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Memorable farewells

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Bronco77, Apr 17, 2018.

  1. MTM

    MTM Well-Known Member

    Our paper was bought by a larger paper and we were told to expect an email regard our future. If we were sent to one room at a specified time we were being retained and if it was another we were being laid off.

    One of our reporters was out in the field when the emails came and returned a couple hours later saying he was told to report to Room 2 and he asked what it meant. Those of us who remained didn’t feel it was our job to tell him he was being laid off so we lied and said we didn’t know and he should ask his editor.
     
  2. Fredrick

    Fredrick Well-Known Member

    Fredrick really wants to send that SE an email thanking him for having big balls and being a great great human being.
     
    Doc Holliday likes this.
  3. Fredrick

    Fredrick Well-Known Member

    Geezus. Another poor way to handle this stuff. The layoff Room. My gawd. Get a grip, American suits.
     
  4. Doc Holliday

    Doc Holliday Well-Known Member

    Threads like this are why I come to SJ.com. Truth is always more entertaining than fiction.
     
    Tweener and Bronco77 like this.
  5. ChrisLong

    ChrisLong Well-Known Member

    I'll throw this one in here, since it was actually me in 1995. Early November, I was ready to go to Maui on vacation with my wife's family. It was my in-laws 50th anniversary. I was in the office on Wednesday, and started vacation on Thursday. We got a memo that EVERYONE IS REQUIRED to be in the office on Friday at 10 a.m. I went to the SE, who was a first-class asshole and hated my guts. I told him I'm on a plane the next day. He goes "uh, uh, hmmm, um ..." I said, do I need to call in from Hawaii on Friday. He said, "Uh, I don't know ... uh, yeah, you better."
    I didn't call right away, but I did call my answering machine at home to check for messages. One message was from HR and it said to call in. I didn't, but later that day there was a message taped to the door of the cabin we were renting. So I finally did call in and was told that I was laid off. "This darn economy," was the dialog I got.
    The fucking HR office FedEx'd my walking papers to me in Maui. I didn't communicate with anyone for two weeks, but there were messages on my answering machine from a couple of photogs and reporters that they were going to sue to get their jobs back and they wanted me to participate in the lawsuit (I didn't, but about 8 of them sued and reached a monetary settlement that, I was told, was about equal to what they would have gotten had they not sued).
    I tried to not let my situation ruin the vacation for my wife and in-laws. The only good thing that came out of it was the delay saved me some income tax money. I told them I never received the FedEx delivery, so they issued the paperwork again. We had 45 days to sign them in order to receive our severance. Because of the two-week delay, my 45-day window took me into January, while everybody else had theirs in late December, thus, their severance was added to their 10+ months of pay and they would take a hit on tax day.
    This whole scenario occurred at the South Bay Daily Breeze in Torrance. About 12 years earlier, The Copley Press, owners of the Breeze, bought the Santa Monica Evening Outlook. There was a lot of staff merging over the years and I actually worked most of the time at the Daily Breeze. When this layoff occurred, the Evening Outlook prep editor knew he would be OK since he was the only one covering Santa Monica-area preps, but he was unhappy and was planning to quit. On layoff day in Santa Monica, he went into the editor's office and told the editor that he wanted to quit and he hoped that would save a job for somebody else. The editor told him he was on the layoff list, too. The Daily Breeze leadership essentially removed all of the sports people still on the Santa Monica payroll.
     
    Tweener likes this.
  6. bumpy mcgee

    bumpy mcgee Well-Known Member

    He did, granted the SE gave his notice a month later but it was still appreciated.
     
    Doc Holliday and Slacker like this.
  7. crimsonace

    crimsonace Well-Known Member

    Different gig, but the high school where I teach went through a round of state funding cuts, and therefore had to lay off a ton of teachers. I was in my second year, and our world was last-hired, first-fired, so I was on pins & needles on whether I'd be looking for a job.

    They had to notify teachers if they were being retained for the next year by May 1. On April 30, last period of the day, teachers began to be pulled out of their classes and taken to the layoff room ... which was a couple of doors down from my classroom. I'm not sure my students learned much that hour, as my heart went into my throat every time I heard footsteps down the hall (and often, didn't see a principal, but a colleague with the head down, as if he/she was walking the Green Mile). When the day ended, I walked past the room and saw a bunch of beloved colleagues sitting in the room, many of which had more experience than me but were in departments that needed fewer teachers (basically, the entire PE department was being eliminated save 1-2 people). I got out of there as fast as I could before they could find me ;). I had a huge amount of survivor's guilt, as I came to realize I was the last one above the cut line. It was like being the last at-large team in the tournament.

    A decade later, I'm still there, but I wonder what turns my career might have taken had I been whacked that day. I'd left my SE gig and gone to school for two years to change careers, and nearly lost it two years in.
     
    Bronco77 likes this.
  8. Bronco77

    Bronco77 Well-Known Member

    I'll throw in a memorable going-away party stemming from a departure in the late '80s. Our sports staff had a young reporter (I'll call him "Sam") who was a good guy and possessed immense talent but also had a drinking problem and fell out of favor with management, which fired him after one too many incidents. Having lost his job but not his sense of humor, Sam and his roommate held a "Sam Gets Canned" going-away party at their apartment. One requirement to attend: You had to bring a can of food so Sam wouldn't go hungry in unemployment (my contribution was Chef Boyardee ravioli). Our newsroom employed about 300 people at the time, and I'd say close to half of the staff stopped by before the proceedings ended at about 5 a.m. I haven't seen or spoken to Sam since then, but he turned his life around after that and since has enjoyed a long and successful reporting career. I'm happy things worked out for him.
     
  9. Fred siegle

    Fred siegle Well-Known Member

    Two stories: my first job at a daily was about to end because a weekly chain had bought the paper and was going to bust it down to a weekly. Similar thing to a lot of the others, management held meetings with everyone to let them know who was laid off and who wasn't. I was one of the lucky ones since another, bigger paper and competitor had heard what was happening and called me offering a job if I was indeed laid off, and I did get laid off. The layoffs happened I think on a Thursday and the paper still had to publish for the Sunday paper so that meant people who were laid off had to come in to work for the final daily edition. About the only people who showed up to actually work for Friday and Saturday were the sports staff. I don't know if we were stupid or dedicated or what .
    My other story is from that next paper where probably several years later a news reporter wanted to write a story from the town he covered and I guess the higher ups Shot it down. He sent a message on the computer system to the entire newsroom saying "I quit. I refuse to work for an organization that refuses to support me" or something like that. I have no idea if his beef was Legitimate or not. But needless to say it caused quite a stir in the newsroom .
     
  10. studthug12

    studthug12 Active Member

    Pretty disappointed @Fredrick ...no story for you telling off the suits? Don't mind the 23 hour shifts that bad with no lunch breaks?
     
    Fredrick likes this.
  11. Fredrick

    Fredrick Well-Known Member

    Wow. I hate the newspaper business. Quite a story.
     
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