Should I at least suggest a newly hired colleague consider a different profession?

[Mr. X]

The weekly I write for just hired a new reporter, replacing one who quit after one week. One thing I plan to suggest to her is that her top priority be getting a different job because the job she has is not a good one.

I also want to suggest she consider a different profession because unless you are at one of the nation's top outlets, being a newspaper reporter in 2021 is not a good profession. I recall the studies which have said it is among the worst.

Is there anything wrong with my telling her to consider a different profession? What should I tell her related to that?

 

[Screwball]

Why is a job at your weekly good for you but not good for her?

(And why is this your business, if she hasn't asked you first?)

 

[Octave]

What's good for you isn't what's good for someone else. The two are not the same.

 

[Mr. X]

Why is a job at your weekly good for you but not good for her?

(And why is this your business, if she hasn't asked you first?)

My "job" at the weekly is writing a 500-1,000 word roundup about the games the only high school we cover play. There are occasional items about alumni.

I started doing this before I had a full-time job elsewhere. I kept doing it after I got the full-time job because the publisher -- one of the most respected and powerful people in the city with so many connections -- had just written me a letter of recommendation.

He has also said if I quit he will drop sports and let everyone in the city know it is my fault their children and grandchildren are not getting their names in the paper.

He said there is no one else who knows the history of the high school's sports like I do -- which is probably true. He doesn't understand that is not essential for the job.

The publisher -- who owns the paper -- is a rich boy and the paper is a toy. I'm pretty certain he was 26 when he founded it.

I just want to use my experience so this person has a better life than me.

 

[Oggiedoggie]

No.

 

[dixiehack]

It is not your business to give this other person unsolicited career advice. However you should consider following your own.

 

[Liut]

My "job" at the weekly is writing a 500-1,000 word roundup about the games the only high school we cover play. There are occasional items about alumni.

I started doing this before I had a full-time job elsewhere. I kept doing it after I got the full-time job because the publisher -- one of the most respected and powerful people in the city with so many connections -- had just written me a letter of recommendation.

He has also said if I quit he will drop sports and let everyone in the city know it is my fault their children and grandchildren are not getting their names in the paper.

He said there is no one else who knows the history of the high school's sports like I do -- which is probably true. He doesn't understand that is not essential for the job.

The publisher -- who owns the paper -- is a rich boy and the paper is a toy. I'm pretty certain he was 26 when he founded it.

I just want to use my experience so this person has a better life than me.

There is quite a bit to unpack from this response.

 

[Octave]

I'll play along (clicks on Ragtime music with a slant of the head, like Gigolo Joe in AI).
You are why newsrooms were occasionally miserable places to be at one time.
Bunch of gossipy old hens worried about what's best for some other person.

 

[User 150927]

No. JFC.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

If anyone reading/posting on this thread wasn't advised as an up-and-comer to find a new profession by older co-workers, or hasn't said it as an industry vet to an up-and-comer, he/she is either a stone-cold liar or 12 years old.

 

[WriteThinking]

Maybe you could do a sort of compromise to what you're suggesting: not saying she should necessarily find a new profession, but maybe, if you're generally talking shop, ask her what her future plans/hopes are for your career, just so you can actually find that out.

Then, based on that information, go from there, suggesting other possible ideas, places to apply or steps to take in the interim on the way to changing jobs, if not necessarily her profession.

 

[Col. Nathan R. Jessup]

No. That’s a bit of an overreach, IMO. Get to know them a little first before telling them the bad news, which, by the way, we all heard from elders in the profession. I remember the first time a veteran reporter told me he wish he’d gone back to school or something like that — and advised me to do the same. We had gotten to know each other pretty well, and it was about my third year at the job, certainly not my first month.

 

[Driftwood]

Mid 90s, I was an up and comer, right out of the Navy, in college, and working part time at my paper. A grizzled vet of the paper (also a Navy veteran) asks, "What are you going to do when you get out of school?" Me, "I want to work here."
I can still see him. He took off his glasses, smacked his chewing gum about a dozen times like it was Satan, and said, "Oh, son... don't make the same mistake I did."
Flash forward about 10-12 years. A local boy was working as a summer intern. Me, "What are you going to do when you get out of school?" Him," I want to work here." I took off my glasses, took a drink of coffee (because I don't chew gum), grimaced, and said, "Oh, son... don't make the same mistake I did."

A few years later, I jumped off the Titanic. He did the same a couple of years later.

 

[Moderator1]

Years ago, interviewing for a job I eventually got:

I finished with all the brass and they had met set up to talk to 3-4 regular folks. One of them, a grizzled vet who ended up becoming a great friend, looks at me and asks, right off the bat, "Why the **** do you want to work here??" Once I stopped laughing, I said, "Well, I thought it was because (blah blah blah) but now I don't know." Stayed there a while and it was a mostly good job. But I did see enough to finally understand his question.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

The first question Bill Miller, then the editor of the Boston Phoenix, asked me when I applied for the listings editor job there in 1977 was "can you live on the **** we pay?" My answer was "****'s better than the nothing I'm making now." I was hired on the spot, but I can't say I wasn't read my rights before I took the job.

 

[Mr. X]

What if I suggest she get a different job as soon as possible?

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

He has also said if I quit he will drop sports and let everyone in the city know it is my fault their children and grandchildren are not getting their names in the paper.

**** that ****in’ guy.

 

[Songbird]

He has also said if I quit he will drop sports and let everyone in the city know it is my fault their children and grandchildren are not getting their names in the paper.

There is absolutely nothing true about this sentence.

And even if he did say it, he said it in jest.

And if he did, and you actually believed him, then it might be you who needs to seek a new profession.

 

[cjericho]

Think Frederik should talk to her

 

[I Should Coco]

If anyone reading/posting on this thread wasn't advised as an up-and-comer to find a new profession by older co-workers, or hasn't said it as an industry vet to an up-and-comer, he/she is either a stone-cold liar or 12 years old.

Most of us posting here are old enough that older co-workers were comparing our shops to the Titanic BEFORE the Leo/Kate Winslet movie came out.

After the movie, the comparison changed to the guys playing violins while the boat sank.