Endangered species list: Newspaper staff photographer

And he probably would.

Same choice Starman had.

 

There are two choices in life:

-- Subject yourself to any and every abuse your employer can imagine.
-- Quit, thus making yourself ineligible for unemployment while waiting who knows how long to get assraped by your next employer.

 

They were asking someone who was never trained and had no experience to do a job, in addition to the job they're already doing, and do it at acceptable professional standards.

Sorry, but fuck off. You want me to do two jobs for the price of one? At BARE MINIMUM, you should provide the proper training to do so.

Anyone who writes a shitty one-job paycheck in compensation for two, three, or four jobs, should be willing to take the risk that they'll get exactly what they pay for.

And, before anyone writes a missive in response: Yes, I know that's not how the world works nowadays. That's the problem. and it's a disgrace.

 

I would rather be abused by my employer than bring this sort of dishonor to my own name.

 

I walk to the ends of the Earth for employers who appreciate it.

Treating your employees well entails more than throwing a paltry sum of money at them in exchange for the work of four people.

 

Great for you.
I have self-pride.
A lot of it, usually.

 

Making an effort to take a couple of nice photographs --- something eleventy billion people do every day with their smartphones --- is nowhere near "the work of four people."

There is no limit to the extremes you people will exaggerate in an attempt to make a point.

Or, perhaps, learn to do enough things (or a certain thing well enough) to make yourself indispensable to your employer(s) and/or qualified to work at a variety of places. The only limits to such goals are the ones you put on yourself.

 

There is a fine line here between "intentionally" taking lousy photos, and taking lousy photos because it's one among 10 different things you're asked to do.

I'm currently a copy editor/page designer (at a small shop, you do both). If I had several hours to spend making a section front look great and unique every night, I'd do that. Instead, we get 8-12 pages to lay out each night, plus read copy, plus proof pages, plus load stuff to the web site ...

You do the best you can, and try to keep a straight face when the publisher comments about the paper's "boring" layout.

 

It never stops at one extra task. And, once that task gets put on you, it's never going away.

If you hire and pay me to be a reporter, I'll report my ass off for you.

If you hire and pay me to be a reporter, I'm not going to heavily invest myself in becoming a great photographer, or page designer, or copy editor, unless I'm paid to do so.

Doing otherwise devalues EVERY job in journalism. Which, coincidentally, is where we are at present, and one main reason why this business is in the shitter.

 

I've worked at community newspapers my entire journalism career, so I'm used to being a jack of all trades. Yeah, it's a blessing and a curse. And, yeah, I've worked at terrible places of employment before.

However, I don't intentionally sandbag, because I want to ensure that I can prove to other potential employers that I will always strive to do the job the best I can. Because I know that every employer who truly cares about his or her employees will NEVER hire somebody who intentionally sandbagged at another job, even if the employer of that other job didn't give a rat's ass.

Yeah, it sucks that there are too many employers who only concern themselves with the bottom line. But intentionally sandbagging it isn't the answer.

Certainly you can say "if you expect me to do this job that I am not qualified to do, I expect you to provide training and pay for it, because that's how it works in an employer-employee relationship." And you are free to add "oh, and you better give me more money in my paycheck for doing this." They are reasonable demands to make.

Declaring that because your employer doesn't care, means you don't care, makes you just as egotistical as your employer is. So why stoop to your employer's level?

Oh, but I'm sure all those workers who tried forming unions during the Gilded Age all decided they'd just half ass it and the employers would get it. :