Orlando

[thegrifter]

Povtak was the name everybody knew.

He was there 29 years if I'm not mistaken.

Outstanding writer. Devastating loss.

I doubt I'll ever be at one newspaper for 29 years. And that's not a knock on Povtak, but the industry itself.
I wish any of the papers I worked at made me feel like it could be a home. I wish I didn't feel them screwing me over every year with a bull**** 2% raise. I with this industry loved us half as much as most of us love it.
In college, I bled for my newspaper and my grades suffered. I wouldn't make any sort of sacrifice for the suits that are killing off a profession I once considered noble.
End of rant.

Povtak's problem -- like so many others getting shoved out these days -- is that, having been around there for 29 years, he probably got a half dozen of those coveted 2 percent raises. Compound those suckers like that and you become a sitting duck for bean counters looking to shed salary.

That's why the surest path to job security is to decline all raises. Keep your costs to the company low, and they might let you stay.

Shee-eeeeee-it!

 

[SportySpice]

Yeah, but if you decline all raises, you have no chance of keeping up with the cost of living and your family is out living in a van .... down by the river. And maybe becoming a motivational speaker.

 

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

Yeah, but if you decline all raises, you have no chance of keeping up with the cost of living and your family is out living in a van .... down by the river. And maybe becoming a motivational speaker.

I don't think he was bashing a guy for accepting raises.

 

[Joe Williams]

C'mon, I didn't really need blue font for that, did I?

To hear that companies target the higher salaries in an industry famous for paying low salaries leaves only that explanation -- that you're screwed simply by sticking around for a few (or a few dozen) raises. No, no one ever turns them down -- I never have -- and no one ever should. But when most of us are making diddly-squat compared to the people chopping off heads, it really is ridiculous that doing your job well enough to be rewarded a tiny bit in the paycheck this year puts you in the line of fire in later years.

They screw us by paying us too little, until the day they screw us for having paid us "too much."

 

[Mizzougrad96]

If you have a "national" writer for any sport, or someone in a "beat sharing" role, those people are going to be the first writers targeted.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

A few weeks ago, I was watching SportsCentury for Shaquille O'Neal which featured Povtak as one of the many writers interviewed for the show.

As I was watching, I was on this site and I got a PM from a friend with ties to The Sentinel telling me that Povtak and another writer (who ended up keeping his job) were among the likely cuts.

This really sucks.

 

[SportySpice]

C'mon, I didn't really need blue font for that, did I?

To hear that companies target the higher salaries in an industry famous for paying low salaries leaves only that explanation -- that you're screwed simply by sticking around for a few (or a dozen few) raises. No, no one ever turns them down -- I never have -- and no one ever should. But when most of us are making didly-squad compared to the people chopping off heads, it really is ridiculous that doing your job well enough to be rewarded a tiny bit in the paycheck this year puts you in the line of fire in later years.

They screw us by paying us too little, until the day they screw us for having paid us "too much."

I know that. Guess the Chris Farley Saturday Night Live reference didn't take. Things have been so depressing the past couple of months that dark humor's about the only way to get through it without going crazy for me.

 

[Joe Williams]

Oh no, not you, SportySpice. I was stumped more by MU_was_not_so_hard's follow-up.

Yeah, but if you decline all raises, you have no chance of keeping up with the cost of living and your family is out living in a van .... down by the river. And maybe becoming a motivational speaker.

I don't think he was bashing a guy for accepting raises.

Chris Farley, by the way, was a comic genius in a terrific low-brow way. But seeing his brother Kevin now essentially steal his schtick for a rental car commercial -- wait, I know, it's an "homage" -- is creepy to me. Sort of like gong to a supper club to see Frank Sinatra Jr.

 

[bevo]

I'm wondering if the people that were hired just a few months ago to help with the more graphic-intense paper get to keep their jobs over all these vets.

 

[Riddick]

No idea on that one Bevo, but you gotta bet they're scared ****less. I'm new at my shop, which is going through buyouts/layoffs, and I can't help but thinking I need to have something lined up for when they can me.
Why hire me in the first place if you're having layoffs months later? ****in scary.

 

[Sam Mills 51]

No idea on that one Bevo, but you gotta bet they're scared ****less. I'm new at my shop, which is going through buyouts/layoffs, and I can't help but thinking I need to have something lined up for when they can me.
Why hire me in the first place if you're having layoffs months later? ****in scary.

My guess is the editors weren't given notice on potential layoffs until long after the hires were made. If that's not the case, then the beancounters and suits aren't alone in lacking humanity.

At a North Carolina paper some time back, one writer was cut days - not weeks or months - after she moved to the area and started work.

 

[deskslave]

No idea on that one Bevo, but you gotta bet they're scared ****less. I'm new at my shop, which is going through buyouts/layoffs, and I can't help but thinking I need to have something lined up for when they can me.
Why hire me in the first place if you're having layoffs months later? ****in scary.

My guess is the editors weren't given notice on potential layoffs until long after the hires were made. If that's not the case, then the beancounters and suits aren't alone in lacking humanity.

At a North Carolina paper some time back, one writer was cut days - not weeks or months - after she moved to the area and started work.

News and Record of Greensboro.

 

[Sam Mills 51]

No idea on that one Bevo, but you gotta bet they're scared ****less. I'm new at my shop, which is going through buyouts/layoffs, and I can't help but thinking I need to have something lined up for when they can me.
Why hire me in the first place if you're having layoffs months later? ****in scary.

My guess is the editors weren't given notice on potential layoffs until long after the hires were made. If that's not the case, then the beancounters and suits aren't alone in lacking humanity.

At a North Carolina paper some time back, one writer was cut days - not weeks or months - after she moved to the area and started work.

News and Record of Greensboro.

Correct. Not a banner day for Landmark.

 

[get_me_rewrite]

How can they have Hoppes and Cherwa? Can they justify both those guys with 23 deputies and 114 assistants? Maybe they can, just asking. Seems like a lot of Chiefs.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

How can they have Hoppes and Cherwa? Can they justify both those guys with 23 deputies and 114 assistants? Maybe they can, just asking. Seems like a lot of Chiefs.

It's not just their sports department. Whole damn paper's like that.

 

[Joe Williams]

Retirement living in Florida for fat-cat newspaper managers.

 

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

How can they have Hoppes and Cherwa? Can they justify both those guys with 23 deputies and 114 assistants? Maybe they can, just asking. Seems like a lot of Chiefs.

Two deputies and four assistants (both current numbers) is hardly a monstrous stretch for a paper that big.

And let's not forget:
Manager = Salary = No Overtime. Trust me, those people could be making a ****-ton more money every year.

 

[MMatt60]

They didn't make a hire to replace the late Van McKenzie, so they might think the management ranks are relatively small.

(Not that I would agree.........)

 

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

They didn't make a hire to replace the late Van McKenzie, so they might think the management ranks are relatively small.

(Not that I would agree.........)

I believe one or two of the other managers who departed (prior to the buyouts) were not replaced either. I could be wrong on that.

 

[silvercharm]

C'mon, I didn't really need blue font for that, did I?

To hear that companies target the higher salaries in an industry famous for paying low salaries leaves only that explanation -- that you're screwed simply by sticking around for a few (or a few dozen) raises. No, no one ever turns them down -- I never have -- and no one ever should. But when most of us are making diddly-squat compared to the people chopping off heads, it really is ridiculous that doing your job well enough to be rewarded a tiny bit in the paycheck this year puts you in the line of fire in later years.

They screw us by paying us too little, until the day they screw us for having paid us "too much."

Ding ding ding! Exactly the reason I find myself out of a job today. Too many raises based on performance = one of the newsroom's largest salaries = see ya.