Do you think you will be at your paper this time next year?

From looking around at job openings, it seems if you've got a computer background, there are all kinds of good jobs.

If not, not so much ...

 

Define computer background.

 

It just seems that I've heard recently from some people. The ones who I thought were newspaper lifers and they are talking about going back to school and getting a teaching certificate or looking at law school or something else.
It shocked and scared the hell out of me.
I figure I'll still be around in a year, but do I really want to?
The money I make now isn't all that great, so that at least makes me somewhat safe in terms of job security. But they have gotten so strict on no overtime, that it has to be pre-approved, so that means when you get close to 40 hours, you have to ask, and the answer is always no. So when you hit 40, you just either leave or work off the clock.
It is reasonably to guess that raises aren't coming this year either.
So kicking around is the very definition of financial insanity, but, on the flipside, I like what I do and I have an extremely flexible schedule. I can come and go as I damn well please and the dress code is so loose, anything past jeans is practically considered formal wear.
I don't remember it being this hard.

 

I answered maybe and here's why.
I believe the company feels my work is satisfactory and that I'm a good hand there. Versatility does wonders at times.
The question that remains, and I guess it's a two-parter: Do I want to be here in another year, and does the Man upstairs want me here? I hadn't quite figured that one out yet.

 

God gets His news online, too.
Sorry, we're all S.O.L.

 

That made me laugh.

 

I've resigned myself to hunkering down here until the storm blows over. As long as it takes.

 

I hope if I'm not there, it will be because I've found something different on my own -- and probably wishing I was back doing what I am today.

 

I answered maybe. I just don't know.
I've never wanted to be anything but a newspaper writer. I still don't, and I have a pretty good gig. So I guess I'd stay as long as they'll have me.
But, I'm pretty low on the seniority pole in a last-in-first-out union shop. I've been fortunate so far, but if/when the big layoff hits, I'm in trouble. And I'd much rather leave on my own terms.
So if the right opportunity came along, in journalism, I'd jump, no question. Outside journalism, I don't know.

 

I like that answer.

I could walk away from this ... and just might at some point.

And I'd probably regret it at some point, too.

I understand that the industry has a critical problem. And that we'll never do the job again the way we did in the '70s and '80s. I understand that.

But it's still a newsroom. I'm still in the news-gathering business. And it's what I fell in love with at 14. Bean-counters aren't going to get in my way as far as that's concerned.