when is it time for the axe to fall?

dearest rookie,

please reread thread.

obviously you have become so caught up in pointing out the vast knowledge a few week's experience working at a daily has afforded, you missed the point entirely and have painstakingly made the point.

maybe if you just shut up and listened for two short seconds -- just once -- you'd actually hear what your editor is attempting to say.

 

TX: If you read this guy the riot act, my guess is you'll know within a day if he's savable.

I remember strutting around as a teenager (gahh) and thinking my shit smelled rosier than a florist. One night, my editor crushed my ego by ripping my story line by line and finding every little mistake I'd made in the story and boxscore. It was a mess, and he was 100% right: I was slacking and thinking I could get by with a half-ass effort because I had a little talent.

Then, after he left me wobbly, he said "Starting tomorrow you'll be covering one of the local football teams. Get a notebook so I can show you how I keep score and what we expect from your coverage."

I knew right then he wouldn't have spent the time tearing me down if he didn't think I was worth it.

And BuckDub is, for once, wrong (stick to proving me wrong on baseball thread dickbag!! ): What you did in college is not irrelevant six months after graduation. It's irrelevant less than six seconds after you begin your first job.

 

giving a person their first shot out of college and them not being able to cut it in the end is not necessarily failure on the editor's part. hiring that person and doing nothing to try to help them fix their mistakes and become a better writer IS failure on the editor's part.

i edit hard copies of all stories - not on computer screen - and give them back for them to make changes and/or rewrites so they know when something is not correct. the person in question as basically at 2 1/2 strikes. there will be a sit-down this week to discuss not only what the reporter is doing wrong but what the reporter has done right and what needs to be done to fix the wrongs. it will be made clear that the light bulb needs to click on or a change will be made. at the same time, it will also be made clear that i want this person to succeed.

 

tx,

Ideally, you would cut the new hire loose before 90 days is out if they ain't gonna cut it. Saves a lot of HR headaches.