What exactly does desk work entail?

It's kind of pointless to compare stress levels. If you're a beat writer in a one-paper area, your stress level probably will be less than the desk person's. If you're a beat writer and five other papers are covering the team, your stress level may rise. If you're a desk person and there are more than two editions per night, up goes the stress. If the boss is an ass, take another two years off your life. Too many variables. The most stressful part of desk work (in the leader roles, at least) is that you are interwoven with more people and when any of them stumble, ultimately it is your problem.

 

In my experience, I've found that writers -- generally speaking -- have more hectic schedules and more stress than deskers. And yes, stress and schedule were both major factors in my (and I assume others') moves to the desk.

I do think you're severely underestimating "beat writers in a one-paper area." It all depends on what they cover. A preps writer covering 20-30 high schools, which can be fairly common throughout the South and West, is under no less stress dealing with his workload than a high-profile New York writer who has to deal with a half-dozen local and national competitors every day. Just because there's no competition doesn't mean there's no stress.

 

Watching TV, 2-hour dinner breaks, screwing up copy. [/dyepack]

 

Outstanding.

 

The job often entails making chicken salad ...

 

Oh, and anyone who says there's little stress on the desk should stop by a few minutes before deadline when the All-Star game is in the 15th fucking inning. Or when something breaks late and the section gets blown to smithereens.

There's a deadline every night, and very often the desk finds itself taking it down to the wire.

 

Very good point.

That said, I seem to thrive in those situations. The stress, for me, comes from the factors Frank_R listed (bad bosses, office politics, impossible zoning.) But deadline pressure? Going down to the wire? Can't beat it. That shit's fun, man. ... But I'm kind of weird.

 

Yeah, in a way, it's fun. But not for every deadline, every night of every month of every year.
The real question that should have been asked at the start of this thread is what exactly DOESN'T desk work entail?
The first few years I started on the desk was at a smallish paper and after I got home and finally fallen asleep, I constantly would wake up thinking I had botched the lead headline or made a huge fact error in a big graphic or something.
You have to learn to let things roll off you -- in that way, it's like being a beat writer or columnist -- but it still wears you down and I've seen many, many, many desk folks whose relationships, marriages, family lives have gone in the crapper in large part because of the cumulative stress. You don't even realize it's building up and affecting you until one day, you're like, "Damn, I never used to be like this." And this is where the people you work with and our good friend, Mr. Beer, come in after the shift.

Guess it beats having a boss like Lumberg, though I think some shops would probably benefit from having the two Bobs come in and ask questions. "So, what exactly would you say....you do here?" Gotta be better than the way they're targeting people now.

 

Sort of a thread jack, sort of not...

For the deskers, what is typically your page load and how many hours average do you spend per page? (Obviously section fronts and agate may take longer than other pages you do). Do you edit stories and design at the same time, or are they (whenever possible) two separate processes in your shop? Also, how long do you have typically between receiving the dummies and deadline?

 

Page count varies depending on paper size and whether the paper separates the copy editing and design functions. Both shops I worked in used combo copy editor/designer on the sports desk. At the smaller shop (about 50k), I had anywhere from 2-4 pages a night (usually 3). At the large shop (about 180k), we rarely had more than 2 pages apiece. That was 3-4 years ago though, so I'm sure the workload has increased some since then.

As for time between dummies and deadline, when I slotted, I went into the office at 4 or 4:30 p.m. to get the page dummies, and the first deadline was 11:30. On nights when I worked rim, I usually went in around 5:30 or 6.

 

Usually three was average, two meant someone else was in to help that night, and four was cause for celebration because you had enough room to get everything in for once. But I've done 8-10 page Sunday sections solo before.

And as far as actually laying out agate (not counting typing in local boxscores or setting up the TV listings), that was cake. There were many times I got to 11:28, opened up the Quark page, and had proofs ready two minutes later. If you could have seen my hands on the keyboard, it probably looked like I was picking Foggy Mountain Breakdown in double time.

 

I've done both, though it's been a long time since I worked the desk.
I came to feel that on the desk, you're always reacting, trying to fix something that has been created by someone else.
In writing, you're acting instead of reacting, you're creating something (which someone else maybe has to fix).
I don't claim that to be a universal truth, but it was true for me.

In cruder terms, better to be the shitter than the shitee.