cutting full-time hours

As for working unpaid overtime, you gotta make the call if it's worth it or not.

If it was something I enjoyed doing, I might go a little over without putting it on the time card. If it was some BS I could care less about,no way. Been there, done that too many times. People will push you as far as you allow yourself to be pushed, in business and life in general.

 

Benefits aren't trimmed because full-time hours are cut. Those 2.5 hours per week help though.

 

i believe 37.5 hours would still be considered full time.

 

Well, very very very few joints piss about the eating-at-your-desk deal any more, because they are perfectly perfectly happy with you working 5 p.m.-2 a.m., "theoretically" taking 8-9 p.m. off for lunch, but in reality running back to the lunchroom at 8:00, stopping for 2 minutes in the can, microwaving a sandwich in the lunchroom for 3 minutes, running back to your desk at 8:06, getting back to work doing the stuff that used to be done by 6 other people who have been laid off, resuming eating the cold carcass of your sandwich at 8:17, taking a phone call at 8:21, taking another bite or two at 8:27, finally choking down the final stale bread crusts at 8:37, and resuming work at 8:42.

So nobody bitches too much about the 'eating at your desk' stuff. They also don't seem very concerned about the fact that you send the last page off to press at 1:45, then it takes another 45 minutes to web-post all the section items, so that "2 a.m." clock-out time seems quite flexible as well.

 

Excellent excellent post starman. I can't believe how this has become a new task of copy editors to save money, having to post all the stories on the Internet after the last pages are sent. Just another thing to make tired copy editors do. Post stories and headlines at 2 a.m. after a full shift. Beautiful. Meanwhile the 10 a.m. meeting people are just 7-8 hours away from their glorious meeting where they can find a way to criticize your work when you arrive to do some actual work in the afternoon.

 

And who the hell else is going to post those stories, Fredrick? Seriously? Should we ask the "10 a.m. meeting people" to come in at 2 a.m. to do this? I used to work one of those late shifts, and while posting stuff to the internet sucks, it's a necessary evil. I used to post that stuff whilst waiting for the last page to clear.

 

The year I moved up to a college beat, I turned in my time sheet after the first football game that required me to drive a long distance (the first road game required a plane ride to get there). I put down 12 hours for the day of the game: the 4 hours I drove to get from one end of the state to the other, the 4 hours to cover the game and file the story (trust me: I was being generous to the company on that one), plus the 4 hours for the return drive.

I was called in to explain why I had 4 hours of overtime. I explained. The response: Driving time doesn't count as work time. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Turns out, many years ago, the executive editor and the managing editor (just starting out at the paper as cub reporters) were so eager to cover the state legislature (which hadn't been done before), they agreed not to charge the paper mileage and did the job with all sorts of concessions to management. Thus began a long period when nobody challenged the "driving time doesn't count as work time" rule.

I pointed out we were getting mileage, which would seem to contradict the company's stance. I made the argument as best I could, and the sports editor fired back at me, "Well, maybe we just won't go on the road to cover Local College Team."

"OK," I said.

Didn't matter to me.

The paper began paying for travel time.

If things like that (and others I've encountered) happened to employees at other businesses or in the government, the same editors would trip over their feet in righteous indignation wanting to do a story on the injustice of Big Bad Company or Big Bad Municipality. When they do it to their own employees, they try to guilt them into just rolling over.

 

OM Gosh. You are my new hero Johnny. Good for you on standing up for what was right. That is hilarious they threatened you with, 'Maybe we won't cover local team on road.' And you said basically good. I don't care. Bless you buddy!!!

As far as who should post those stories? Uh, somebody from the Internet-side of things. Many papers have internet web producers. And uh, yes, the 10 a.m. meeting people should do it at 6 or 7 a.m. before their damn meeting. That's cool you figured out a good time to post the stories, though. I give you credit for that.

 

Yeah, not paying (or paying maybe half)for travel time is becoming more and more common. And the other option, as stated, is simply not traveling. In this day and age, one can get a game story from any number of sources. Often it's cheaper to get a stringer, especially if the travel involves motels, meals, gas, AND paid time by staff.

The last three places I worked, the only travel authorized was for state tournament/playoff contests. Beyond that, it's just not freakin worth it. So, if you, as the reporter, have a passion to be there, expect to make some sacrifices in order to make it happen.

 

The whole internet issue was a burr under my saddle as well. I felt it was just piling more work on the copy desk guy, at the end of a long shift, to boot.

My position was if you wanted a good web site, you needed to hire someone to build and maintain it. Thus, web stuff received a pretty low priority on my watch.

News side staffers would respond that they uploaded stuff during the shift as each page was completed rather than waiting until the end of the night. They couldn't seem to understand that I didn't get the bulk of our copy until late in the evening and, by that time, I was so busy doing stuff for the print edition that the only chance I had to do web stuff was AFTER the print deadline.

So, yeah, I feel your pain.

 

I don't mind not putting travel time down as hours worked. I get enough concessions in terms of comp hours that I can handle that. But if they said they weren't paying mileage? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck that. No way. No how. It goes uncovered.

 

At least they are letting you claim comp time. A lot of places give lip service to it, and don't.

I don't mind posting the stories on the Web site. To me, it's one of the future jobs in journalism. If it is something that keeps giving me a paycheck, I'll do it.