Jobs To Nowhere (Take V): Beware Of Hipster Kittens Baring Fangs

 

<"Ladies 'N' Gentlemen...
Coming Soon/Take I":
The Reckoner>

Suggested Soundtracks:

"Living On Unemployment" (Newtown Neurotics) 

"Sorrow" (Pink Floyd)

<Storyteller's Note: The following account, though strictly personal and anecdotal, is true. The names have been changed, masked or omitted to avoid retribution from the guilty.>

Reckoner's Note: For those just tuning in, we last left Yer Humbler Narrator struggling to transition from yet another small town paper (The Daily Retreader), to the advertising agency life. Will this time finally prove the charm? To read the previous entries, follow the link below (then click "Older Posts" to go back to the beginning).

<"Up Against It/Take I":
The Reckoner>

<i.>

You settle into a new routine, one imposed by the necessity of losing your assistant editor's job. The Daily Retreader kept its promise to be kind, at least. They didn't fight your unemployment application, a pleasant shift from the previous employer, The Daily Bugle, whose overdogs fiercely fought all of them. Management showed no mercy, not even for the pressman who'd injured his hand, as he tried to retrieve some material from the jaws of the printing press downstairs. 

No matter. As long as you call in to the automated unemployment system, and report basic details -- like whatever new gig you're theoretically trying to land -- that $300-and-some per week will keep coming. You continue working behind the scenes at The Connection, the alternative performance space that you hope will blossom into the next CBGB's (or something like it). Who knows? Maybe those gigs that you're playing every month, or other month, will jump-start something, too. That's the idea, anyway.

Suddenly, you have more time on your hands, which makes itself felt in unexpected ways. You can lean into private pursuits, like writing songs, and hanging more often with your small circle of progressive friends. With no right-wing boss glaring over your shoulder anymore, it's safe to join the local peace and justice group. That move feels good.

You can take the wife to more of her favored activities, like garage sales, which felt hard to squeeze into the second shift grind that's defined your life for 15-odd years. The weekend loses its meaning, "because every night around here is Saturday night," you joke. 

To your great surprise, life after unemployment looks and feels a lot like life before it. The only difference is, your benefits come with an expiration date, which you're not thinking about right now. Whatever your checks don't cover, you can acquire through your bartering skills or connections, not to mention your eye for a bargain. Now that you've finally got some time to think, why not use it? That's the theory, anyway.

<"Up Against It/Take II":

The Reckoner>

<ii.>

Here's the problem with most theories, though: those head-on collisions with reality can be rough. For one thing, your little town, Highlandville, is slowly coming apart at the seams. Four major employers closed their doors, right around the time The Daily Bugle voted you off the island, taking almost 1,000 jobs with them (mostly auto-related). There's plenty of free time for everybody, but it makes for an unnerving picture. Suddenly, the image of calm, self-assured small town stability that drew you here seven years ago just seems like another mirage.

You continue to survive on federal unemployment extensions, as the national economy begins taking on water. You know it's a tough town when the local oil change place closes. If the local economy can't support something so basic, what's that mean for everybody else?

The answer comes just as your job search bears unexpected fruit. An ad agency in your old hometown needs a copywriter (or Senior Brand Writer, as they're calling it). Your brain ticks off the pluses. An annual salary that's one and a half times what you made as a reporter. A better overall benefits package. The chance to enter a different field, at a growing company, with roughly 200 employees at three different sites.

The minuses? You'll lose all the social connections you've made these last seven years. Moving sucks; it's grueling and stressful, though the agency, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Studios, is paying $500 toward those costs. Nobody's done that for you before. Your wife feels far less enthusiastic, because it means starting over yet again, trying to make friends, and figure out what's going on.

You're not exactly keen on that prospect, but sticking around raises its own problems. The unemployment extensions are about to run out, and most of Highlandville's gainful gigs are retail, restaurant or telemarketing McJobs. Sticking around might mean toiling for way less money than ever, which is a non-starter.

What's more, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em's job offer is number one on a list of one. If you pass, it's not clear when (or if) the next shot might roll around. So you swallow your doubts, cross your fingers, and roll the dice. It's just like the Okies did in the '30s, minus the moving truck. You've had to gamble before, so what else is new?

<"Ladies 'N' Gentlemen,

Coming Soon/Take II":

The Reckoner>

<iii.>

Fall of '06. The first couple months pass uneventfully. Your mind loses irself in the nitty-gritty that accompanies any new beginning. Getting to know your new colleagues, as the lay of the land unfolds. Learning the house rules. Working out the fastest ways of doing things, because they're throwing a lot on your plate, just like your other employers did.

Your first major project involves writing copy for a series of water filter ad layouts, which undergo an endless cycle of revisions, that you spend an equally endless amount of man-hours checking against a PDF file that seems barely different than the last one, than the last one, than the last one, and so on. At a certain point, it feels like highway hypnosis, as your eyes glaze over the latest minor revisions.

You stifle the inevitable pangs of disquiet. Didn't they promise this job would raise your creativity to new heights? Sure doesn't seem that way so far. You feel more and more like a glorified layout artist and proofreader, and less and less of a writer, which isn't what you had in mind.

Every company has a power center, and a pecking order, regardless of its rhetoric ("Hey, man, we're one big happy family. Together, everyone achieves more"). But it's hard to tell what your new workmates actually think about these issues. Most of your conversations are friendly, but superficial, and offer few clues about the reality behind the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em curtain. 

Shortly before Christmas, the water filter project finally wraps up. Dominic, your boss, offers a few congratulatory clucks about your contributions. "You realize, you're gonna have to get insanely familiar with all these water filters." 

You maintain your best poker face, while your brain is already ticking off into fullblown anxiety. The red lights in your brain start kicking in: Jesus, I hope he's kidding. If not? I'm in serious trouble.

<"The Hammer Drops.../Take I":

The Reckoner>

<iv.>

Trouble doesn't take long to burble up, once the inevitable warm 'n' fuzzy Christmas holiday buzz wears off. You and your colleagues are now spending a lot of time working up endless minor variations on all those eye glazing PDFs. The days of freely brainstorming ideas, like potential names for brands of garage storage organizers, are long gone.

Instead, Dominic starts telling you what kinds of categories, names and related items, like potential makes and models, are potentially acceptable. He tells you that the clients are getting pickier, so your game to needs ratchet up accordingly. 

How interesting, you muse, since Rock 'Em Sock 'Em has one major client on a list of one, Pynwheel Corp., which makes washers, driers, and refrigerators. Oh, yeah, and exotic accessories, like garage storage organizers. With roughly 4,000 workers, Pynwheel is also your new hometown's largest major employer.

Various minor clients and projects come and go, but through all of the usual corporate churn, Pynwheel remains the constant at Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Studios. They're also an increasingly stressful constant, judging by the ad reps' hangdog expressions as they return from their dreaded weekly "status conferences," across the street from your office. They all look like they've been rolled hard, and put away wet.

You cross yourself and shudder, thank God I don't look like that. But soon, your eyes start to glaze over anew. Deadlines wax 'n' wane, but you get different answers about what's due when, which means you make some, but miss others. Dominic and his sidekick, Wendell -- who doesn't oversee your department, but insists on parking his stringbean physique at your meetings, anyway -- start to grouse about your progress. 

A good example comes in mid-February '07, when Dominic bitches you out for not answering his latest email right after its arrival. He breaks that news by sending yet another email. You hear Dominic's huff ring out in your head, as you read to yourself, silently: "The Rock 'Em Sock 'Em way is speed, speed and more speed. You need to keep this in mind, going forward."

You sigh aloud, and do what any sane person in your predicament does: take longer lunch breaks, and more frequent bathroom breaks. Hell, it's a flexible schedule, right? So you wring whatever flexibility you can out of it, for dear life. How else are you going to stay sane?

You know you're losing interest, but can't bring yourself to admit it. The siren song of sunk costs is awfully hard to ignore. Maybe this advertising lark will work out, if you get past these bumps in the road. Then again, you probably stand a better chance of spotting a pig flying past your window. If you close your eyes, you might just make it look shiny and sleek enough, if only in your imagination.

<"The Hammer Drops.../Take II":

The Reckoner>

<v.>

A month later, the hammer swings, and then, it drops, this time, for good. Dominic and Wendell summon you for a closed-door sitdown, one they've booked with no stated purpose. Uh-oh. Your gut knots up in the familiar fight or flight response. Oh, shit, here it comes again.

The sitdown begins uneventfully enough. "How do you think things are going so far?" Dominic asks, without the confrontational tone he drops, when he wants something from you (which is, most of the time).

Dominic's invitation allows you to kid yourself momentarily. Oh, you think, maybe they're setting up the next evaluation. Still, you try to play it cool, and noncommittal: "Seems like it's going okay, as far as I know. What's up?"

Dominic and Wendell swap squint-eyed glances. They don't really believe you, and you don't really believe yourself, either. It's the classic "don't ask, don't tell" dance that the employer-employee relationship, in all its feudal confines, currently requires.

"Well, that's not what we see going on," Dominic responds. "I really wanted this to work out, honestly. I really did..."

Your ears block out the rest of Dominic's fuzzy warbles, with the odd reinforcement from Wendell, contented with playing Robin to his buddy's Batman. Basically, you're getting voted off the island, with little more than a "thank you, and good luck," for your trouble.

Still, you push back where it makes sense to do so. "Guys, you had me schlep out here twice, to interview. You weren't sure if my background was a good fit then. Now, all of a sudden, what gives?"

Dominic holds his poker face, and restates the party line. "I really wanted this to work out. But it's not working out."

They ask if you want to clean out your desk, but you say no. You wouldn't let them parade you around like a whipped dog before, and you're not starting now. You shuffle out into the 40-degree April sunlight, wondering what you'll tell the wife, and what the next move feels like.

All those beautiful hipster kittens, who wanted to make you feel like your new best friend? All those superficial sidebar conversations by the water cooler? All those seeming coos of approval, whenever you dropped an idea that somebody claimed to like?

You didn't see them baring their fans, until it was way, way too late. They left you stranded on the midway, with your pockets emptier, and your spirit poorer, because you didn't pick the right shell, or the right pea. Now that you've been taken for a ride, yet again, it all feels so grubby and cheap.

<"Hipster Kitty's Farewell Address":

The Reckoner>

<Coda>

You're in line at the Post Office, a couple months after parting ways with Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Studios. You're standing in line, getting ready to ship out an eBay package or two. Your selling is yielding mixed results, but every little bit helps, as they say. Especially in your current situation.

You pay the clerk, pocket the receipt, and turn around to leave. Just then, you're face to face with Bailey, whom you first worked under -- churning out copy about the wonders of Pynwheel's various accessories, like its garage door openers -- until Dominic came into the picture.

You blink, and you stare straight at her. Bailey blinks, and stares straight back. Finally, her lips start moving, but not the way you'd expect. There's no, "How are you doing," "What's new," nor even, "What are you doing now?" Instead, you get something like this: 

“You're not 

missing anything.”

"Huh? Excuse me?" Are you hearing what you're hearing? You want to make sure.

Bailey edges closer, as the line moves along. Then she repeats herself:

"You're not missing anything! Really!”

For a moment, you both stand there, frozen in place. You're not sure what to do. Let her have it with both barrels? Well, your issue's with Dominic and Wendell, not Bailey, so that's out. 

Spit out something vaguely snarky, like, "Thanks for the scraps?" Again, you're not mad at her. But even if you were, she probably wouldn't get it. Anyway, what are the odds of seeing her again? Not great.

So you take the middle option, and say something along these lines: "Oh, gee, thanks for clearing that one up, I guess. See you later." You know the drill by now; it's what the "don't ask, don't tell" dance demands.

You can't take the absurdity of these last few months seriously, especially when the freelance life is beckoning. Some promising new leads are popping up, mainly from local correspondent work, so with a little bit of footwork, you might beat the bastards yet. 

You might be able to forge ahead without putting the Daily Bugles and the Retreaders and the Rock 'Em Sock 'Ems in charge of your life, ever again. 

Another thought strikes you, as you leave the Post Office. Whatever happens now, you'll probably see a flying pig before you take stock in any of these people again. 

And next time, when those hipster kittens start calling? You'll know better. You'll know enough to leave them to their devices. Maybe then, they'll actually start leaving you alone. --The Reckoner

Links To Go:

Jobs To Nowhere (Takes I-IV):

https://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/search/label/jobs%20to%20nowhere

Jobs To Nowhere (Take IV) You Fit The Suit

 

<"Work Till You Drop"/

The Reckoner>

Suggested Soundtrack: "In A Rut" (The Ruts)

<Storyteller's Note: The following account, though strictly personal and anecdotal, is true. The names have been changed, masked or omitted to avoid retribution from the guilty.>

<i.>

Unlikely as it sounds, the Daily Bugle sacking carried a silver lining. Before your late nemesis, Chief Tightly Wound, booted you off the island, you'd interviewed next door at its out-of-county rival, The Daily Retreader.  You knew the editor there, because she'd actually worked at the Daily Bugle, for a couple of months before the Chief's arrival. She soon regretted her mistake, and fled back to the Retreader.

Such games of musical chairs are standard fare at small town dailies. Don't like how So-and-So treated the expansion of the new industrial park? Wait a few months, maybe even a few weeks, and they'll throw up their hands, and move on. There's a sticking point, though. The interview went well, but Taylor fretted that the salary might pose a stumbling stock. It's little better than the Daily Bugle's pittance, "and I'm not sure if that'd be enough to keep you here," she worries.

Guess what? In an area flooded with Service McJobs, it'll McDo, for now. So you call Taylor, and ask if her offer still stands. Luckily, she hasn't hired anyone else, though you face down some skepticism (Why would you come back to the place you turned down, exactly?). But you don't have to lobby that hard. She needs someone, well, right now, and you're a warm body she knows. Those dynamics work in your favor.

Best of all, you can start in a couple weeks, citing the unused vacation time you've got coming. Actually, that's not true, either, but you can't reveal how Chief Tightly Wound never gave you a day off during that final, fraught year at the Bugle. Hence, the $2,400 in severance pay, on which you and the wife have lived, since that debacle.

So you ask Taylor not to call the Bugle, since you're "on vacation" (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). Now's not the time for honesty. On some level, it's all a giant game of, "Don't ask, don't tell," isn't it? In that sense, your new job is off to a flying start. It reminds you of the line from "Adios, Johnny Bravo," as Greg Brady's handlers prepare him for his rock star makeover: "You fit the suit."

<Teenage Graphic: 5/79:

Inspired via The Bells (Lou Reed):
"It was really not so cute

To play without a parachute..."

The Reckoner>

<ii.>

Everything goes well, at first. The overall atmosphere definitely seems way looser than the Bugle, and way less paranoid. People hang out together, away from work, and enjoy each other's company? What a concept! It's a welcome change from the Bugle, where departments barely interacted, outside of brutish necessity.

Better yet, the Retreader encourages your outside interests, which allows you to cover local punk and rock shows, as long as they end up in the paper. (Well, most of them, anyway.) The arrangement also builds contacts for your own musical aspirations. Before long, you're booking, playing and promoting shows at The Connection, an alternative club that's sprung up only five minutes away from your apartment. 

You'd already been helping out there during those final months at the Bugle, but had to keep it under wraps, due to its owner's anti-Iraq War, anti-Bush leanings, the polar opposite of Chief Tightly Wound, whose lack of empathy for his galley slaves matched the indifference felt on Capitol Hill toward those who weren't white, or rich.

No such issues dog you now. Instead of reporting at 7:00 a.m. for the Chief's abuse every day, you can come in whenever you wish, depending on what needs doing. As an assistant editor, you're fleshing out whatever blanks Hunter didn't fill in during her day shift. The master print copy heads out the door by nine; whatever doesn't make it by then, you have to send over electronically, via the FTP connection -- those were the days, eh? -- by 1:00 a.m.

This schedule does wonders for your biorhythms and mental state, not to mention the new levels of autonomy you're suddenly experiencing. You're having too good a time to hear the thunderclaps nagging in the distance, and the sparrows chirping in the wilderness.

<"Teenage Graphic, 5/79:
Flipside/Take II":
The Reckoner>

<iii.>

The wheels start wobbling off the wagon, bit by bit. After the first week or two, you stop taking a formal dinner break. Some nights (Wednesday, Thursday) are slower than others (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday), On the slower days, you only have two or three pages to finish; on the busier ones, it's eight, nine, or even ten, for 16- to 24-page weekend editions. On the slow nights, you're home by midnight, or 1:00 a.m.; on the faster ones, not till 2:00 a.m. or so.

The biggest challenge doesn't come from editing and laying out the stories, but labor-intensive fillers -- like the stocks and comics -- that require filling in lots of little individual pieces. The comics page typically features a dozen or so strips, plus a crossword puzzle, that takes 10 to 15 minutes, right off the bat. At that pace, six of these fillers gobble 60 to 90 minutes, before you've edited one story, or laid out one page.

Your responsibilities don't stop there. Like many dailies its size, the Retreader publishes half a dozen or so weeklies in smaller towns, to maximize its reach. They're eight to 12 pages, and mostly recycle key stories from the daily paper, but still require you to add the relevant content for each one, tasks increase your workload exponentially. 

After the first couple months, coming home by 2:00, 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. becomes the norm. The only time you make it around midnight or 1:00 a.m. is on those slower Wednesdays or Thursdays, when the paper is mostly finished. You still have to cover local government meetings, though not as many as the Bugle demanded. Even so, most of your city council, school and township beats are in outlying areas, which means additional driving time, and writing a story for tomorrow's paper. If the meeting runs long, you're straining to make that final 1:00 a.m. deadline.

You soon reach a point where you're either eating at your desk, microwaving what the wife makes at home, or eating and running, via the usual suspects (McDonalds, Subway, or the local '50s-era drive-in: pick your poison). Even the weekends no longer feel so relaxing, because you spend most of them recovering from work, like most of your fellow unfortunates. 

The annoyances are piling up, but you don't see as the Retreader as the last stop. You periodically interview for other jobs, typically way out of town, but nobody ever offers enough cash or autonomy to make the risk worthwhile. At least Taylor leaves you alone, and lets you do the job, a welcome change from the Bugle. Staying put seems like the best option, for now, at least. Remember what fate whispered in your ear: You fit the suit.

<iv.>

A year or so into your tenure, the wheels fall off with a clang, and a thud. Your publisher calls everybody in for a sitdown to discuss the Retreader's dicey financial situation. Like nearly every paper at this point in 2005, circulation is seriously tapering off, by 30-35% or so, the publisher estimates.

You pay less attention to the P&L (Profit & Loss) charts that the publisher wheels out, than his conclusion. If the paper can't win at least some of that 30-35% back, layoffs are not only likely, but unavoidable. Makes sense, right? Two-thirds of any organization's costs are tied up in labor -- and you just got here. They don't say, "Last hired, first fired," for nothing, right?

Gas has just rocketed up to $4 per gallon, too, and you're really feeling the pinch, as someone who makes a 40-mile round trip every day. Your wife estimates you're losing about $20-25 a day, before you show up to work. (This is a good decade before Uber and Lyft hone that model to perfection.) That's a pretty demoralizing proposition, but if you don't want a McJob, you'll have to McMove, because the McBetter McPaying ones aren't here. 

Neither you nor your wife can cope with that idea right now, so you do what comes naturally to people stuck in these mousetraps. You clench your jaw a little tighter, and hope, no matter how irrationally, that things will work out, somehow. After all, the Retreader's just launched a new weekly youth section, and named you to run it. Though your plate's plenty filled already, this new task matches your music and pop culture interests, so at least it's fun. And hey, they just gave you another thing to do, right? How could they get rid of you?

<"And So It Begins...

Carnival Of Bills"/

The Reckoner>

<Coda>

As it turns out, they can, and they do. Six months after that sitdown, Taylor and the publisher call you in for a meeting. They ask you to show up at 4:00 p.m., well before your typical preferred starting time (around 6:00 or so). Oh, crap, you tell yourself. That can't be good. 

Sure enough, your gut is right. You're getting the chop, all right, effective -- well, right now, basically. 

The way that Taylor explains it, "We'd have to cut you, or the other reporter, Dean, and he's been here way longer..."

"Yeah, a good decade or so," I finish. "I get the picture." You shrug your shoulders. "Well, what else can you do?"

"We won't fight your unemployment," the publisher promises. Even in this soggy scenario, that's another welcome change from the Bugle, whose management always fought everybody's unemployment applications -- a stupid move, actually, when you consider that, from a regulatory standpoint, they were paying for it all along. Then again, "logic" and "manager" don't always end up in the same sentence, as you know all too well.

To further drive home the point, the publisher slides your severance check across his desk. You pick it up and squint: it's comparable to what the Bugle begrudgingly coughed up, more or less. That'll do for another month or so, you tell yourself. 

None of you say anything for a minute that stretches like an hour. The atmosphere is cordial, but awkward, as it has to be. You're not getting shoved out for anything you did, or because the boss didn't like you. There just isn't enough in the kitty to keep you around.

Finally, the publisher stirs. "You're taking this well," he offers.

You allow yourself a wry smile. "Yeah, well, what other choice have I got? It's not like I got to vote on the matter."

Stale as it sounds, your witticism serves to break the silence. The three of you get up at last, trading the usual banalities about keeping in touch, wishing each other well, blah-blah-blah, and so on. The Beatles probably told each other the same crap when they broke up, you ruefully observe, as you head out the door, and into your van, for the last time.

You give full vent to every black-humored impulse on that final drive home. No more endless shifts, nor long commutes. Hell, what's not to like about that? All the time to read whatever you want, or watch TV, once you finally figure out what's on it.

You can give The Connection more of your time and energy, now that you're shed of that second/third shift schedule. Shit, you can play all the gigs you want! Got one coming up Friday, in fact.

Because you heard the sparrows chirping all along, even if you didn't admit it. Now that they're finally here, what happens next? You really don't have a clue, but that's okay. It's not like anybody expects you to figure out the answer right away. For now, you can just focus on immediate things, like the next benefit check, the next bill, the next gig, not necessarily in that order. Living on unemployment is like that sometimes. --The Reckoner 

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,

Before They Lay You Off For Good):

Jobs To Nowhere: The Series So Far:

https://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/search/label/jobs%20to%20nowhere

Jobs To Nowhere (Intermission): Ding Dong, Your Toxic Boss Is...

<"I Find...
Your Lack Of Faith...">
<The Highwayman, 12-27-19>

Suggested Soundtrack: "Murder Most Foul" (Bob Dylan)

<Storyteller's Note: The following account, though strictly personal and anecdotal, is true. The names have been changed, masked or omitted to avoid retribution from the guilty.>

<i.>

The news catches you off guard. Something's up, you sense, when The Squawker calls you over to the computer, where an obituary and an accompanying news story are already minimized, waiting for your brows to furrow together, puzzled. "Hard to believe, isn't it? But I found it just now, and figured you'd want to see it," Squawker tells you.

You quickly skim both items, yet even now, your eyes have trouble taking in the news. But there it is, in black and white: Chief Tightly Wound, who booted you off The Daily Bugle's perennially troubled, perpetually unstable, penny-pinching island, has died. For those who need the back story, please consult the link below ("Jobs To Nowhere [Take III]: When The Hammer Drops").

From what you glean, the end came suddenly. The Chief's tribute doesn't say how he died, but the basic facts involved being rushed to the local hospital, in extreme distress, where he died shortly after his arrival. The Bugle's story doesn't say so, but your own hunches point to a heart attack as the likely scenario. 

You hadn't seen Chief Tightly Wound since that final Star Chamber Conference, where he berated you one last time, for sins real or imagined, before he dropped the axe over your head (figuratively speaking, thank God). "Have fun doing it all yourself," you told him, as you pushed your camera and front door key across the desk in his general direction.

Since then, you'd only seen the Chief a couple more times, including one surreal moment in the local emergency room, where you went after cutting your foot in a stupid household accident. You never noticed him sitting halfway across the room, until somebody else pointed out that fact later. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?" you'd asked. "I could have had one more crack at him."

"That's exactly why I didn't tell you."

"Fair enough," you sigh.

<ii.>

Honestly, though, you hadn't given the Chief much thought lately. You'd left the Daily Bugle's rural confines long ago, for another job in your former hometown. That one fizzled, too, but you'd transitioned to self-employment. The first few years were filled with various psychic stresses, financial and non-financial, but the last three years or so stabilized, as you seemed to learn the game.

Still, you can't help but wonder: How's this one playing out? A quick online search yields one other tribute. It's not from the Daily Bugle (where the Chief lost his job, after it merged with its county rival next door, leaving one editor to preside over both papers -- not two).This other tribute comes from a suburban weekly, where the Chief had been working as a stringer after his freefall from grace.

You already knew that Chief Tightly Wound was a full-time freelancer, though his wife taught in the local school system. Though he undoubtedly found his comedown from full-time work shocking and stressful, she still pulled in a good salary, and he could stay on her insurance. He hadn't fallen on the breadline, even if he was no longer the breadwinner.

Both tributes are telling, as you feel their authors straining to say something positive about the man. Tellingly, past and previous staffers focus on the technical stuff, leaving out the personal tidbits, for the most part. They're all straight out of the Last Train To Clicheville:

A good writer who had many more stories to tell. A fine editor who made me get my game up, though I didn't always like how he did it. A fierce competitor when it came to getting the job done.

How fierce, exactly? Well, one rival correspondent recalls the Chief literally shoving him out of the way at a game, in hopes of taking a better photo. Yup, you tell yourself, sounds like the Chief I knew and hated. No surprises there. For a moment, you're nearly tempted to write the editors of both papers, and tell them: "Okay, now that I've stopped laughing so hard, tell me what the man was really like."

You decide not to waste the time and keystrokes it would take.

Work Work Work Work...

...Die

<iii.>

For a day or two, you push the subject out of your mind. You've run those loops over and over in your brain often enough over the years: 

...The Wednesday staff meetings that ballooned into 45-, 60- and eventually, 90-minute gab fests, as the Chief droned about "managing your time," while you rolled your eyes, and looked at the clock: For God's sake, man, let us get back to work, so we can keep on churning out this stuff you don't pay us enough to produce.

...The constant jibes of, "I'm your boss, not your enemy," whenever the Chief hauled you into the Star Chamber, to which you thought, What's the difference? Either way, I get a shit sandwich. 

...The compliment sandwich style of his first evaluation, one that celebrated your writing abilities, even as it tore down more nebulous qualities, like an alleged unwillingness to attend company functions. You don't recall any being offered, but never mind. Such inconsistencies didn't slow down the Chief a whit.

...The time that you got wildly berated for "not being a newsroom leader," prompting you to remind Chief Tightly Wound: "I think there's room for only one, and right now, that seems to be you. I don't see room for another."

...The resigned hiss you heard from the Chief's mouth, as he explained his real issue with gay marriage, an idea that his fundamentalist brain didn't accept: "Oh, it's coming eventually, all right. Think of all the extra work we'll have to do." That's just like him, isn't it? you thought then. Even as you stack our plates higher and higher, you're really upset about potentially taking on one more task yourself.

...The colleagues that began disappearing as Chief Tightly Wound fired them after a few months here, a year there. Others quit as soon as the sulfur hit their nostrils, like the news director whose face turned chalk white, after she heard him go ballistic over the phone. At whom, you never knew, but you never saw her again. She was gone the next day, and one day, you knew it would be your turn.

...The strange, almost selfish relief you felt after leaving the Bugle's front entrance for the last time: No longer do I have to answer all those stupid questions. Why "we" aren't doing this, or doing that? Why aren't "we" running this story, or not running that one? No need to care, because that royal "we" doesn't include you anymore.

Oh, and I don't have to get there by 7:00 a.m., and stare at that jug-eared prick anymore. These days, you can stay up till 7:00 a.m., which feels a hell of a lot better.

<iv.>

The best part comes last. The moment your Bugle job disappeared, so did your interest in continuing to wear the blue, gray and black T-shirts that they gave out for casual Fridays. 

Not that you bought the whole casual Friday bit, anyway. By the time your last year at the Bugle rolled around, you always arrived with the same prayer on your lips: Dear God, if you're really out there, get me through today without any screaming or yelling, without some drama or incident. Such places lend themselves to many descriptions, but "casual" isn't one of them. 

Yet the Bugle hasn't stood immune from the chill winds of change blowing through the news business. At the time of your axing, the Bugle had shut down its on-site press, outsourcing it to an out of county printer. Later, you heard that the Bugle abandoned its headquarters -- which it owned -- and moved into a far smaller one, in the industrial park, on the edge of town. 

All the dog-eat-dog-ism, it seems, that that the Chief preached -- "Every reporter in America is working harder," "Manage your time," "Overtime is not an option," and your own favorite, "This isn't a charity" -- couldn't save the Bugle from drowning on dry land, its so-called mission swamped by a toxic work atmosphere, and a tsunami of red ink. Well, the Chief's gone, you think. He can't hurt anybody else anymore.

Still, you can't say that you got nothing out of the deal. Those goddamn T-shirts, right, that you wasted no time hacking and ripping into oblivion, because you never wanted the Bugle's name and logo to grace your chest ever again. 

Let the county landfill handle the overflow, you tell yourself. Chucking those blue, gray and black discards into the bin feels oddly satisfying, doesn't it? Just as well, you figure. -- The Reckoner

Links To Go:
Jobs To Nowhere (Take III):
When The Hammer Drops
https://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2018/08/jobs-to-nowhere-take-iii-when-hammer.html

Jobs To Nowhere (Take III): When The Hammer Drops

<Yer Humble Narrator felt 

like a ghost during this period...>

Suggested Soundtrack: "America The Beautiful" (DOA)

<Storyteller's Note: The following account, though strictly personal and anecdotal, is true. The names have been changed, masked or omitted to avoid retribution from the guilty.>

<i.>

Your second year passes uneventfully, because you don't have a managing editor stirring up drama. You haven't seen this situation before, and won't see it again.

Your publisher seems in no hurry to find one. That way, he can slap out the paper by noon, and piddle away his lunchtime on paperwork for an hour or two, so he can finish out the day drinking and golfing with his buddy, the supermarket store owner. 

Your less astute colleagues grouse about this situation. It's a case of Stockholm Syndrome at its most extreme, but you merely roll your eyes, and gently remind them, shut the fuck up. We've never been left alone this long. Enjoy it while you can. Who knows how long it'll last?

At least you've grabbed some hard-won freedom. Your new starting time is 8:30 a.m., so once the paper gets done, you can cut out after lunch, and return by 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. to wind down the last couple hours -- but your publisher doesn't give a shit, as you correctly surmise. He's only paying you for a 40-hour workweek, anyway. 

As long as your timesheet equals that magic number, nobody cares if you stand on your head. For pure fiction, your timesheets are right up there with Tristram Shandy. A small price to pay, you figure, for being left alone.

As the year-long anniversary rolls around, though, upper management starts clearing its throat. A series of hopefuls start parading through the door, like the guy whose garish plaid suit -- complete with brown elbow patches -- seems lifted straight from Herb Tarlek Closet Central. Thankfully, he doesn't get the gig.

Just then, the hammer drops, like it always does, from out of the blue. You arrive at 8:30 a.m., as usual, to find your coworkers reeling with dread. Your almost-nemesis, Chief Tightly Wound, is coming here by the end of September.

<photobucket.com>

<"Herb Tarlek's the name, mangement's my game. 

Now that I've conquered the sales racket at WKRP, 

there's only one place left to go...running 

a local paper. Trust me, I'm a natural!">

<ii.>

Your gut knots, and your stomach cramps. You would have encountered the Chief at your last job, if you hadn't quit a few weeks before he arrived. He lasted just over a year, after alienating residents, staffers and local residents, who often mocked him as "The Editor From Hell."

The Chief's arrival coincides with your publisher's unceremonious sacking, presumably for not helping the paper hit its usual grandiose double-digit profit goals. For him, the drinking and golfing will continue, till his unemployment evaporates...just not on the Daily Bugle's dime, that's all.

His replacement arrives from the Plains States, though you don't have a conversation with her for three weeks. Like most upper class types, she's mastered a certain glacial civility, but doesn't appear interested in getting to know you on a deeper level. 

Neither does the Chief, for that matter. From the start, he demonstrates a knack for going from zero to 100 mph emotionally. Like most control freaks, he doesn't handle change well. If he can't contrive it or manipulate it, it's no good, which is sufficient cue for a tantrum.

The first major taste comes one fall afternoon, when he shuts his office door, and launches into a heated talk with his wife (the exact opposite, temperament-wise -- what's that cliche again?). Suddenly, he shouts that something best happen by tomorrow, or... they won't like to see him then. Something like that.

Through the office grapevine, you hear that Chief Tightly Wound is moving into a newer, better house. However, the transaction got stuck, as he and his wife apparently didn't send along a key piece of paperwork to keep it moving. The agent was supposed to provide it; for whatever reason, that didn't happen.

But those technicalities don't interest you and your coworkers, who spend a couple days pondering the more relevant question: "If this is how he acts around here, what he's like at home?" You don't feel an avalanche of hammers ready to drop from the sky, yet. But it's getting way too close for comfort. 

"Overtime

is not an option.

"Overtime

is not an option.

"Overtime

is not...”

Ah, never mind.

<iii.>

An uneasy calm prevails during the new regime's first six months. Like all such truces, though -- think of any agreement struck between some South American junta and its guerilla opposition -- it doesn't hold. The first crack comes with your evaluation, another ordeal you haven't missed during that year-long oasis without a boss.

Chief Tightly Wound's announcement that everyone will get a comprehensive look-see is the first indication of how soon your future will come undone. In your case, the result is the usual "compliment sandwich" of good (you're a fine writer, especially on "sight and sound" features), bad (apparently, you lack initiative) and ugly comments (show more get up and go, or...).

Even so, you wind up with a small raise, prompting you to wonder: if I'm so deficient, why'd I get a 75-cent bump? You figure that'll keep me here, so you can torture me a little longer? 

But Chief Tightly Wound lives by a famous maxim attributed to the late U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen: "Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." 

The best example is the weekly staff meeting, which soon bloats to Promethean lengths -- one hour, 90 minutes, two hours -- as Chief Tightly Wound rants about managing your time: "Overtime is not an option. Overtime is not an option. Overtime is not an option."  Why say it once, after all, when you can repeat it three times?

He's right, but not for the reasons he so ponderously enumerates. With all the extra work they're trying to squeeze out of you -- especially those special sections -- the few bits and pieces of overtime they toss you would never be enough to cover it. Unless somebody did the unthinkable, and reward talent is worth rewarding at, or above, the market rate.

You'll probably see a pig flying past your window first.

<https://vicmcquaide.weebly.com/blog/

dropping-the-hammer-or-so-i-thought>

<iv.>

The hammers start raining down, fast and furious, during your second year. The revolving door is humming at top speed, as newcomers size up the office manchild, and trip over each other to get out the door.

As time passes, you and the lifestyles editor -- who actually remembers when the paper had a "youth page" in the counterculture era -- remain the only holdovers from previous regimes, surrounded by an ever-changing, ever-younger cast of reporters and section editors.

Some last longer than others. A potential news editor who quits after one day, after hearing another explosive (yet one-sided) yell-fest between Chief Tightly Wound and the missus. You watch the soon-to-depart editor's expression go chalk white; you know what's never coming next. You never see her again.

The episode prompts the publisher to claim final say over all hiring, though the atmosphere doesn't improve. You're all getting berated for (mostly imaginary) errors large and small, so it's not surprising that morale sinks further and further below sea level.

Not to worry, as Chief Tightly Wound has the answer. One day, he proudly announces that you're touring the the towns you cover, with an eye toward potential story ideas. Though you welcome a chance to flee the increasingly suffocating office, neither you nor your cohorts want to be seen in public with the mighty Chief.

Of course, it doesn't take long for fireworks to ignite, at your first stop. One of your co-workers asks why we're touring Community ABC, when we're typically a) cloistered in meetings, or b) chasing sources over the phone. 

The Chief's face clouds. He tells his newly-minted assistant editor to continue herding you all through downtown, while he asks your co-worker to stay at the local park. He spends 45 minutes dressing her down -- for alleged story lapses, inability to remember basic style points, lack of enterprise, and so on. 

This is the story she tells you later, one brimming with an unmistakable message: how dare you question me. Don't ever do it again. Predictably, of course, the show of doglike obedience that she affects for the Chief's benefit doesn't stop him from firing her as year two winds down. 

You feel like an extra in an Alfred Hitchock movie, as the lead actors continue to disappear. The hammers are falling fast and furious now, and there's no small town police chief coming to save you from the nightmare that consumes most of your waking moments.

Around town, the standing joke continues: "Who's protecting him? Whose relative is he?"

<v.>

Now that year three rolls around, you no longer care about the job, since Chief Tightly Wound is increasingly focusing his tantrums on you -- which always happens before he fires someone. Your overriding goal is to just survive each day, without the drama he stirs up. It's not a noble impulse, but that's how coping mechanisms work.

The internal stresses keep racking up. One major source are the "tabs," or tabloids -- eight- to 16-page special sections for which you must generate one to three articles, minimum, on top of your other commitments.

Naturally, this extra work doesn't mean extra pay. Naturally, the situation stirs resentment among the news staff, who are well aware that the ad reps get incentives over their basic salary, for each story idea assigned to them. Even so, for all the time and effort they put in, you wonder how money anybody makes off these litter box-lining exercises, as house ads ("Subscribe now! Don't miss a day of the Daily Bugle") fill up most of the pages.

The crunch comes after the county fair, when the ad manager drops the latest tab schedules on your desks. Your brow furrows: she's booked five tabs for next month, one right after the other. Your coworkers are furiously buzzing over this latest development, which prompts that inevitable question from the floor: "What do you think?"

You slap your schedule back onto your desk. "I don't think this is workable," you sigh.

Ironically, the Chief isn't here to digest this mutinous talk, having taken one of his rare days off. He responds by calling you all in for a Star Chamber-style sitdown in his office after the paper goes out for the day.

The accompanying rant runs like this: like them or not, tabs are a necessary moneymaker for papers our size. (Your mind drifts back to the lack of paid advertising that you've already noticed. The Chief's flushed face convinces you it's safer not to bring up this inconsistency up.) You'll want to start as soon as possible, so you'll need to manage your time like never before. Right now, every reporter is working harder in America, and you're no exception. 

You're then dismissed, with the usual peremptory flourish. Apparently, though, somebody gets second thoughts, because in a day or two, a new schedule appears. This time, you get week or two of breathing space before the more complicated tabs -- like the fall sports one, which means summarizing the prospects of a dozen or so teams.

As a compromise, it's better than nothing, but another reminder, as if you needed it, that your destiny isn't your own.

"Every Reporter

in AMERICA

IS WORKING

HARDER...

Harder...

 Harder...”

<vi.>

When the hammer finally drops on you, it falls with the weirdness of all the other involuntary exits you've witnessed. The Chief asks when you'll return from District Court, where you copy down each day's arrests and judgments for the police log. Huh, that's weird, you shudder. They're done at five o'clock. He knows that,

The reason becomes clear enough once you've finished the court case log, and the Chief summons you to the conference room, where the sphinxlike human resources director -- another person who's making way more than you -- is waiting.

He comes right to the point: you're out of here, right now. He claims that the final tipping point came when you referenced an accident victim's age in your lead, something that he warned you all not to do.

The reasoning, such as it is, makes no sense. Keeping up with the Chief's ever-changing edicts is a full-time job in itself. What's okay one week isn't the next, and vice versa, as he eagerly embraces one idea, only to change his mind, and abruptly ditch it.

He repeats his other favorite claim, of not showing enough enterprise, initiative, or whatever he calls it. Which sounds strange, since you're typically writing a third to half of page one -- sometimes, three-quarters, if it's a major event -- every day. 

Apparently, though, the Chief still harbors a grudge for the time or two that you didn't dash out the door to cover some pissant fender-bender or car fire within shouting distance of the office. That's not showing enough enterprise, even if the local radio station will blare the details in an hour. (Hence, the mocking slogan coined by your critics: "Yesterday's news tomorrow.")

"Do you want to clean out your desk now?" he asks.

"Hell, no."

The Chief's eyebrows knit together in confusion. "Why not? If you have any personal items, we can..."

Your response is equally curt. 

"Oh, you mean my Road Commission minutes? Nah, I don't think so. Someone else can have them." You slide your camera and front door key across the table. "Have fun doing it all by yourself."

You turn on your heel and leave the room. The hammer has fallen for the last time. Your long nightmare is finally over.

<Coda>

The Mayberry grapevine is a powerful force. Soon, you hear that the Chief -- a staunch right-wing Republican who has no qualms about using the paper to plug his church, that supports those things -- didn't like your friends, the town's small radical cadre, who hang out at the used bookstore. 

A more basic reason emerges when an acquaintance buttonholes you on the street: "You know, he really just didn't like you." 

The county prosecutor, whom you consider a friend, mentions that he tried to rally his local law enforcement colleagues -- including the sheriff -- on your behalf, but the Chief wouldn't see them. "Don't worry," you assure him. "Nobody I know reads the Daily Bugle, anyway."

Ironically, Chief Tightly Wound's refusal to grant you a day off during those last nine months helps at the box office. All those unused vacation days result in a $2,400 severance check that should tide you over for now, since (ironically) your next job is in the pipeline; you didn't expect to move up the timetable. But you're sure you can deal with it.

The Chief ends up losing his job, four years after axing you, when the Daily Bugle merges with its next door county neighbor. The powers that be decide that one editor can oversee both entities (really?), so his job gets eliminated. 

By this point, the Daily Bugle is a pale shadow of itself, like most dailies, having sold its building (lock, stock and basement printing plant). This enables the Bugle to occupy a far smaller office downtown, and outsource its printing. All the dog eat dog-ism, it seems, couldn't stop this downward spiral.

But such subtleties take a back seat to more basic sentiments, even if you won't say so  aloud: so he lost his job, huh? Now he knows how it feels. Couldn't have happened to a better guy.-The Reckoner