Why I Quit My Dream Newspaper Job After 4 Months

Dog can be alone if it has access to a yard, otherwise you should have someone let it out at least.

 

None of the things she blames her job escape on -- an all-male staff of writers, the L.A. Times' status as an institutional organization, etc., mattered.

The fact is, she simply wasn't the right person for this job. It was too far above her station, too fast and too soon either for her to have success in it or to have automatically and immediately been given any stripes/ real respect from her staff.

It's a mistake for managers to think/assume they can and should be able to just step into middle- or upper-management positions and not have to actually earn other people's respect as their manager. The fact that you can do so (or not) is exactly what makes you a good manager (or not).

And that goes double if you're 20-something and taking over a staff of people more experienced/entrenched than you are, in an industry in which you have no real established background.

Maloney's case is another of a 20-something manager struggling simply because they're a 20-something manager -- one with no apparent newspaper experience and no apparent management experience to boot.

Seriously, how do you go from being nothing but a young, general freelancer to a supervisor of one of the most heralded journalism staffs in the country, at one of the best, most established and respected journalism organizations in the world? How does that even happen?

Oh, yeah, the paper throws out the baby with the bath water and thinks/pretends it's going to automatically become something it isn't, yet, just because some supposed digital upstart is showing up to make "the baby" adjust, come hell or high water.

Maloney found out it was hell, and she drowned because she wasn't ready, or right, for the job.

This is actually an increasingly common issue as the working world speeds up, along with the rest of it, and every industry trends toward younger, jump-started managers who, frankly, have often skipped a lot of steps, and much of the work and real dues-paying that used to be part and parcel of becoming supervisors. The result is that they are confronting head-on the now-prevalent dynamic of 40- and 50-something subordinates having to kowtow/co-exist with 20-year-old managers.

 

Reading it again, this graf stood out for me:

"But one day, while venting to a former editor (one who stuck it out in a similarly unhappy, high-profile job for over a year before leaving), she asked me whether I had been able to choose my own team. Of course not, I said, the staff writers have been there for years, and when I started, it was implied that new hires were out of the question. She asked whether I was allowed to assign pieces to writers I liked outside the organization. I said no; I had recently been informed our freelance budget had been eaten up before I even arrived. “Of course they don’t want to take notes from you,” she replied. “I got rid of almost everyone when I came in.”"

Now, I'm sure I'll get grief on how I don't understand management and crap like that, but to me, one sign of being a good manager is that you are able to motivate employees who aren't the people that you brought in yourself. It's not just employees who have to adapt to their manager. It goes both ways. A good manager should also be able to adapt to their employees. Firing almost everyone when you come in is a lazy way to manage.

 

Adulthood is hard.

(And on a side note -- when I was in school and aiming for a career in newspapers, pop music editor of the LA Times may have been my ultimate dream job. I probably read every word Robert Hilburn wrote in those pages when I was in high school, and was thrilled to meet him when a writer friend gave me a tour of the place. It was a magnificent section back then. Now it's absolutely horrible. The music coverage is unreadable. I finally gave it up for good during Coachella this year, when the writers lavished praise on DJs and Disney queens but anyone over the age of 30 was written off with "ewwww, they're so OLD!" Just an embarrassing waste of a staff for an entertainment section that used to be a must-read for me. I suspect the "dinosaurs" she was stuck with were about 28 years old.)

 

In fairness, most current pop music is unlistenable.

 

In my experience newspaper reporters are easy to manage. Most will work their asses off if you work with them, listen or leave them alone. They want to write. Not like telling Butch at the Winn-Dixie to stop stretching his 15-minute break into 20.

 

Butch could so work at the Heinen's, you know.

 

Over-simplifying things as I tend to do ... I sincerely hope this person can continue writing with her hands crippled by excessive wringing.

 

Just caught this thread and will see if I can get through the article, but one thought came to me as soon as I saw the thread title: There's still such a thing as a "dream newspaper job"?

 

considering her resume (at least what she revealed), age, experience and how many talented people we know that pretty much work for piss in this business, yeah she had a dream job.

 

But each time I start flipping out again, I remember what another friend asked as I was deciding whether to quit: “What’s scarier, being in debt or being in that building for another six months?”

Your friends are fucking high, lady.

 

Matter of fact, how high was this girl when she wrote this column?