Are friends/family shocked at your salary?

No weekends, EVER. Never have to work holidays. Summers off, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Spring Break vacations ... and still get paid every month, and in most cases, more than newspaper salaries.

I'll gladly accept the challenge of getting used to a different schedule if it means I can have all the above and still have nights off to spend with family and friends.

 

I have the option to start work anywhere between 6:30 and 9. I opt to start at 6:30 so I can be off no later than 3:30. I work several nine hour days and a few eight hour days in order to get every other Friday off. It's soooo worth it.

Beats the living piss out of working 10 hour days with no Fridays or Saturdays off; that's for damn sure.

 

Just curious, what time do you go to bed at night?

I was figuring this the other day and I figured that, being a person who has needed a lot of sleep ever since childhood, I'd have to go to bed around 9-10 p.m. in order to get up at 6 a.m. and function decently. Sure, I can get by on less sleep occasionally, but if i try to do it day-in, day-out, I'm as grouchy as a grizzly bear and plain miserable.

So, if I'm living in the east and central time zones and have to go to bed at that hour, I'm missing a lot of the best things I want to see and do: whether it's sporting events, movies or being out on the town (that's assuming, of course, that I move out of podunkville). Is it a worthwhile tradeoff? I dunno. Would be a major change in the life i've had for the last 20+ years.

 

Typically, I hit the bed between 9 and 10, depending on A) what's on TV and B) how tired I am. Only if I'm at a GMU basketball game or a Nats game will I go to bed later, but no later than 11:30.

So by going to bed at let's say 10....I get up at five, which gives me seven hours of sleep. That's plenty for me. Anything under six, and I'm struggggling the next day. More than six, I'm good.

Save for a ballgame during the week, my evening life is pretty "boring." If I go to the gym after work, I'm home by 6, watch TV, eat dinner, shower, watch a little more TV and it's bed time.

I don't miss much during the week, save for the 10:30 Lakers games, which irritate me a little, especially during the playoffs.

and again, yes, it's a worthwhile tradeoff. At least for me. Like today...i was off work at 2:30. Had what seemed like the whole day ahead of me. It was awesome.

 

Hmmm. I can't function like a normal human being on six hours of sleep. My body just can't do it. So I figure I'd have to go to bed by no later than 10 if I'm going to get up at 6 a.m.

I'm afraid if i got off at 2:30 p.m., I'd be likely to come home and take a nap until 7, get up, go back to bed at 12. Something like that. I suppose, as a single person, it could work. But, damn, that would take a lot of getting used to. So maybe being a teacher isn't for me.

I could see working third shift on one of those 24-hour emergency dispatch services. Those people make more than I did in newspapers.

 

Much of the problem with transitioning to another career probably can be traced to the way the journalism careers of many on here are being ended.

Based on their posts, I'd guess that stix and Mark, among others, have had, or are having, their careers ended for them.

It has not happened on their terms, or because they ever wanted that in the first place. It is being forced -- oftentimes, suddenly and/or traumatically, before people are willing, or able, to deal with it very well, and therein lies the basic, terrible and heart-breaking problem.

They, and all of us who have ever contemplated career changes, can probably realize and understand that, surely, there are other fields/careers that could interest us, and other things that would probably satisfy and fulfill us just as much as, if not more than, journalism.

But they don't WANT that stuff. Not really. And certainly, not yet.

Again, that's the problem, because people cannot easily make that leap in their minds without first undergoing a real, genuine and deep change in their emotions and perspective.

This is what translates into calling all things not sports writing "a job I'd hate." Whether or not they actually would hate any or all of the something elses doesn't matter much at this point.

Unfortunately, there is a coming-to-terms process that must be navigated, fully and successfully, before a person can truly start to move on to something else, and be glad, happy and satisfied that they have done so.

 

True. I'm somewhere in the midst of that now.

For several years, I had pondered "do I really want to keep doing this?" I suspect if I had better gigs doing things I more enjoyed, I would have been more tempted to keep going. But yet I hung around, largely because of lack of better options.

When the axe finally fell last year, it brought a mixture of shock and yet relief. The longer I am away from it, the less I miss the stress of deadlines, the drudgery of the copy desk, the newsroom politics and personalities, the whining parents, coaches and others, the lack of flexibility in my schedule. Add all that to the current state of the job market and I find precious little motivation to dive back in, certainly not for a salary far less than what I was making (which was OK, but, by no means exceptional).

I do some freelance work a couple of times per week for a local paper but I expect that when school is out, I'm done, barring something completely unexpected. Rare is the day I even read the paper now, whether in print or online.

Three times since Christmas I was convinced the next job had come along, prepared myself to relocate and all, only to be told at the last minute that corporate had put the position on hold. Oh, well, it's out of my control and I believe that all things happen for a reason. Some days I wish things had turned out differently, but, after almost 20 years post-college, I'm exhausted from pounding on doors that aren't inclined to open.

If by some chance the market rebounds someday in the future and there are ample openings in places where I actually want to live, paying what I consider a reasonable wage, I'm confident the option to step back into it will be there. If not, I'm at peace with that as well. I'm more than ready to move on..... even if I have absolutely no idea what or where I might be moving on to.

 

I know this is a late reply to this thread, but I came across it today and wanted to comment.

It's been more than 20 years since I had the conversation with myself that led to my leaving the business. It was a long conversation, spilling over several days and timezones. But the thing that still is fresh in my mind is the event that triggered that soul-searching in the first place. I was sitting in some non-descript pressroom writing some standard-fare story. Across from me was a fellow at least 50 years my senior, pecking away on his story. And it dawned on me that he was doing exactly the same thing I was doing. And then it occurred to me ... if I didn't do something, 50 years in the future that would be me. That meant 50 years of doing largely the same thing. Yes, the games would change and the locations would change, but in the final analysis it was going to be the same thing, week in and week out, for the next 40 or 50 years. I turned my notice in a week later.

I see now that what drew me to being a sports reporter was the novelty of the career itself ... when I realized that novelty was a mirage, there wasn't enough of a payoff to justify my continuing to do it.

 

Can't you say this about any job, though? Or do you think that sports writing is more repetitive than most? Surely you can grow professionally so that you're performing at a higher level those decades down the road?

 

No, I don't think it's more repetitive than other jobs. And, yes, there is/was always room for growth. I remember being struck, however, that professional success wasn't really going to result in substantial changes in what I'd be doing on a day-to-day basis. There might be bigger papers, more prominent beats, etc. But I was still going to be doing the same thing for all of my working days.

Given that one of the reasons I was drawn to the career was the novelty of it, that meant I was leaving a huge chunk of the compensation package on the table.