Rant: This business is not that tough

amen to that one.

 

Summers easy?

That's when the majority of vacations take place. A lot of the time I'm pulling mad overtime on desk in summers because we never have adequate cover. The overtime pay is nice, but family functions, friendships and the pursuit of a love life suffer massively.

 

Read the food stamps thread again. "Not to that degree"? I think some beg to differ.

 

Finally, according to the U.S. News & World Report 1997 Career Guide, the bet job in the United States, for the second year in a row, is Interactive Business System Analyst. However, last year's worst job, Assistant Crack Whore, has been replaced by a new worst job: Crack Whore Trainee.

 

Wow. I wish I had method's job. Apparently his pay is just horrible, whereas the rest of us have horrible pay, horrible hours (nights, weekends, holidays) less job security then most other Americans, worse benefits, and less incentives. I really want to punch method in the nuts right now.

 

twice.

 

Although the guy sounds like someone who really hasn't gotten the business end of a major beat, I see his point. When you come right down to it, this job really isn't that tough. We get to cover sports and write stories about them, usually in an air-conditioned or well-heated office/press box/hotel room.

Try hauling pipe and climbing refinery towers in sub-zero and 100-plus temperatures (which I've done). Try working with a welder while standing next to a tank filled with a million gallons of gasoline (which I've also done), then talk to me about tough jobs.

 

The McDonald's guy didn't have to go to college to get into his profession ... and the McD's manager is often making more than many journalists, and he doesn't have a degree.

When my friends in public school teaching were shocked at the wages I was making (on a metro, BTW, but 3/4's time), I figured it was time to get out.

For college degreed professionals, unfortunately, newspaper journalists make among the least. Yes, exceptions to every rule, high-paid metro columnists and so forth. Most of my career was on small dailies, you don't make squat there.

The McD's drive-through guy usually isn't paying off student loans.

I'm with Mizzou, I covered some college beats but on some very small dailies. It was 60-70 hours a week minimum ... then if the metro daily up the road outscooped me with the guy not having to take prep calls, edit, and layout the paper, I still got grilled by an editor.

It's a tough gig for not a lot of pay and now most of the good people are getting pushed out, with stupid Floridian editors writing columns of passion and keeping the faith. Yeah, right. Show people the money and respect and you'll get that respect back.

 

Tough gig? My ass.

Nobody's life is in your hands. Nobody's financial future is in your hands.

Teachers make less than journalists, and they're shaping the lives of our children. Most police officers make about what journalists make, or less, AND go to work with the very real chance of not coming home. Regional airline pilots (Comair, American Eagle) make journalist money, and they hold the lives of dozens of people in their hands every time they come to work.

Is it always fun? No. Guess what? Nobody's job is always fun. That's why they call it going to "work" instead of going to "play."

I had asshole bosses in the newspaper world. I've worked with asshole bosses in my current job. Everybody I know has had an asshole boss at some point in their life. That's not exclusive to newspapers.

Work for a morning paper, covering sports? Sports happen at night. And on weekends. Production happens at night. Sorry for the rant, but few things irk me more than sportswriters complaining about their nights and weekends. I'm not sure exactly what you were expecting. When I got tired of the nights and weekends, I left the sports department.

After watching my dad toil in a factory for years, and his dad before that; after watching the shit my mother took in her law-enforcement jobs; I can honestly say that, in 18 years of newspapers and the last four in the technical industry, I've never worked a day in my life.

I'm not trying to demean what journalists do -- I did it for most of my adult life, and I had my share of bad days. But even on the worst day, it fell far short of "tough gig."

 

Teachers make less than journalists? Really. Depends if you're talking metro. Anything below a metro and most teachers are making more than journalists. Check out the average salaries for teachers vs. journalists.

Journalism can be a tough gig ...File Not Found has obviously not been in a job where you worked 60-80 hours a week and made 19K, and that's with a college degree. It can be tough ... sure construction and other blue collar jobs are tougher. The blue collar guy also didn't have to go to college. and most construction guys I know are in the 50-100K range, often higher.

I know a guy whose job is to tack on the extras when you buy a car, you know, the finance guy. Cushy job, no college degree: $200K a year.

It's all relative. Journalism can be a tough gig or an easy gig, it's all where you work and relative to the size of paper you're on and the demands of that paper. For me, it was a tough gig and I'm guessing I worked on a lot more small papers than File did.

On one paper we were an afternoon except on Saturdays, when we were a morning. Did the morning shift, usually 6 a.m. to noon, scrambled to take late calls, paginate, edit, ect. Turned around and did a 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. shift to get the morning paper out. Usually had to cover a prep that night, rush back and take around 8-10 calls while trying to finish the story ... and then get paid 19K.

I can almost guarantee File did not work that gig ...

 

[quote author=usedtoBinthebiz]
I can almost guarantee File did not work that gig ...
[/quote]

Careful, B. You don't know what I've done in my career, and it's best to hold on to those remarks unless you do.

Listen: I have not and never will argue that journalism *pay* is good. I rode out the early '90s, where newspapers were closing right and left and graduates were having to compete for jobs with veterans who were willing to take work wherever they could find it. (It wasn't pleasant being young and having to compete for desk jobs with people who had years of experience with the Houston Post and Dallas Times Herald and Arkansas Gazette.)

Journalism pay is criminally low. I will stipulate to that.

I will, however, also stand by my statement that there are careers where the reward quotient (pay and benefits vs. risk and respect and fun-on-the-job) is significantly lower.

That's all.

And B, if you want to hear stories about putting out a sports section as a one-man show sometime -- before pagination and the Internet -- pull up a chair.

 

Fair enough, my reply wasn't right with no documentation on your career.

Because your dad -- and my dad -- and others relatives had harder gigs doesn't mean journalism is an easy gig. It can be an easy gig. The metro where I worked had a some very highly paid people just sitting around goofing off in the office all day and refusing to hunt for news. Many thought they were novelists and that their sh-t didn't stink.

Newspapers can be a tough or easy gig depending on the paper one works out. The worst part is demanding college degrees and then paying them fast food wages. The blue collar worker didn't have to pay for college and he usually makes more.