Bootcamp for journalists

By Pixel at June 10, 2006 at 12:52 pm. Filed in commentary

Welcome to Clovis.

In the 90 days we spend together, you will deal with incompetent overconfidence, inadequate computers and programs, miscommunication, discommunication, and remiscommunication all of which will be someone else’s fault, but you will still have to clean up after them.
People will not explain what they want —or explain it in the abstract or in specifics about something unrelated and expect you to apply it without coaching— and want what they don’t explain. They’ll say “it’s my fault,” but you’ll notice that the words “I’m sorry” are never heard… anywhere. Unless you mistakenly say them.

Watch as you design a section, they delete an entire page, you redesign the section, then you design another section, they add an entire page of content, you redesign the section, they add another half a page of content, you redesign the section, they take away a half a page of content, you redesign it and leave frustrated. You come back ten minutes later with them sitting on your computer, forcing everything to fit then saying, “oh, yeah, I undid all of your formatting, so you’re going to have to redo that.”

Watch as they tell you your shirts are too risqué for the newspaper business (especially if they contradict the company’s political viewpoint by saying “Fascism Sucks”), see them take away your weekends, schedule you for 45 hours but only allow you to clock 40, take away all music, headphones, and non-work related conversations.
Watch as we try to twist you into doing other people’s work because you can do it better than most, and deal with us as our sabotaging of your work means you have to take it because we’re boss.

This is bootcamp for journalists. If you don’t slice your wrists with a spoon by the time this is over, consider yourself trained.

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