

$18/hour? Wow. That's really, really good money for the work.

 

[Drip]

are they hiring? I have considered working for the census people. Make more money there than at some newspapers. Go around interviewing, collecting and sorting data. Isn't that what a lot of us do in journalism?

Certainly didn't think you meant the United States Census . . . decidedly part-time, intemittent (to say the least) work, with no bennies, and a position where outside workers might bring home
$18/hour tops, before taxes.

$18/hour? Wow. That's really, really good money for the work.

Not really but it does pay the bills. The job isn't easy. My sister did it for 1990 and 2000 and swore never to do it again.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

are they hiring? I have considered working for the census people. Make more money there than at some newspapers. Go around interviewing, collecting and sorting data. Isn't that what a lot of us do in journalism?

Certainly didn't think you meant the United States Census . . . decidedly part-time, intemittent (to say the least) work, with no bennies, and a position where outside workers might bring home
$18/hour tops, before taxes.

$18/hour? Wow. That's really, really good money for the work.

Not so fast. Know that number because that's what I heard they're paying for outside workers in Trenton. Want that? With NO bennies?

 

[RickStain]

are they hiring? I have considered working for the census people. Make more money there than at some newspapers. Go around interviewing, collecting and sorting data. Isn't that what a lot of us do in journalism?

Certainly didn't think you meant the United States Census . . . decidedly part-time, intemittent (to say the least) work, with no bennies, and a position where outside workers might bring home
$18/hour tops, before taxes.

$18/hour? Wow. That's really, really good money for the work.

Not so fast. Know that number because that's what I heard they're paying for outside workers in Trenton. Want that? With NO bennies?

*does math on benefits*

That's better than I make now by a bit, though without the job security. And given that what I do is theoretically skilled work that I went to school for, the fact that they are comparable seems pretty good.

 

[NDub]

No. It's not.

I cannot wait to leave this profession.

 

[WFL nerd]

Is it worth it? Probably not.
I, too, know what it's like to spend 95 percent of my time paginating, running agate, taking prep calls, dealing with readers angry at us because their cable carrrier doesn't offer Peachtree TV (or they can't find it), blah, blah, blah.
In my case I've been doing it for 22 years and don't know how to do anything else.
So I'll keep doing it until the shop and/or industry goes teats up.
Unlike Drip I haven't dug ditches, but I have loaded and unloaded trucks full of tires. Will do it again if I have to, but it's not a dream.
The thing is, for most of us, this is a vocation and a passion, even though management has turned it into a job. Bitching about things won't help, although I fully intend to continue bitching about it on a daily basis because that's how I roll.

 

[Magic In The Night]

Some days it's worth it. Some days it's not. Seen one of my papers merged, one closed and now I'm at one that's trying a whole new way of doing business and crossing fingers it works. Some days, when I'm working weekends or holidays and everyone else is out having fun, I wish I worked in a different business. Some days, like Election Night or when we're putting a corrupt mayor in jail, I know I still have one of the greatest jobs in the world. So I'll stay, until they turn out the lights or I find something as fulfilling.

 

[Cosmo]

I ask myself this every day.

This isn't the job I signed up for.

I can't remember the last time I wrote enterprise or spent time fleshing out a story, worked my ass off to get that one extra quote I felt like I needed to make a good story great, sat around and bounced story ideas of my boss, had an interview that left me exhilarated and eager to sit down and write.

But I still work with people who give a shirt and are doing all they can to put out a section that people want to read, despite declining news hole, reduced staff and dwindling resources. And as long as I'm getting paid to cover events and write about people, I'm going to put everything I have into it. I don't know any other way.

I still love the nuts and bolts of what we do - talking to people and trying to get interesting stuff out of them and then sitting down and writing.

But those moments where you just read through something you just wrote and feel so forking good about it ... I rarely get those moments anymore and it kills me. What's happening to our industry kills me.

That's precisely it. All we have time for is the nuts and bolts. We're so understaffed that there's no way we can have someone spend a week on a project story any more.

 

[Bubbler]

Everytime I think, "my industry is the worst", I think of all of my friends and members of my family who are going through similar bullshirt in their industries in jobs they never really loved to begin with.

Maybe, in a way, that makes it better for them. There's not the emotional investment involved.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

No, it's not.

But there are no other jobs out there, so you'd better hang on to the one you have as long as you can.

 

[prezclinton]

Yea, I grew up hoping to do five people's jobs and getting paid one person's shirtty salary.

The more maddening thing about this business is that most of us have bachelor's degrees, and the national average salary for someone with a bachelor's is close to $50K. Don't know too many sports writers, let alone editors making that.

 

[SixToe]

Worth it?

Not in the current climate, and not with the future looking even more grim.