Able to walk away -- and the reason you did

Great thread.

I'm likely leaving the business later this year. Approaching my mid-40s now and just not making the progress (financially, professionally, etc.) I had assumed would be there. Tired of jumping from one so-so job and town to another. Tired of having my life controlled by other people's schedule, stuck on a copy desk every single weekend and holiday. Tired of spending too much of my time on things I personally care little about. Just tired, very, very tired.

 

This is something I've been thinking about.
Mrs. Rhody is due the first week of August and has two months of maternity leave. With the way our schedules work, there are days that no one would be home to take care of our child and I can't think of any day care services that will watch a baby from 2 p.m. until 9 p.m.
I'm trying to think of a way to adjust my schedule to make things work, but my paper's biggest day of the week is Tuesday and that's a day Mrs. Rhody works from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
If I stay, our product suffers; my bosses wouldn't care, but I would.
We've talked about getting a camera for baby pics and I may talk her into getting a professional camera because a) it takes better pictures; and b) that would allow me to freelance as a photographer/writer. I could probably slut myself out to patch and a couple of local papers, work fewer hours and make nearly the same money.
It also might revive my love for the job, because right now I'm a copy machine, cranking out a ton of stories a week and doing layout. If I could just write and shoot, I'd be incredibly more happy.

 

Yes, this is a great thread.

And while I haven't walked away, as someone in his late 30s, I realize I couldn't have made it in the newspaper biz for nearly two decades without:

1. A wife who is EXTREMELY understanding, and

2. A wife who works a day shift (as a teacher) so we don't have to pay child care.

The plus side of No. 2, of course, is you don't have the crippling costs of child care during odd hours -- as others have noted, it's tough to find.

More importantly, when your kids are young (toddlers, pre-school, even grade school) you see quite a bit of them during the day and can be involved as a volunteer in their school. And summers are great.

Downside ... well, our oldest is in "middle school" now, and I really only see him on the weekends. If he continues in sports and other after-school activities, I will miss more and more as we scrape by with the bare minimum of staffing on the copy desk.

Sorry to ramble ... just a few things some of you younger SportsJournalists.comers may be facing in the future.

As I've said elsewhere, people who leave the newspaper business are NOT sellouts. Don't ever think they are.

 

I think part of the issue for some is the demands have grown greater in recent years with fewer and fewer people around to do the work.

I've talked with several former colleagues who say the same thing. Fewer staffers mean more work and less scheduling flexibility. When you routinely make those sacrifices without rewards to balance them, it saps one's passion for the business.

 

The process referenced in this thread's title often takes a good two, three, or more, years to really accomplish. This is largely because many of us try to hang on to some semblance of what we had via freelancing or contract work.

Eventually, however, most will tire of that, and then, begin to really weigh the payoffs vs. the work involved with keeping a journalism career alive these days -- it often involves constant stress, from a constant state of job-hunting, with little or no commitment from the other side.

Because you usually end up having to do something else to supplement freelance work, you also eventually start seeing/doing other things, and then, making comparisons of things like the pay and the hours, the level of personal fulfillment, the happiness with or headaches involving management or staffing-shortage issues, the constant demands, stress and intrusion of the work, the strain of or oppression in the work environment, and just, in general, whether or not it really is worth it to make concerted efforts without much return.

Eventually, the answer starts to be, "No," and the motivation and inspiration wane. This is so even if you still feel a pull and are still interested in journalism/sports writing, and even if you do still miss newspapers, and the people in them, every day. The longer you are not in the business full-time and the more distance you have, or are forced to have, from it, the more it becomes not worth it to try so hard for what you once wanted so much.

You start to realize, or are forced to accept, that there is life outside the industry -- much of it good, and some of it pleasantly surprisingly different, and, in some ways, better.

I'm one of those people who really could, and did, say that my newspaper career was, pretty much, my life, not too long ago. It wasn't just because of all the time involved, either. I -- sadly, I guess -- really thought and felt that way, and furthermore, I didn't see anything wrong with that, because I loved it. It was what I wanted to do. I didn't have any second thoughts or regrets. I still don't, really.

Now, though, my concentration is on my current regular job, which is only part-time and which pays half of what I used to make per hour when I was in my last full-time newspaper job. I am nonetheless finding that I like my new job/field surprisingly much, and am becoming committed to it, even despite the significant drawbacks of part-time work and too-little pay.

The reasons for this positive-anyway perspective?

1). Well, I'm working for a national retail giant, where opportunities abound for lateral and upward moves should you stay with the company long enough, and if you are interested, if you do well and want to pursue them.

2). I have been treated well -- something I sorely needed and something I am sensitive to and that I truly appreciate after feeling wounded and bereft at the ending of my full-time newspaper work. Truthfully, I still feel that way, often, when/if I think about it too much. But, my current job has done more to help me move forward than almost anything else, and has, thus, engendered some real loyalty and commitment on my part.

3). That commitment, it seems, is not one-sided, either. I've seen real evidence of that, both in a recent transfer I got, and, especially, in an amazing meeting I just had a couple days ago with the acting manager of my store (the former store manager was promoted two weeks ago to a higher position in another, larger store). Anyway, the meeting in which I was engaged involved an important personnel matter, and, almost incredibly to me, the store's acting manager showed his support for me, in a private but tangible way that showed me that he was/is his associates' ally. I can't tell you how much it meant to me that he proved to be someone who could, and would, use his own judgment in making decisions that would be for his employees' direct benefit. He showed, in dramatic fashion, that he will support his subordinates and do what he can to right a wrong if he believes his people, and/or believes in them. Suffice to say that as I sat watching and listening, amazed and in awe of a manager actually doing something specific, important and good just because he could and would do so for the benefit of an employee (and a relatively new employee, at that), I couldn't help but immediately compare his example to many of the complaints/horror stories I've heard of and read about on here.

All I could say to myself was, "Wow...just, wow. I can't believe he did that." It was inspiring, actually, and kind of incredible.

His handling of the situation was very much appreciated, by me, at least. Now, I doubt the acting store manager even realizes or can understand the impact he's had (in a good way). But, I'm guessing there probably are a lot of people on here who might get it, and who would have appreciated it just as much as I did.

 

I just want to say thank you for sharing that.

 

I left the business in 2005 and have never been happier. There were two reasons I did. The first was I saw that newspapers were going the way of the 8-track tape and decided to build my freelance business before other people did. Second and far more important, one of my best friends had pancreatic cancer and I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could. I have never regretted the decision and it made me realize what is truly important in this world. I was with her two days before she died and had I been at the newspaper I would have been 3,000 miles away at some meaningless golf tournament.

 

I bailed last summer for a communications gig. Same reasons as many here. Pay, advancement, hours, location, future, etc. Have found some infrequent but regular freelance work to keep feeding the fire I have left for the business, and started a blog as well as more of a creative outlet than anything else. In short, I still get to spout off, I still get to write to deadline, and I get to do it on my own terms. Couldn't be happier.


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http://saskawhat.wordpress.com

 

Rhody's baby-is-coming situation begs this question: How many men take maternity leave or have asked to take it and been denied, browbeaten or otherwise made to feel like shit for even considering it?

Maternity leave is not just for women. It's available for men, too, but men don't take it.

Just wondering.

 

I walked away a little more than two years ago, after 25 years in the biz — more than that if you count work in high school and college and stringing.

Things got too unstable, too shaky. I was fortunate enough to land a nice communications gig with a city. I have a decent salary. A normal schedule. Plenty of time off.

But ...

Of the things I miss, the “high” from writing tops the list.

Working at a newspaper is an adrenaline junkie’s dream — deadlines and ever-changing story lines and the focus necessary to get it right. All of which, in proper proportions and the proper setting, makes even the most ingeniously twisting and turning rollercoasters in the world seem like a spin down the block on a tricycle.

There were times when the tumblers clicked into place, sitting in an empty pressbox after a game, the echoes from the cheers still dancing around now-empty stands like ghosts, the world would pull away, just “zoom out” like the depth-of-field camera tricks of a cheesy sci-fi movie. The sound of the keyboard — a rapid-fire clacking — was like a buzz in my ears and my face would become warm, a flush the result of the energy overflowing in my brain while words spilled out through my finger tips, the sentences a narrative I literally heard in my head as they were birthed.

The good Lord knows there are plenty of ways to get high, but nothing beats that “buzz” — nothing.

And that’s what I miss the most. That buzz. That rush. That high. Drowning in creative juices, a willing victim.

They’ve never bottled anything like that.

The deftly turned phrase — apart, a cache of unrelated words; well woven, a taut cord — is much like a finely painted portrait, and as artistic an aphrodisiac.

The opportunity to write something, to do it well, to know that it will be read and have an impact, that it will touch some and touch-off others, is enticing, a part of the creation’s seduction.

Cadence and rhythm and the allure of alliteration, all brush strokes on an evolving canvas.

It can’t be faked, and it shouldn’t be selfish or wasted because words — like inspiration — are finite, and slapping something together for the sake of production squanders what demands to be valued.

Writing should do more than chronicle, it should inspire. It should be a tool and what it builds should endure. It should entertain, yes, but also enlighten, bright bursts that mean something unique and individual to each reader.

Sure, plenty of times, writing was work — every journalist has “cranked out” a story. It’s not always magic. A lot of the time it’s arduous and just as often monotonous.

But, when it was right, writing could be almost spiritual … at least, it felt that way.

Who wouldn’t want to do something like that? And who wouldn’t miss it?

 

^

This is what I can't get through to my family. This is what I miss.

Sure, it could be a grind many more nights than many of us with the ability to look back on this as hindsight will usually admit. But funny ... there's no telling how many of the same people who think that other ways to get "high" is so bad might not understand the adrenaline high that one can get from working on the desk, out in the field or anywhere else where the pressure is on and it's time to get things done.

It applies to writing, as the above post illustrated brilliantly, but it also applies to being a desker.

To their credit, the supervisors at the job I had following my last journalism gig understood that their atmosphere was much different - more than an apples-to-oranges difference.

 

Geez, did we work at the same place? I was starting to realize how much I hated going to work about the same time my wife and I were starting to talk about relocating; we quickly came to the realization I should quit. I'm teaching media writing at a university now, making significantly less money, and couldn't be happier.

No. I work a weekly desk shift for our local paper because I just can't completely walk away.