Working Overtime, What a Way to Make a Living

Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 song has been buzzing in my ears the past two weeks.

I’ve got piles of paperwork on my desk, a list longer than Santa’s of stories to write and then an email about the need to step up and do more.

Yikes.

My counterpart reporter quit right before Thanksgiving, greener pastures and all that. It is also the end of the year, so anyone who has accumulated time off is cashing in because the majority will not rollover.

What does this mean?

We have half the reporters here trying to manage the duties of a full-time staff. I’m overwhelmed.

I have always written a lot of stories in a day, but lately it’s been insanity. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this holiday season.

Instead of thinking about the cookies I want to bake, or the presents I still need to wrap, at night I’m thinking about how on earth am I going to fit in this story and that story along with when I’m working night shift and weekends.

If I seem frazzled, it’s because I am.

I guess what has spurred this is an email I found in my Inbox this morning. It said something to the effect that the website page views are not doing well, actually they’re the worse they’ve ever been in two years.

But instead of saying I know you all are working incredibly hard, it condemened us and told the reporters, who are all working incredibly hard, that we need to step up.

I just don’t see how anyone can do that when we’re barely managing to get a paper out.

Merry Christmas, Newspaper — somehow you’ve managed to break my Christmas spirit.

Back to the Grind

I feel like in most places if you’re gone for a couple days it feels like you’ve missed out on quite a bit.

In the newspaper world, it feels like you’ve missed a year when you’re out three days.

I got back from a short vacation yesterday and the world seemed to have turned upside down. I missed a murder, an in-house fight and about a gazillion emails.

It was nice getting away. Honestly, it was needed.

But as soon as I got back I was drowning with the work I was told to make up. It made me think, is vacation worth the overload you have to take on as soon as you get back?

So, back to the grind I go – hopefully, I’ll catch up one of these days.