South Bend Busy Work

[SockPuppet]

The South Bend Tribune will require its reporters to submit a detailed _ VERY detailed _ each day that explains EXACTLY what they worked on/accomplished during the "8-hour" work day.

http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13790

Oh ... My ... God.

 

[Joe Williams]

Easy enough solution:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging

 

[PeteyPirate]

Hours 7-8: Wrote a detailed report of the previous six hours of my day.

 

[Joe Williams]

These must be managers who never reported, wrote or handled stories.

They also must be managers who never ****ing learned how to manage.

 

[OnTheRiver]

Jesus. You know who I feel worse for? The mid-level manager who's going to have to read all that ****.

And what's this 40-point scale bull****?

Eat it, South Bend.

 

[Armchair_QB]

These must be managers who never reported, wrote or handled stories.

They also must be managers who never ****ing learned how to manage.

No. These are managers who are looking for excuses to cut staff and expect said staff to provide them.

 

[JayFarrar]

This was my favorite part.

Checked e-mail; Checked logs at Mishawaka, county and South Bend; Responded to accident at Ironwood and bypass; Called Mishawaka Detective Bureau about child neglect case (records would not provide narrative since it is under investigation by CPS); Called Mishawaka woman struck Monday by hit-and-run driver while she was getting into her car; Wrote story on woman struck by hit-and-run driver; Placed call to Trent about two rape cases that were on log (he was not in this morning); left message. Called Humane Society of St. Joseph County to see if any animals were taken out of home in Mishawaka where elderly lady was livign in filth surrounded by several full litter boxes; was told someone would be in contact. Updated productivity report; Spoke briefly with Trent about rape cases on log - appears to be teenage girl covering up for sexual escapades; Spoke with John Pavlekovich about concerns regard retirement story - presumably ironed everything out; Pow-wowed with Dave about year-end crime stories - I get homicides! -- start working on lead smelter reporting, call health dept. again, talk to lead director, no idea what I'm talking about; -- call IDEM local office, am transferred to regional office, leave message for public relations people; -- am asked to work on Goshen beating story; -- call Goshen PIO, discuss YouTube video beating; -- try to find number for YouTube mom, search phone books, internet; -- do web update; -- call Goshen schools superindendent, leave message; -- go to video bootcamp lunch; -- research YouTube beating posted by teens, leave message for national anti-Internet abuse lady; -- reach other woman affilated with anti-Internet abuse, talk to about story; -- call super Intendant again, leave second message; -- go to 2 p.m. interview with judge Scopelitis, wait forever in rotunda because he's in hearing, finally leave and reschedule; -- call back superindendant, finally reach for story; -- find address for YouTube mom; -- write YouTube video story, file story; -- give graph to john stump for lead smelter story; -- Drive out to Goshen to try and find YouTube mom, get lost, turn around, find trailer park, can't find address, finally find address, family no longer lives there, drive back. Planning to come in around 9 tomorrow.

Here would be mine
Came in at 9. Tried to check e-mail. Software not working. Told IT guy, he said he was working on it, then went back to playing his video game. Tried to check e-mail using webmail. Was able to get it to work. Mostly spam. One might be worth looking into. Also made lunch plans via e-mail. Bought Diet Dr Pepper from vending machine. Planned out weekly budget, did staff meeting. After meeting, server down on newsedit, unable to input weekly budget. Logged onto sportsjournalists.com. Got in flame war with Old_Tony over Obama. Looked at Romenesko, and checked local blogs to see what was going on. Left for lunch, which consumed nearly two hours. Went to interview at 2. visited with sources. wrote story once IT guy said server was back up. checked the cutlines that photog wrote. went home.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

I had a manager at a Gannett paper insist upon me doing this when he suspected I wasn't using my time wisely. All that happened was I became less efficient, but he was happy because he now had documentation of how my time was spent. I got less actual work done than before, but who cares about that, right?

 

[PeteyPirate]

They should all get Twitter accounts for this.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

 

[WriteThinking]

I thought the L.A. Times folding the California section into the national/foreign section was the height of the stupidity I'd be reading about today.

And then I looked at this thread.

Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. Armchair_QB has it pegged exactly right.

Well, we know what these managers' daily-report emails would read like, if they had to write them...:

Read staff's daily productivity reports.

Hmm, I wonder if that would be considered enough to save their jobs. If they were being assessed that way, of course.

 

[Walter_Sobchak]

HA! My shop already does this. Not to the extent of South Bend, but we have to document what we do each day.
Since basically my responsibilities are very similar from day to day, I write it once in the first day of the week, then draw arrows to each subsequent day.

 

[goalmouth]

Years ago the US changed tax laws on write-offs for car usage by the self-employed. But you had to keep a record of when and where you drove, and how it was business-related. My Dad took to taping his accounting on a voice recorder, providing unintentional hilarity years before podcasts.

Not long after that the law was changed.

 

[Cosmo]

I'm sure these will be used to justify laying people off that don't "do enough" during their 40 hours.

What would you say you do here?

 

[FileNotFound]

I feel bad for the editor who had to issue that edict. You KNOW that's not coming from any newsroom management.

 

[goalmouth]

I knew Fenian would pay tribute to Lee Scott at some point...

 

[spup1122]

We had to do this at our TV station for awhile when we were developing manuals so they could teach monkeys how to produce. I literally wrote down "5 a.m.: Come in, turn on computer" and my boss called me a smart-ass.

 

[Flip Wilson]

I worked for an athletic director who had all his underlings do this for a while. Shortly after I left that place, a couple of people just stopped doing them and nothing was ever said about them again.

 

[Flip Wilson]

One thing I forgot to mention: The AD had no idea how to check e-mail, so we had to print out our daily logs and put them in his mailbox.

 

[zagoshe]

Hopefully some people do this......

4 p.m. to 5 p.m. --- Made sure my daily log was complete and detail-oriented and then typed it up, edited it, corrected it and turned it in.

This is a ****ing joke, particularly in a business where the phrase "we don't have space for it" is becoming more and more normal.