Is There Any More Loyalty in this Business?

Well, bad karma can come from making bad decisions.

Just one man's opinion.

 

Well, the paper I work at now never knew about the other call, so they didn't really take advantage of me.

It just felt like the right thing to do. You accept a job, you don't come around a week later and say, "Hey, remember that job I took? Find someone else." I mean, the metro editor called me smack dab in the period between my two weeks notice and my starting the job.

You know, at the time, you think that you'll get a thousand of those interviews. That hasn't happened, though maybe it will eventually. Who knows? But I was riding high at the time, and you have to look at decisions, not results. And it's not like I have it terrible now. It was the right thing to do. I would have felt guilty and ashamed of myself to leave someone in the lurch like that.

If it happened again? I'd probably give it a shot, knowing what I know now about how tough it is to score an interview for an NBA beat at a major metro.

 

I thought it was only limited to the journalism business, but most places that hires employees "at will," there seems to be no loyalty. My first full-time job out of college was out of the profession. They pay seemed right, so I took it. I had to turn down an interview in the business while I had the other job because I felt there had to be some loyalty to the company. I found out that there wasn't and then looked within sports journalism, what I wanted to do. Tough way to learn, but I guess it happens that way.

 

Fair enough. I thought you meant you had comepting offers.
I think what most call karma is a way to rationalize when good or bad things happen.
As if you can influence random events. I think about this a lot. Do things work out a certain way because of something you did earlier or would have things worked out differently? This all happened after I get hit by a drunk driver, if I had been a quarter second faster down the road, I would have been killed and a quarter second slower and drunky would have missed me.

 

I've been at my paper for more than five years now, but not out of loyalty. I'm simply staying until I get some debt paid down. When the time is right, I'm gone. Until then, I'm doing whatever to get by.

Luckily, ME No. 2 is no longer with us (I'm on ME No. 3 now). He was the kind of asshole who would run down you, your family, your dog, your job skills, etc. if you gave notice for a "bigger and better" paper. To the rest of the staff in the middle of the office. After he publicly ran down the second to leave, everyone else just walked out without notice because they didn't want to deal with his shit.

Needless to say, he's a former ME because he was shitcanned. Overall, he hurt the paper's rep because now when we have openings in the newsroom, we can't get applicants. Any applicants. We've got one position that's been open for a few months now, and not because they aren't trying to fill it.

So fuck loyalty.

 

Maybe so. Maybe it's all the fault of my superstitious off-the-boat father of mine.

 

Ostentatious citing ubiquitous.
Fuck me. That's awesome.

 

You want loyalty, get a dog or a cat. This is a business. People are going to talk about you whether you do good or bad. If they can't say it to your face or be honest with you, fuck em.
The only thing loyalty in this business will get you is a steady diet of ramen.

 

The industry has become similar to the military. A ton of young staffers paid poorly, asked to make sacrifices for the good of the paper, and then "retired." Anyone who thinks this industry will go the extra mile for them, or that going the extra mile for their paper will give them immunity from being screwed over is being naive. We are all replaceable. and its not like newspapers are worried about losing more circulation...

 

I'd like to see someone stay at least a year in a spot. It's a nice round number.
That said, I operate under the assumption that I have to do what's best for me, and I expect everyone else to operate under the same assumption. If someone's got a better opportunity, I expect them to pursue it, because that's what I'd do.
There's no reason to be loyal to an employer, especially in this day and age and this line of work. If your company doesn't care, why should they expect you to do the same?

 

It's funny, I'm in a newsroom that has more 10-plus-year employees than any other I've been in (and there have been a lot). In fact, there are four 20-year vets on our staff of 10, which I've never been around. I on the other hand have been quite transient by any standard.

So it happened that I was talking to one of the designers, who's been here a long time, coming up on 30 years, I think. And he marveled at my job-hopping just before I asked about his history. He said, "Well, I started here out of college and, uh... I guess they never gave me a reason to leave." Funny, only one editor has ever given me a reason to stay.

By the way, the guy who hired me to this paper? The one who expressed concern about my longevity given my transience? The one who told me about how this company values loyalty and how its employees can't imagine going anywhere else? He was offered another job two days after I accepted this one. He didn't tell me personally until his last day at work, which was after I'd been here three weeks; I only knew because I heard a couple other guys talking about it.

Piss on loyalty, I say. You've got to give it to get it.

 

No loyalty at all.

Busted my ass for more than three years. Solid writer, page designer and copy editor.
They brought in a new guy who is the biggest piece of shit that ever lived. Horrible writer. Doesn't even edit copy. Spends all day designing Page 1 and just throws together the rest. Paper looks like shit. Community is pissed.

New guy treats me like shit and basically spends eight months making my life a living hell. I complain constantly to management. Nothing.

I finally had to quit. Paper still looks like shit.

My 3+ years of working 50+ hours weeks and getting paid for 40, my loyalty and my skills aren't worth shit.