When to call it quits?

No one can answer the thread's question for someone else, though the overwhelming majority of journos seemingly would say "yesterday!" Just realize that no matter how hard it is for you to imagine, there is life outside of newspapers and there are other things you can do.

I got my first taste in 2008 when I was re-assigned from general sports columnist to editorial writer/op-ed columnist. I protested because I didn't want to leave sports, but I came to appreciate the broadened horizon. I enjoyed delving into weightier matters and I especially enjoyed nights and weekends free.

After taking a buyout in 2009 (reading the tea leaves and answering my own question about when to call it quits) I thought I was through with journalism for good. But I was fortunate enough to get one more taste, as a general sports columnist (albeit on a contract basis) in Washington, D.C., a terrific place to write sports columns under a terrific sports editor. But that work dried up in less than two years and I accept that, now, the business has called it quits on me.

I'm six weeks into a fulltime PR job and not minding the transition at all. The main adjustment is getting used to sitting in an office 40 hours per week, something I never wanted to do and one of the main reasons I entered journalism nearly 30 years ago. But the nights-and-weekends free helps compensate for the lack of travel and presence at big-time sports events. Virtually everything involves trade-offs, especially when you reach half-a-hundred.

Although I took a buyout four years ago, I wouldn't have walked away as easily this year if I already was in DC versus Fort Myers. I might still be in the business if I could've landed a nice gig in the nation's capital, even as outlets here do nips and tucks and total amputations.

Yes, I'll always love journalism - warts and all. But it has become an unrequited love, so there's no choice except to move on.

No matter which party initiates a break-up, there always are other options. Journalism is looking for younger and cheaper dates; I'm looking for a more stable and less stressful companion.

God help us all.

 

You're wrong. Think harder.

Anyway, to respond to Gator's original post, find another passion. Think how awesome it will be to experience "multiple lives" instead of the same one for all your days. I think time moves slower when you do a bunch of different stuff.

 

And there were people who survived the smallpox epidemic.

There will be some who survive. But a lot won't, and it's not going to rebound ever. A friend of mine is a columnist at a decent-sized paper and probably falls into the "untouchable" category at his paper. On a staff of 20, he is one of three people over the age of 30.

 

Ace, do you really believe this business is going to re-emerge as a place where a person can expect to live a comfortable middle-class life and provide for a family, including college educations? I never wanted to get rich, but that was a very reasonable expectation when I got in. I don't see that happening in the next 20-30 years for people stepping in now.

 

It depends on what you mean by "this business." I think there will be jobs covering pro sports, college sports, high school sports, etc.

Now, more of the jobs may be working for the athletic department as some former newspaper people do now.

Some of the jobs may be covering a team for a national entity and doing lots of social media, blog posts, video, etc.

I think some jobs will pay well and most will pay pretty poorly -- just like now.

 

OK, just like now.

But not just like five or 10 or 15 years ago. That's the part I'm talking about -- when someone covering a pro or high-level college beat, or working a non-management desk job, could expect to make a reasonable amount of money. Enough to buy a house and plan a future. I would say that scenario held for the majority of mid-career people in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Now it's rare, and in 10 years it's going to be exceedingly rare.

 

20 years ago when I was in college, I looked at journalism as "I'm probably never going to get rich doing it, but if I do a good job, I can make a nice living."

I did... For about 14 years...

There are some making a nice living doing it now, but they're definitely not the norm. They're definitely way outnumbered by the kids straight out of school who are making less than $30K. That even applies at the bigger papers (although not all of them).

 

If I was making $40,000 or less, I would definitely get out and try to find a PR or communications or project management job or whatever dovetails the skill set.

Problem is without direct experience, it's hard to get one of those jobs that pays decent money to start -- though the upside is probably a lot better.

 

This is exactly how I felt by the time I left newspapers to take a job outside of the news business. It was incredibly painful to see friends lose their jobs over the course of several phases of layoffs. And it became worse each time, looking at where we were after we lost all those people. It got to the point where we were so crippled by layoffs that I no longer recognized the product we were putting out, either in print or online. Every time I thought I couldn't get any more disillusioned, something else would happen, including a few stone-cold-heartless personnel decisions that I'm convinced were made not by human beings, but by robots or some computer algorithm.

I was extremely fortunate to find a non-news business job where my editing and writing skills were valued -- a place where other former newspaper people have taken refuge, including the supervisor who decided to take a chance on me. I am enjoying the work, the improved salary, and the regular schedule.

Gator, who started this thread, doesn't mention how old he is (unless I missed it) but if you're covering high schools (which it seems he is) I think you eventually reach a breaking point. It's one thing to do high schools when you're in your 20s and you think of it as a means to an end. But upward mobility in sports journalism was never an easy ride, and at this point I think it's virtually dead. If you're in your 30s and you're still covering high schools, is there really even a glimmer of hope that you're going to advance to a college or pro beat? And that's when you have a decision to make. Frankly, the way things are going, by your late 20s if you haven't advanced, it's probably time to make that decision. And if you start out in some little town that you never heard of until you applied for the job? Well ... you do the math on that. it's a long way up from there.

Aside from all the frustrations that come with layoffs, I started to find it depressing that other people I knew were working regular hours and living their lives, and my life was still the same as it was when I was in my 20s: everything was dictated by the high school sports schedule. I was an editor, so I wasn't always running from game to game, but the grind was still the same. And to me it was just plan demoralizing to be in my mid or late 30s and have to tell someone that I couldn't make any plans for the weekend because there's a full basketball schedule on Friday night and then Podunk North has its big wrestling tournament all day Saturday. You're missing your life to write or edit stories about games played by teenagers -- stories that are of interest to only a small, select group of people.

My breaking point probably came on a Friday night, sitting in my car in the parking lot, eating a grocery store chicken salad sandwich before going to cover a junior college women's basketball game because it was the only chance I was gong to have to talk to them because I was busy the whole next week with other crap. I was one of about 50 people in the stands, which included the members of the men's basketball team, which had a practice after the women's game ended. And then I went and edited a bunch of high school basketball later that night.

That was not how I wanted to spend my life.

Now, if Gator or others aren't demoralized by that sort of thing, then that's great. Frankly, I'm envious of that. I wasn't able to get around it. And I think that if I had ever landed a college or pro beatwriting gig, I probably would have ended up feeling the same way, but it might have taken longer to get there. At any level of sports journalism, the question is how much of your personal life are you willing to sacrifice. Staring down the barrel of a lifetime of covering high schools -- combined with the crumbling of a workplace where I had invested years of blood, sweat and tears -- was enough to convince me to seek an exit.

I think getting stuck covering high schools should be enough to sway anyone to get out. But everyone has to come to their own conclusions -- and their own sense of peace.

 

For Gator and LookingForAnswers,

I can speak to the idea of government jobs and if you can get one, I'd say take it. They can be hard to get, just because interest in them is usually high and competition is fierce. But they are usually quality jobs for decent pay even at the lowest levels.

Which is where you may have to start, but you'll find that they might still pay more than you'd make as a journalist at some places.

I've had some government jobs -- on both temporary and regular part-time bases. One was doing clerical work in the Community Relations Office of my county library system. That was a long-term temp position (about seven months) with a good boss and with some people with whom I enjoyed working. It was a great, full-time stop-gap for that period.

Another was a regular part-time position, in one of the libraries in my county's system that I gave up once I was hired full-time in my current retail job.

Yet another government job I had was brief, temporary, intermittant stints as a copy editor and proofreader of ballots with my county's clerk and recorder's office during two primaries and the ensuing elections. I also got another long-term temp position with my county's human resources department. That was a great job and opened up a lot of doors, or would have had I chosen to stay on in county work.

I also interviewed for and was eventually offered what would have been a regular full-time position with my County Assessor's Office. But I declined that job -- perhaps stupidly, because it was definitely a good job, and they definitely were interested in me -- because, honestly, at the time, I was more interested in the regular part-time library job I'd also been offered right that same week and I thought/was afraid that I was probably a better fit for that. And also, the library was based closer to my home than the Assessor's office job. I enjoyed my library job, but nowadays, if I was trying to make that same choice again, I might make a different decision, though.

I also know that I would have been offered another full-time (but temporary) job as an administrative assistant in my county's social services division if I hadn't expressed a strong desire for a regular full-time job when what was available was a long-term temporary position. (I was actually told that that was the decider, that the interviewing panel had really liked and wanted me, but they felt that I had discouraged them from hiring me if the job couldn't be a regular, full-time thing (which was true; I had done that, consciously). I knew when I left that I'd done well, was situated perfectly and probably would have been hired, but would end up not getting the job because of that, and I was OK with that).

Anyway, the point is, it is possible to get government entry-level jobs without military service or a master's degree (I had neither).

I would advise lots of patience and persistence, though. I can't even count the number of tests I took and all the interviews I went to for a variety of different county jobs in the library system, in the human and social services divisions, with the sheriff's department's communications office, with the clerk and recorder's office, the county hospital for both administrative and food-services jobs, and the county planning and HR departments.

You should know that you will have to take tests in order to even possibly get invited for any interviews. You will, usually, have to score in the 90th percentile or better among the (sometimes) a couple hundred people at a time who routinely get invited to take the tests (based on their application information) in order to even have a chance at an interview.

So the process isn't easy. But we're smart people, and many of us are good test-takers, which you need to be, or need to learn to be. As you take as many tests as I was doing for a couple of years in my determination then to get a government job, you'll find that you really do get better at them, and you start getting better at either knowing, or deducing, the answers.

My advice would be to look on your county's jobs website, apply for everything that interests you that you think you might have any chance of getting, and fill out the "job-interest card" information for any such positions, as well, so that you will automaticallly be notified by either phone or email of when the county is seeking people for positions so you won't necessarily have to be checking the jobs web site all the time (although doing so once a week is a good idea).

I also would advice that you read the job descriptions and requirements carefully and make sure to use the key words, or similar key words in whatever resume and/or online application you send. (The county system is one of those that specifically seeks certain words/terms in its first run-through of applicant possibilitiles).

Also, when it asked you to fill out the space for the salary range you'd accept, you should actually look up the breakdown given on the application, and, if you're applying for a certain level job, make sure to type in nothing higher than the range that fits that level because, again, the computer will automatically eliminate you if you don't fit the required profile.

They will not call you up and say, "We really like your resume and you seem like somebody we might like to test, but would you still be interested if we can/will only offer XXX dollars as a salary?"

Then, if you get called in to take a test, do your level best to score among the top five percent of test-takers, because your status among the group they are considering is key to being asked to an initial interview.

Usually, the breakdown of interviewees is done by top five percent (everyone who scores 95 percent or better) or the top 10 percent (everyone who scores 90 percent or better) on the tests, and everyone who meets the decided-upon standard MUST be interviewed in accordance with county hiring-process rules.

They do not choose among those who qualify at that point, so if you're in, you're in, for that first interview, anyway.

Now, say nobody scores 95, or even 90 percent on the test? Then, they will usuallly go to the next group, with scores of 85-89 percent, and will do the same process there, interviewing everyone in that group, (or giving those candidates a chance to decline the interview). And that goes whether there are three or 20 test-takers among that group.

This is why the interview process can be lengthy.

It is after the first interview -- in which you will also be scored/rated/judged -- that the panel (yes, the first and second interviews are usually in front of multi-people panels) that there begins to be more separation among candidates based on their responses to what is usually a standard list of situational and/or experience-related questions that is posed to every interviewee. Again it is kind of cut-and-dried and there is little chance to deviate from the questions at hand or offer much in the way of personal or potentially separating answers until the panelist usually offer you one last chance with the question of whether there is anything else you'd like to ask or add...

But the key to everything is getting yourself to the first interview. If you do that, you've got as good a chance as anyone to get the job at that point, because they are required to interview everyone who has tested and is still interested who meets the test standard -- 100-95th percentile, (90-94th percentil, 89-85th percentile, or whatever -- and if all qualified test-takers at the top level decline to interview, for whatever reasons, the county will move to the next level down and go through the process again.

That's why the process can sometimes be lengthy and take a while to complete and hear back about. It's very cut-and-dried and straightforward, but in some ways the system also makes it very fair.

And there are some great, good-paying jobs, which can lead to even better jobs. Usually, they're pretty secure, they have good benefits and there are plenty of inter-departmental transfer opportunities if you want them because once you have a government job, it is easier to get another one (you get the aforementioned "points" for working in such jobs before), even though, yes, you still have to go through and succeed in the testing process.

But if you do that, your chances of changing jobs/moving on/up are good after that.

I hope this is of some help.

 

Watching and reading the coverage of the tornadoes in Oklahoma, I realize I still love the news business.

Of course, much of what you cover in news is not pleasant. I get that. I'm not unsympathetic to the plight these victims are facing. But whenever there's a big story.... election night, Sandy Hook school shooting, Boston Marathon bombing, Texas explosions, Oklahoma tornadoes or some sports thing, there's a part of me that says "Damn, I wish I were there, asking the questions, telling the story." That itch is a hard one to shake.... at least for me.

 

+1 on this. "Qualification" is not something that's merely inherent. Many skills can be learned. Inherent skills can be expanded. Don't limit yourself. Ever.