Should it be THIS bad

At our office, it tends to attract the newsie with a FUPA.

 

my last shop was getting really bad. which was why I left. When I left, there were a couple of us that used iPods. Now, the entire newsroom uses iPods.

 

Off topic, but FUPA is a word/acronym that ALWAYS makes me laugh. Even when read on a message board.

 

Exactly .... It has gotten to the point that the other main slot guy is going to complain to the Night Editor about the iPods. I'm just trying not to ruffle feathers. But it seems like the ones on the iPods make -- or fail to catch -- the most mistakes.

 

With one exception, all the newsrooms I've been in as a full-timer have been about the same: business friendly, but I don't socialize with them. Usually the 20-somethings congregate, and the older folk have their lives, and I fall awkwardly in the middle. Except that was the case even when in my 20s, so wtf.

Current setup: friendly towards most everyone (a little warily towards a few people I know better than to trust). But I slap on my headphones to do layout to drown out the noise. It's better that way.

I'd love to be in a newsroom where everyone hung out together after work. I've seen stories like the one from earlier in this thread described to me or in a book. Probably won't ever happen, least not for me.

 

Honestly, I figured it was a good business move to socialize with my coworkers. Getting to know each other outside of the office has always helped any staff I've been on.

 

Funny thing is, I'm the asshole in my newsroom. I go out of my way not to say hello to certain people. There are some people I do say hello to, but the rest of them I couldn't care less about talking to.

I don't say goodnight either because I'm just going to see all of them again the next day.

 

Geez, all those years I wasted saying goodnight to my kids. Who knew?

 

I never said I was a nice guy. But I'm sure you actually like your kids. That tends to change things.

 

I've worked at places where people were friendly and where people weren't friendly. There was one dump where people didn't even get together for a post-election night drink...that floored me. (That was also the place where a couple of employees asked the new guy why on earth was he going out drinking with me. There were some great folks working there.)
Other joints, I went out a couple of times a week with a gang of co-workers. To be honest, you can be more productive in a shop full of un-fun assholes, because you don't have the distractions caused by social interaction.

 

I hate it when you say hello to someone and they just ignore you.

 

We have a sports staff of four full-timers and one part-time agate guy. Two of the full-timers seem to be pretty good friends. They go out after work sometimes for drinks. Me and the part-timer are pretty friendly while we're at work, but I don't think we'd ever hang out away from the office. Everyone pretty much seems to hate the SE, and he pretty much seems to hate everyone.

And there's very little interaction with the rest of the newsroom -- the sports dept. is kind of stuffed away from everyone else in a far corner, in what looks like a converted walk-in closet. So we don't see them often, and they don't see us. Case-in-point: Our state's lottery recently grew to something like $300 million, so the newsroom got together to buy tickets. Everyone chipped in $2, and they bought a bunch of tickets. Just about everyone in the newsroom signed up: Reporters, copy desk, editors, clerks, composing room folks, etc. Nobody from sports even knew about it until the copies of the purchased tickets were posted on a cork board near the main printer, so none of us got to participate. Basically, if any of those tickets had been the big winner, everyone on the staff of the paper would have quit and the only thing we would have published would have been a sports section.

This is my second paper -- the first was very friendly. Everyone got along great and a lot of us hung out after work. But this one -- well, I'm looking for a new job, and a big part of why is because everyone at the office, myself included, seems miserable for the 8 or so hours we spend there five days a week.