Bankrupt Tribune Seeks $66 Million in Manager Bonuses

crusoes, which was wrong. If you believe in what this country is supposed to stand for then those folks shouldn't be rewarded for failure. Of course America is very screwed up today.

 

Anyone doing "triple and quadruple" work doesn't deserve a bonus because he or she was stealng money before. Heroic as it sounds, no one can triple or quadruple their workload if they were giving an honest 40 hrs before all those staff slashings. Besides which, that behavior, were it possible, would just be rewarding rotten managers above you and cheating the hell out of your own family.

If I have to work like a mother----er in this world solely out of fear -- fear of going hungry or homeless -- I'm sure as hell not going to do it for screwheads who manage themselves into that predicament.

 

I know a manager in circulation who is working 90 hours a week. She hasn't had a day off in several weeks. I think since the beginning of May she's had two, maybe three days off. The upper management isn't doing anything (assuming they have the power) to help alleviate the workload.

 

Then the manager needs to document her hours, then cut back on them. If upper management gets upset because stuff isn't getting done, then she should point out how many hours she is working, and that if they can't cut back on the workload, she will.


For 90 hours a week, she better be making an amount of money for a very comfortable living.

 

Not even close. There's no way I'd do what she's doing.

 

Hey, it's not the managers that failed, it's YOU. Now get back to work on that volleyball gamer, and get that video up NOW.

 

Separating the bonus issue for a moment ... that is total unadulterated bullshit, Joe. More manager-hating red meat designed to froth up the SJ masses who don't or choose to not to know any better.

Stealing money? Weren't giving an honest 40 hours? Maybe some managers, but certainly not all, definitely not a majority of managers I know.

My higher-ups at my place have been mucking it up just like everyone else. They took a paycut at the same time we took furloughs. With no furloughs in the fourth quarter at my shop, our cut was temporary, their cut is permanent. And unlike the hourly folks, they don't get OT.

It would do this business a helluva lot of good if people would assess people as individuals instead of stupid shit like "managers suck!"

There are managers who suck and there are managers who work their asses off, just like there are rank-and-file employees who fit both categories. I've been around and worked with them all.

Your "I hate all managers" theme that runs through just about every post you make on this page, Joe, are about as tiresome as some of the political arguments on the Politics page. Your broad brush never fails to paint.

 

That is true. Good post, Bubbler.

 

Yeah, but we know who's on top of the prevailing ChiTrib food chain. The
broad nausea's wholly legitimate.

 

That's not who Joe is referring to. He's referring to middle-to-low management newsroom managers, many of whom are victims of the corporate bullshit as much as non-managers are.

 

You said it better than I would have, Bubbler. Thanks for that.

 

Bubbler, et al,

Read again the part where I mention "stealing money." The math is simple. No one who already is working a legit 40 hours can possibly triple or quadruple their workload. Not even the martyrs who have Stockholm syndrome or think they're earning a ticket to newspaper heaven.

Working 120 or 160 hours a week? Really? Divide by five -- hell, divide by seven. Or, on the other hand, why stop there? Why not claim that they're working 169 hours a week and that they don't even get time-and-a-half for that grueling 169th hour.

I don't hate all managers, but I do hate hyperbole and dumb-ass exaggerations.

As for the recurring theme in some of my posts -- we should avoid absolutes like "all" because we don't like painting with broad brushes, right? -- I will admit to disliking and disrespecting bosses who a) don't have their troops' backs, b) won't speak truth to power inside the building even as they demand that their journalists speak truth to power outside the building, and c) won't or can't lead -- maybe not the way out of the woods but some way, for crissakes -- rather than hunkering down, freezing up or saving their own asses by whatever means necessary.

Also, we really should define the terms -- managers, bosses, execs, whatever -- because I couldn't care less about assistant department heads. I'm talking about spineless sports editors, creative-tension-loving MEs, toady-to-the-corporate-types executive editors and tone-deaf-to-journalism publishers and owners.

Other than those slobs and snivelers, I find all managers and bosses to be quite fetching.