From an AP summary story on a St. Louis Post-Dispatch series on deaths caused by negligence in America's nursing homes:<p>"Many workers say they are unwilling to accept poverty-level wages for unpleasant, demanding work that often requires mandatory overtime or double shifts. Corporate focus on the bottom line, the newspaper reported, frequently requires managers to operate with skeleton staffing because the industry says it lacks enough government money to provide proper care."<p>*** I had to read this a couple of times to be sure the newspaper wasn't reporting negligence in NEWSROOMS. Sure sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Familiar? No ... Why? Do you get overtime? Now that we're in the fourth quarter, I think my entire desk would have to be hospitalized for terminal Chinese-food poisoning before I could get authorization to pay OT.

Our newspaper is, paradoxically enough, small enough that I frequently DO get overtime.<p>Here's an example of how it works: We have a four-person copy desk, with a part-timer who has no set schedule because she had a baby a few months ago. Two weeks ago on a Thursday, the situation was this: Rex, the desk chief, was pulled off the daily newspaper cycle by the publisher to work on our annual Winter Visitor's Guide tab. Henry, the second-in-command, was on vacation. Keri, who works next to me, was on the daily cycle but also had to spend the first half of her shift finishing the Food section and the TV Guide. I had the day off. Barbara, the part-timer, agreed to come in but couldn't get a baby-sitter till 6 p.m. (The shift usually starts around 2:30 p.m.). Rex, who controls the budget, at first says, "Well, we're just going to have to get by ... I'm already over budget. I'll jump in on the daily cycle in a pinch if I have to." Then around 7 p.m., everybody's swamped and way behind for the first color deadline of 9 p.m. Keri goes to Rex and says, "We need help NOW." Rex then decides he just can't jump off the Visitor's Guide, which also has a looming press deadline, and so calls me at home to ask if I'll work OT. But I'm at the movies when the call comes in, and when I get home at 8:30, there are four increasingly frantic messages on my voice mail. I call back and say, "Sure, I'll come in ... but for double-time, not time-and-a-half." Rex says, "Okay, okay ... just get in here, goddamit."<p>A variation of this happens virtually every day. This is just one snapshot of life in a journalistic M*A*S*H unit, where we sew up pages like war-torn bodies and ship 'em back out to the front lines as fast as we can with a tragically shorthanded staff. Is your newspaper anything like this?

Hey, that sounds like my paper, and we're a major metro. (Not a prestigious metro, mind you; there is a difference.) :)

Interesting ... but why would it be like this on a metro? Isn't there always somebody around who can jump off something slightly less essential and time-sensitive onto the daily cycle, without all the attendant mad scrambling of a podunk recycle-bin-filler like mine? Describe a day in the life ....

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica ,sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Jim Thomsen:
A variation of this happens virtually every day. This is just one snapshot of life in a journalistic M*A*S*H unit, where we sew up pages like war-torn bodies and ship 'em back out to the front lines as fast as we can with a tragically shorthanded staff. Is your newspaper anything like this?<hr></blockquote><p>Ye gods. I will never complain about my own situation again!

Here's my Monday night as metro slot:<p>Determined before I arrive:
Only one night city editor is moving copy for the metro section because the second guy is on vacation.
The news copy desk is down a few people because of (1) a schedule rotation that lets most copy editors have a three-day weekend every other week; (2) the recent departure of two experienced copy editors, neither of whom left on their own terms; (3) vacations, which were scheduled before (2) became a factor and can't be rescheduled because there are a limited number of weeks left in the year.
One of the five rim editors on the schedule is a full-timer in sports who works his two days a week off in news; he regularly works an entire month without a day off. One of the other four rimmers works from home and can't write cutlines or read proofs due to technological constraints.
The copy desk doesn't handle pagination; that's done by the former knife-wielders in composing, few of which understand how the computer system works. They're in a completely different part of the building, although reachable by telephone and instant message.
The structure of the metro section has changed within the past week.
The person laying out the metro section has never done the job the new way.
The person who normally would be laying out the metro section is working on the voters guide, which is a huge job that few people are willing to do and has to be done NOW.<p>After I arrive (at 6, because I have a "cushy" part-time arrangement):
Metro copy is trickling in, since there's only one person moving it over from the city desk.
The World Space Congress is in town, and the "breaking" space news is holding up most of the main news section.
There are too many stories and not enough rim editors, although the people assigned to layout jobs for the night pitch in.
(Meanwhile, my husband calls to tell me that our 19-month-old has just thrown up her dinner all over the kitchen floor and now he's sick, too. I ponder asking if I can go home but realize I'd be wrestled to the ground and chained to my chair by anyone within earshot.)<p>Closer to 10 (deadline for our first edition is 10:30):
The paginator assigned to metro can't read the dummies, and when he does get stories on the pages he manages to do something to make them a line or two longer than the just-right lengths they were on my screen.
We're so behind that I haven't seen a single proof of the metro section.
There are holes throughout the section that the layout guy is scrambling to fill. This often includes reconfiguring the few stories already worked.
News of the most recent sniper shooting comes over the wire, requiring last-minute changes to the associated front page story and graphic. Normally this would mean a push to get metro in a few minutes early.<p>10:30-10:40:
I give up on making what I think is a significant fix on one of my pages just so I can release SOMETHING.
We have five stories sitting in the cue for the paginators to pick up. The metro paginator disappears for a few minutes, possibly to do some sports pages.
Metro pages finally are released, although proofing involved only display type and checking to make sure all the jumps make sense.<p>10:45-11:30 (11:30 is deadline for second edition):
We remake every page in the metro section in an effort to more closely adhere to the new structural guidelines.<p>12:05:
Papers arrive, and I catch a typo in a front page story that had slipped through for both editions. The correction will make it into a few papers at the end of the run.<p>12:30:
I leave to go home, and the poor soul assigned to the voters guide still is at her desk.<p>Is this an extreme example? Not as of late. Do I still enjoy my job? Most of the time. Would I go back to doing this full time? Only if I needed the health insurance. Can I understand why so many people in our line of work burn out and/or suffer heart attacks? You better believe it.<p>[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: Zoe Friloux ]</p>

Your attitude describes mine exactly ... even after I get off an exhausting eight-hour copy-desk shift in time to grab a quick midnight "lunch" at the local lard-spoon diner and later load up newspapers for five to six hours of delivering newspapers. <p>I love what I do ... except when I don't.

1. Why do papers in Washington state publish
"Winter Visitors Guide" tabs.<p>2. Why do copy editors deliver papers as well? <p>3. This Rex guy, and "being over budget." It's
not his money, literally, is it, that pays for the overtime? So why is he acting like it is his
money? <p>3(a.) Does Rex get some sort of MBO bonus for
keeping OT within budget? Find out what his deal
is. Don't let him get extra money off your excessive work and lack of staff. <p>4. Up the ante, I say. Triple time, not double time, for OT. Reimbursement for movie tickets, too. What's the Rex guy going to do?

Answers: <p>1. "Winter Visitor's Guide" tabs are published in Washington state because most areas, and ours in particular, get a lot of skiiers, snowmobilers, and back-country "experience" hikers. <p>2. I deliver newspapers because I want to be able to afford to go to next spring ACES conference in Chicago. And maybe a decent car, too. Possibly even some food.<p>3. Rex acts like the budget is "his money" because he knows that if he doesn't use it properly, he'll be fired.<p>4. Good idea. Triple time it is next time. I;d probably get it, too. I know that when they call, they're beyond desperate. (Makes me feel SO good inside.)

My paper's somewhere between "Podunk" and "major metro" -- but I can tell you that when we're short-handed, our options are limited. Usualy, every editor in the newsroom after sundown is already there to work on the daily; the people who have less essential/time-sensitive duties do them on the dayside.<p>Our desk has been lucky in that we haven't had any real attrition inflicted on us for the past couple years -- but unlucky in that changes in the paper (such as more zoning) have increased the workload. And as Zoe said, vacations are a big factor this time of year.<p>I will partly take back my post above: After I made the crack about "terminal Chinese-food poisoning," one of our staffers got sick and another had to take leave. So, since others are already out on vacation, 1 or 2 lucky people will get overtime this week, and I'll be working a sixth day myself -- though (sigh) I'm an exempt worker, so my reward will be a Day Off to Be Named Later.<p>But I've also worked on desks the size of Jim's, and those kinds of problems are magnified there (in my youth I once worked 10 months of six-day weeks for OT because the other two rim editors on the desk were even greener than I was -- this on a paper so small that the M.E. worked nights to fill the role of a copy desk chief), so I'm still counting my blessings.

So Jim is an after-edition paper boy, in part, so he can go to ACES next March.<p>Well. What's ACES have to say about that? Seems to me that ACES ought to have a sliding scale for registration fees and even offer scholarships and travel subsidies for such eager members from small papers who want to attend its sessions? Why can't papers like, say, blanp's engage in some within-the-craft philanthropy?<p>Me? I'd gladly throw in some money so the Rex guy and his bosses could show up and face the aggrieved and oppressed minions of the trade. After cocktails, of course.

This stream of narrative reminds me why I was a member of a Guild organizing committee in Winnipeg, and why I enjoyed working on a Guild paper in Ottawa. And, incidentally, why I am now a full-time communications person for another union, working the advocacy side of the street. The owners don't appreciate the dedication, and they are damned lucky the folks in the trenches have such high professional standards.

Jcmg:<p>I did in fact bring up what seemed to be to be the exorbitant expense of the ACES convention on that discussion board, and was convinced by several respondents that a) the organization does in fact consciously strive to keep its costs as low as possible; and b) it's worth it to me to go the extra mile, literally, to make sure I can be in Chicago next March.<p>Besides ... the irony is that delivering the paper in the wee hours has been quite fun thus far. My girlfriend enjoys tagging along, which has been good for our relationship, and we just act goofy and giddy and drink way too many AM/PM 44-ounce Cokes and listen to the CD mixes I've made of indefensible pop songs of the '80s. (There's nothing like driving down a quiet suburban street at 4:24 a.m. singing "The Reflex" by Duran Duran in horrific harmony.)<p>Hope to see some of you at the ACES hullaballoo.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jim Thomsen:
[QB]Jcmg:<p>I did in fact bring up what seemed to be to be the exorbitant expense of the ACES convention on that discussion board, and was convinced by several respondents that a) the organization does in fact consciously strive to keep its costs as low as possible; and b) it's worth it to me to go the extra mile, literally, to make sure I can be in Chicago next March.<p>-- I think you're right. ACES itself isn't expensive, but the hotel is. You probably should be hunting for someplace cheap to spend the nights (but not too cheap, but you probably know that already). good luck.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica ,sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Jim Thomsen:
<p>Besides ... the irony is that delivering the paper in the wee hours has been quite fun thus far. My girlfriend enjoys tagging along, which has been good for our relationship, and we just act goofy and giddy and drink way too many AM/PM 44-ounce Cokes and listen to the CD mixes I've made of indefensible pop songs of the '80s. (There's nothing like driving down a quiet suburban street at 4:24 a.m. singing "The Reflex" by Duran Duran in horrific harmony.)
<hr></blockquote><p>***Looks like I'll have to assign somone to keep Jim and me separated.***