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2001-04-21 - 1:25 a.m.

Bitching born of frustration

I'm getting really frustrated with work.

My cheap-ass paper is working us all way too thin, stretching that staff out to the point where we care less and less, because we're asked to do more and more -- in shorter time.

There are people there who can't pull their own weight, several people who cannot handle all the responsibilities they should. I mean, shouldn't an editor, particularly the one running the show on a particular night, know how to open a page on the computer and fix a misspelling in a headline or something in a story? Yeah, I agree, but some idiots can't do it.

What it all adds up to is that I'm not covering the baseball team the way I should. They've had eight home games (they're on the road in Maryland now), and I've missed two of them. Hello, I'm the beat writer; that's my beat. If anyone dictates when I don't cover it, it should be me, shouldn't it? (And that fact that the team is in Maryland and I'm not there is another problem, but that's company wide -- they're too cheap to care about anything but profit, so the budget gets cut, travel is halted, replacements are not hired for staffers who leave ...)

So in the four games played this week (Monday-Thursday), I covered Monday-Wednesday, and then joined the desk staff for Thursday's day game from the stands. But that was because I was told I had to work on the desk that night, so someone else covered the game. And I had to work the desk tonight, and will have to tomorrow -- that makes it a six-day work week for me (and seven days in a row when Sunday gets added in). I won't get overtime, but a comp day instead (which doesn't bother me too much). I knew I'd be working some six-, maybe a seven-day week here and there, but I figured it'd be because there were six minor league games to cover that week. Ha.

This is my fault to an extent. I took the editing job when it was offered, along with the raise and the promise of this minor league beat. But employees leaving and some of them not being replaced has limited our desk staff, where I'm needed. And I'm good at it. I've made myself one of our three best editors. That's my own fault. I shouldn't regret doing my best and making myself so valuable, but the pay is miserable anyway, so I would've enjoyed the last two years a lot more had I stayed on as a high school reporter making miserable money and enjoying writing and covering games. Instead, I make slightly less miserable money working nights and weekend nights with a few good people and several annoying people.

I wish I could go into more detail, but there are reasons not to; I don't even want to explain why I'm not going into more detail about not going into more detail. Google is a scary thing, too.

So I do have next Saturday off, which is nice -- but I don't know anything beyond that. I can handle my schedule changing from week to week, but not knowing what it will be beyond the next 10 days or so is ridiculous.

That comes up because there are insanely low air fares now for places I'd like to go: L.A., Seattle, Chicago. But I can't because I don't know if I'm supposed to be working on April 29 or May 1. It pains me because I have a good friend in Southern California I'd love to visit, same with Seattle. Or I'd like to visit the ballparks in Chicago or Milwaukee or Pittsburgh, or simply cruise the PCH.

That's sad, too, that I have to think about traveling so much during my days off to enjoy myself. I have a good friend here, and he and I hang out often. But the rest of my best friends are in Boston, New York, Washington, Chicago, L.A., Arizona and Seattle. I look more to the Internet for air fares than I do my speed dial for a dinner date. I don't have close friendships with my co-workers, because so many of them are older and many of the rest are just annoying; even some of the others in their 20s are going through some significant changes -- one has just moved in with his fiance, another just became a father.

I'm so close to just deciding to start looking and tender my resignation. But this minor league beat is a step in the right direction, it's where I want to go. I'd benefit so much more from lasting through the summer and then looking around.

But I can't wait until that day comes when I can tell my boss I am leaving. I like him, he gave me my start, and it was a great start. But his hands have been tied and my career has not gone in the direction I'd hoped, and the only way to get it back on track is to find another ride.

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