When to call it quits?

There are a lot of deskers who may work a 40-hour week, but it's still every weekend and most holidays and the shittiest hours imaginable...

I know people make it work, and bless them for it, but if you work normal hours on the desk, you don't get to put your kids to bed five nights out of the week. That would be enough for me to quit the business right there...

I do not think that everybody should try to get out of the business. But if you're wondering about it and sweating out the furloughs and the layoffs, you probably should... There are a lot of people who think they're untouchable and maybe to an extent, some of them are... If you have one of those jobs and you're happy, more power to you...

 

How many people, at least among those who visit this board, make $74K with five weeks of vacation while working 40 hours a week? In newspapers?

I hope those who do treat themselves to a fancy European vacation every now and then. They deserve it.

 

At my first gig, a large paper which at the time, had a very strong union, there were copy editors who made high 60s and copy chiefs who made in the 70s. They worked a straight 40-hour week. Granted, that was a long time ago...

 

Well, that's why I did qualify it with "every person I know ... ." To be sure, there were some in bad situations, but not everyone was. Many of them had great gigs (columnists, pro beat writers) and had as much job security as you'll find in the newspaper business. But they also realized it's better on the other side of the wall.

And I'm here to tell you, it's true.

Universally true? Certainly not ... but enough so to be statistical truth.

 

You're forgetting deskers, assistant editors, features department people, a whole slew of people who aren't reporters, who aren't always on call and who aren't working 60-80 hours a week.

They are newspaper people, too. No, they don't represent the younger demographic/smaller paper/trying to build a career majority on here. But they are facing those decisions, too.

Not a ton, I realize. But then, it's statistically impossible for every job on the outside to be better than every job on the inside. But that's what we keep reading here.

 

No one I know in any profession makes that much with that much time off.

My brother-in-law *might* be an exception. I'm pretty sure he makes six figures, but I don't think he gets five weeks of vacation. But he does wind up working more than 40 hours a week sometimes, though not as much now as he did when the space shuttle program was active. (He works at NASA.)

But $74k? No one else I know makes that much, especially the people I work with (disaster relief, church folks). And even if my next job works out, I wouldn't touch that salary in the 20 years it would take me to reach retirement. I might have crossed the five-week vacation threshold, though.

 

You earn 26 days of vacation /sick days after 15 years with the Federal government, not counting 10 paid holidays. Know at least one at the GS-13 level making that much.

 

I worked at a paper that paid fairly well -- Bay Area so the cost of living is high, but quite a few people would have been making the $74K. About six years ago. And with five weeks' vacation.

After the pay cuts, though, those salaries are down by about 20 percent. And the vacation time has gone from five weeks to less than three, even for managers who are making that much or even significantly more.

The scenario you're citing just doesn't exist anymore except in an exceedingly rare instance, like, count-on-one-hand kind of rare. I can believe the money part -- although that salary is not difficult to replicate in non-newspaper jobs in big cities -- but that money in newspapers wouldn't come with a 40-hour workweek and five weeks of vacation.

 

Most times it's simply a matter of being somewhere for a long time. Merit raises over a span of 20-25 years can do wonders.

It was only 4-5 years ago that the raises started drying up at most places.

 

There comes a point in any job where the job you signed on for is no longer the job you are doing. It feels like you are working at a different place with friends replaced by strangers (or at least friends you just aren't as close with), managers who aren't invested in your success because they didn't hire you and job conditions that make the position something you never would have applied to.
I don't think anyone who leaves journalism wouldn't still love to be working at a paper under the conditions we first enjoyed.
And this may be trite, but the thing I missed most in my post-newspaper career was the back and forth bullshitting in the newsroom. Thankfully, places like this exist. You'll find an outlet to satisfy your creative talents, probably in a more supportive environment and a better outlook.

 

When your wife gets a job offer for twice what you'll ever hope to make in journalism and needs someone to stay at home with your kid.

(This may not be a universal rule, but it worked for me).

 

13s in my neck of the woods start off at 89K.

I know tons of people who make 74K working 40 hours weeks. Fewer with 5 weeks of vacation, but still a lot.

In newspapers? Very, very few.