Rant: This business is not that tough

Huh? Horrible pay, demeaning work, negative feedback. But it's all OK, because someone else's job sucks worse?

 

then you've got enough Marriott points to buy one of the things

 

Yeah ... a Fairfield. I'm saving up for Courtyard or higher.

 

Don't we get one of these threads every so often, like "There's the door." or the other one from some young guy about how we should quit our bitching?

 

Exactly. Then there's the loud pounding footsteps so many of us hear regarding job security, whether it's the demise/shrinkage of the industry itself or the knowledge that some retard editor might jerk you around to look busy and justify his existence. And the lack of respect or understanding coming from the glass offices, along with crappy or no raises, as if your college degree is worth less than a scrap of newsprint. Put all that as backdrop to everything else that's demanding or demeaning about the job and the gripes and whining sound a lot more legitimate.

Still waiting, for instance, to see the place that sends you on a weeklong road trip and actually pays you for the 7 x 24 hours that has been ripped out of your life. Most call it a "40-hour work week" and pay accordingly. The first time it happens, it's exciting and full of responsibility. The 200th time it happens, you just want to be home.

 

Life itself is not easy. I often think I would like some brainless job such as working at a McDonald's drive thru just because you don't have to take the work home with you. I see that as a positive compared to the constant deadlines we face in our world. HOWEVER, an argument that involved your Marriott Rewards card is not a strong argument for your job being tough. Think about that for a second. Do you have to wash your own BMW, too? Minimum wage workers have it tough just paying bills, etc. Yes, we do, too, but not to that degree. Nobody wins this argument. Everybody has challenges.

 

If you're traveling more often than you're not, you're working your ass off.

No beat writer sees anything resembling a 40-hour week during the season. It's usually closer to 60 and if you count travel time, is actually closer to 80.

If we all had our schedules spread out over 12 months, it would be a lot more manageable than it is now. But that's not the way it works...

 

So The Method wouldn't mind me giving him a call when I stroll to the Air Canada desk at midnight and find it empty because they canceled my flight without telling me? Or during the drive from Edmonton to Calgary in February?
NO way the guy has ever done a beat and, as IJAG said, if he's never had an editor jump on him for something he's either doing something incredibly right or incredibly wrong.
For a Preps writer the summer is a bit easier. But it doesn't include all of "this business," now does it.
And, I'm working more this summer during the "off-season" than others most of the guys on their current beats. And I'm not even complaining--I actually love my job (cringe...I've never said that in 25 years in the business), but that post was ridiculous.

 

Yeah, that one was classic.

And to answer the "minimum wage is worse" people - Is that really the standard we want to compare ourselves to? Seriously?

 

Yeah, it seems reasonable that we should compare ourselves, most of us being college graduates, to fast food workers...

 

I think you missed my Marriott points point. It might surprise you to learn that I don't actually LIVE at a Marriott. So every night I spend in one is a night I am not with my wife and (soon-to-be) newborn daughter. Many of those points represent missed birthdays, missed anniversaries, missed family reunions, missed Christmases and Thanksgivings. In the not-too-distant future, they will start to mean missed first steps, missed first words and missed bedtime stories.

What are those things worth to you? Give me a number, and you can have my precious Marriott points or non-existent BMW. It doesn't matter if I'm staying at the Best Budget Inn, a Marriott, or the president's suite at the Ritz Fucking Carlton. None of those places are "home with my family."

Look, I'm not complaining. I knew what a bitch this job could be when I signed on. I knew it meant making a shitload of sacrifices. But fuck anyone who wants to tell me that sometimes this job ISN'T a bitch and that I'm not making sacrifices.

Fuck 'em right in the face.

 

When I started at this job almost nine years ago, I was the SE of three weekly papers. Through staff reductions, I have five now. I also have to update their Web sites every day and do the occasional poll or video.
Two months ago, I had to leave work sick for the first time in nine years. I've called in sick once or twice before, but this was the first time I had to leave. Part of it was food poisoning, but part of it, I think, was a panic attack from dealing with food poisoning and having dozens of different things thrown at me at once.