when is it time for the axe to fall?

[Flash]

At a game I covered yesterday, I happened to overhear a coversation between to kids ready to graduate from a prestigious J-school, one interning for the major metro.

It's so funny how these kids think jobs are going to fall into their lap.

I was kind of jealous, remembering when I thought that's how things were going to be, until I remember that the kid used 'destiny is spelled P-O-D-U-N-K' in his gamer last week.

Wait, so the intern at the "major metro" used that horrible lede, and it ran?

Maybe the copy desk let it run on purpose so he would have that clip in his portfolio and look like an ass? Although I don't think I know anyone who would actually do that.

 

[Tom Petty]

thanks for the advice moderator1. i've gone over similar things in my mind but having someone else say it helps.

Do you have a mechanism at your paper to put someone on probation? That puts it out in the open. Give them a list of goals they have to achieve over 3 months ... spelling, punctuality, deadline. At our shop, this is done in consultation with the editor and HR director.

Above all, document, document, document, document. Make sure you have concrete examples of the problems and, if you do put him/her on probation, document even more.

I've never worked anywhere that didn't start with a three-month probation ... is this not common practice in the States?

flash - in most of the states in the states, the three-month probation period is no different than any other time during your employment other than your boss is telling you up front s/he will be watching you closely and probably documenting your screw ups along the way. there's no more of a magic "we can fire you for any reason we want" during those three months than there is in your fifth year of employment.

if employers want to avoid lawsuits, they always must have (documented) reasonS to fire someone other than insubordination or just flat out not showing up to work/assignments. most places i've been at had three strikes and you're out policies.

hope this (kinda) answers your question.

I've only ever known one person who didn't make 'probation,' but a bag of hammers was smarter than this girl. Love it when kids show up for a day at the office, highlighted by a trip to city council and such, wearing flip-flops and belly shirts.
Oh there was one other guy but he kinda saw the writing on the wall and just stopped showing up.

so flash, as girl viewing girl, she was kinda hot, right?

 

[farmerjerome]

At a game I covered yesterday, I happened to overhear a coversation between to kids ready to graduate from a prestigious J-school, one interning for the major metro.

It's so funny how these kids think jobs are going to fall into their lap.

I was kind of jealous, remembering when I thought that's how things were going to be, until I remember that the kid used 'destiny is spelled P-O-D-U-N-K' in his gamer last week.

Wait, so the intern at the "major metro" used that horrible lede, and it ran?

destiny was it.

Ci, on both counts. Except it wasn't in the lede, but it was still in the story.
I felt bad for the kid. We have a real Cinderella story up here, a team that originally left out of the playoffs (got in when another team had an ineligible player) is making a lengthy playoff run. First playoff win, district title, state game win -- yada yada yada.

So his whole lede is about that, except that the news is three weeks old and even the team is sick of hearing about it.

Ah, to be young and think you're breaking new ground.

 

[Flash]

thanks for the advice moderator1. i've gone over similar things in my mind but having someone else say it helps.

Do you have a mechanism at your paper to put someone on probation? That puts it out in the open. Give them a list of goals they have to achieve over 3 months ... spelling, punctuality, deadline. At our shop, this is done in consultation with the editor and HR director.

Above all, document, document, document, document. Make sure you have concrete examples of the problems and, if you do put him/her on probation, document even more.

I've never worked anywhere that didn't start with a three-month probation ... is this not common practice in the States?

flash - in most of the states in the states, the three-month probation period is no different than any other time during your employment other than your boss is telling you up front s/he will be watching you closely and probably documenting your screw ups along the way. there's no more of a magic "we can fire you for any reason we want" during those three months than there is in your fifth year of employment.

if employers want to avoid lawsuits, they always must have (documented) reasonS to fire someone other than insubordination or just flat out not showing up to work/assignments. most places i've been at had three strikes and you're out policies.

hope this (kinda) answers your question.

I've only ever known one person who didn't make 'probation,' but a bag of hammers was smarter than this girl. Love it when kids show up for a day at the office, highlighted by a trip to city council and such, wearing flip-flops and belly shirts.
Oh there was one other guy but he kinda saw the writing on the wall and just stopped showing up.

so flash, as girl viewing girl, she was kinda hot, right?

She was cute in an 'aw, look at the stupid puppy chase its own tail' kind of way. Stupidity takes away all levels of hotness ...

 

[Mystery_Meat]

At a game I covered yesterday, I happened to overhear a coversation between to kids ready to graduate from a prestigious J-school, one interning for the major metro.

It's so funny how these kids think jobs are going to fall into their lap.

I was kind of jealous, remembering when I thought that's how things were going to be, until I remember that the kid used 'destiny is spelled P-O-D-U-N-K' in his gamer last week.

Headline: At Podunk, destiny is spelled P-O-D-U-N-K

 

[Tom Petty]

thanks for the advice moderator1. i've gone over similar things in my mind but having someone else say it helps.

Do you have a mechanism at your paper to put someone on probation? That puts it out in the open. Give them a list of goals they have to achieve over 3 months ... spelling, punctuality, deadline. At our shop, this is done in consultation with the editor and HR director.

Above all, document, document, document, document. Make sure you have concrete examples of the problems and, if you do put him/her on probation, document even more.

I've never worked anywhere that didn't start with a three-month probation ... is this not common practice in the States?

flash - in most of the states in the states, the three-month probation period is no different than any other time during your employment other than your boss is telling you up front s/he will be watching you closely and probably documenting your screw ups along the way. there's no more of a magic "we can fire you for any reason we want" during those three months than there is in your fifth year of employment.

if employers want to avoid lawsuits, they always must have (documented) reasonS to fire someone other than insubordination or just flat out not showing up to work/assignments. most places i've been at had three strikes and you're out policies.

hope this (kinda) answers your question.

I've only ever known one person who didn't make 'probation,' but a bag of hammers was smarter than this girl. Love it when kids show up for a day at the office, highlighted by a trip to city council and such, wearing flip-flops and belly shirts.
Oh there was one other guy but he kinda saw the writing on the wall and just stopped showing up.

so flash, as girl viewing girl, she was kinda hot, right?

She was cute in an 'aw, look at the stupid puppy chase its own tail' kind of way. Stupidity takes away all levels of hotness ...

not to be argued, just those seem to get away with it longer than the ones who look like my dog named stupid.

 

[Double J]

thanks for the advice moderator1. i've gone over similar things in my mind but having someone else say it helps.

Do you have a mechanism at your paper to put someone on probation? That puts it out in the open. Give them a list of goals they have to achieve over 3 months ... spelling, punctuality, deadline. At our shop, this is done in consultation with the editor and HR director.

Above all, document, document, document, document. Make sure you have concrete examples of the problems and, if you do put him/her on probation, document even more.

I've never worked anywhere that didn't start with a three-month probation ... is this not common practice in the States?

flash - in most of the states in the states, the three-month probation period is no different than any other time during your employment other than your boss is telling you up front s/he will be watching you closely and probably documenting your screw ups along the way. there's no more of a magic "we can fire you for any reason we want" during those three months than there is in your fifth year of employment.

if employers want to avoid lawsuits, they always must have (documented) reasonS to fire someone other than insubordination or just flat out not showing up to work/assignments. most places i've been at had three strikes and you're out policies.

hope this (kinda) answers your question.

I've only ever known one person who didn't make 'probation,' but a bag of hammers was smarter than this girl. Love it when kids show up for a day at the office, highlighted by a trip to city council and such, wearing flip-flops and belly shirts.
Oh there was one other guy but he kinda saw the writing on the wall and just stopped showing up.

Sounds like me in Grade 11 math. Luckily, I already had the two math credits I needed in order to graduate.

 

[Crimson Tide]

well it sounds as though you guys already are doing a bang-up job and i'm positive your newsroom's collective college experience makes your paper a quality read each and every day. never fails to amaze me just how forking intelligent recent college grads can be.

carry on.

You should count yourself blessed that you walked into your first job with 10 years or so of experience out of nowhere and overachieved every day of your career. Not everyone can pull that off. I can only hope to be half the journalist you are today, sir.

 

[buckweaver]

You should count yourself blessed that you walked into your first job with 10 years or so of experience out of nowhere and overachieved every day of your career. Not everyone can pull that off. I can only hope to be half the journalist you are today, sir.

Tom's sniping notwithstanding, his point is well-taken:

It takes 18 years of your life for you to get into college. Then once you get to the real world, you start all over again. What you did in college means squat after about six months in the workforce. Some learn that the hard way.

 

[Tom Petty]

You should count yourself blessed that you walked into your first job with 10 years or so of experience out of nowhere and overachieved every day of your career. Not everyone can pull that off. I can only hope to be half the journalist you are today, sir.

Tom's sniping notwithstanding, his point is well-taken:

It takes 18 years of your life for you to get into college. Then once you get to the real world, you start all over again. What you did in college means squat after about six months in the workforce. Some learn that the hard way.

buck - i refuse to believe i didn't allude to the same point just as nicely somewhere way up the page.
<wink>

 

[Crimson Tide]

I refuse to believe that at some point Mr. Petty didn't start at the bottom like the rest of us. I refuse to believe that he didn't struggle some at the beginning. I refuse to believe that when he started, a bitter, older reporter or editor didn't tell him that his work until that point didn't mean squat. I am neither impressed nor intimidated by his sense of self-importance. He had to start somewhere, too.

I also refuse to believe that he didn't have some kind of guidance to help get him where he is now.

So, I find it confusing that so many here scoff at young hires when they were young hires at some point.

The difference, it seems, is that many don't want to provide guidance to their young hires. How can we learn squat if no one cares to teach us squat? (More specific to my case, how can I learn anything at a place that employs mostly young hires?)

Going back to the original post, perhaps scribe is failing as an editor when it comes to young hires. True, many of us don't know much when we start, but just because he's the boss doesn't mean he's never at fault. We don't know him or his situation like he does. But while the experienced crowd takes what he writes at face value and resort to berating young hires, I'm just playing devil's advocate.

Mr. Petty is right.

Work done for college papers or for real newspapers while attending college doesn't mean squat. But if editors do not make genuine attempts to guide young hires, the editor's leadership, the hire and the final product won't mean squat. I do hope I can be half the worker he is. At this rate, I certainly don't think my work is as strong as it could be.

 

[buckweaver]

Tide -- nobody's "berating" young hires here. It very well may be a bad hire by TxScribe, and his fault for not being judicious enough in screening the applicants.

But when you've been in the business a while, you see that college grads with self-important attitudes are a dime a dozen. Half of 'em don't last past a year or two. They've just come out of environments where they were largely BMOC's, and allowed to write however they want with little supervision. They think they can jump right in and work at a major metro based on their college "experience," not realizing that it doesn't matter how many years you spent in the minor leagues -- you're hitting .000 the second you step into the real world.

The Bill Simmons Effect (and that's as good a name for it as any) is devastating on newspapers. The difference is: Simmons is a good writer (and a shirtty reporter) who found a niche, albeit online. But half of the generic 25-year-old middle-class suburban white males who apply to work in sports journalism think they can be the next Bill Simmons -- and it ain't gonna happen. He's a good writer and a shirtty role model. He failed in newspapers for a reason ...

You're right: you probably can't learn a lot at a place like yours ... you can't learn a lot from other people, if they're all like you. But don't expect that you're going to get that guidance from anyone else -- more than likely, you'll have to learn on your own, and that's a better education than you can ever get in college anyway.

(If you do get guidance, be grateful. I was lucky to have some vets show me the ropes, too. But with the ownership that's in place at most newspapers, and the hiring trends that are not going away, you're going to be among inexperienced peers a lot ... get used to it. You're on your own now ... get comfortable with that, too.)