Double Standard

A few weeks ago ESPN dumped some of its grossly overpaid on-air “personalities” in a mass layoff. This set off the expected boo-hoo-ing in the media. How could ESPN put all those nice people out of work? ESPN bosses are such meanies! This is awful! Such bad times in the media industry and those people had to suffer! Upper management is stupid and to blame, and those people didn’t deserve to lose their jobs!

Really? Tell me about it. I’ve been laid off twice and have never gotten such expressions of sympathy. My twitter feed (which has many sport writers on it because of my baseball obsession) burst with heartfelt condolences to those now-former ESPN’ers. Me? Most I got was “sorry to hear that” from friends and family. After my second layoff, my sister — my sister! — sent me a text that said, “Bet you were surprised.” Not exactly comforting, eh? My former co-workers? Most have cut all contact with me after I was booted. Hey, guys, my job was sacrificed to save yours! Doesn’t that warrant a thank you, guys. Guys? Hello? Anybody remember me?

The ESPN layoffs got me thinking. (Freelance work is slow now, so I have time to think. Maybe not a good thing that is.) Everybody can agree that layoffs are bad and hurtful. Losing a job is never a pleasant experience for anybody, no matter their profession. Yet we seem to have a double standard when it comes to parceling out sympathy to those who have been laid off. People who are public figures, or semi-public figures, like the ESPN’ers, amass an outpouring of compassion, even though their cushy salaries and marketable names make it almost a lock they will ride their brief period of unemployment without any injury to their bank accounts. Most will end up writing for one of those sports websites that sprout like dandelions in spring (and will be lucky to last two years). So should we really feel sorry for them?

So, yeah, public figures tend to engender sympathy when they lose their jobs — as opposed to the faceless, nameless editors and journalists cast out by their callous overloads at newspapers and media companies

Politicians, too, single out certain professions for our sympathy when workers toiling in those fields lose their jobs en masse. Like coal miners and steelworkers. But I wonder if those same politicians will direct their attention to all the retail workers headed to the unemployment line when hoary retailers like Sears and JCPenney shutter stores?

Why a double standard? Aren’t we all victims of the same societal upheavals: shifting consumer tastes and consumption habits, technology rendering some workers obsolete, and a rapidly evolving job market that requires new skills many workers simply don’t have. Weren’t we all sacrificed for management’s brain-dead decisions? Like ESPN paying billions of dollars — yes, billions! — for the rights to NFL and NBA games.

And aren’t we all victims of cruel upper management; indifferent boards of directors; and ruthless investment bankers — all locked on profits and merciless cost cutting. Workers be damned! We want more $$$ to our bottom line (and obscene executive pay).

The ESPN fiasco highlights another trend I’ve been seeing lately in layoffs. My former workplace(s) recently laid off a number of my former co-workers (more on that in another post). This time, however, instead of ditching some low or mid-level salesperson or editor, the powers that be targeted several higher up editors and executives (including the horrible drunken boss who bullied me for 16 years). Layoffs have definitely moved up the corporate totem pole. Makes sense — there are only so many secretaries and assistant editors you can lay off before upper management takes aim at higher salaried but useless employees.

Pretty soon those same upper management drones will be without a job. Will anybody feel sorry for them?

One More Time

I read the email subject line and immediately my stomach rumbled. “Editorial assignments changing,” it said. Let’s talk over the phone, the text of the email said. You don’t go through two layoffs without knowing what the endgame will be.

 

To be honest, I’d been anticipating the email for quite some time, ever since the company offshored some of their content creation to the Philippines. (I kid you not.) Then, they slashed my hours. Then, the criticism of my copyediting (mistakes all the copy editors made and worse, but somehow I was singled out). Then came the near fatal blow — I was assigned busy-work duties more suitable for an intern. So, yeah, I knew the gig was soon up. But I figured I’d string it along as long as I could for the money. Always for the money.

So when I was told my editing duties would be taken over by a computer program (I kid you not), I wasn’t surprised. The boss offered me writing assignments…for extremely low pay and very high volume (100 press release rewrites per week for $3 each). If I could write that fast (I don’t), I couldn’t do that and my other content marketing jobs (for higher pay). So I had to refuse. After the way I was treated why would I want to work for that shabby outfit anymore? It wasn’t just me who thought my treatment was undeserved; the former editor (she quit, smart lady) I worked closely with wrote that I “shouldn’t have been treated that way.” I’m not saying I didn’t make mistakes, but I was punished more harshly for them.

So once again, I get booted from a job. Albeit a freelance, part-time job, but a layoff by any other name.

I worked for this company for nearly two years, always willing to work extra hours when asked. (And where did that get me?) I liked getting paid weekly, though. With my other freelance jobs more tentative and less steady, I knew I’d have money in my bank account to grocery shop every Friday. Now? Well, I can only hope my other two freelance jobs can make up the difference. I’m not so sure.

It also gave the sometimes unstructured life of a freelancer a semblance of structure: writing in the morning, editing in the afternoon. Now, that's gone, too.

But I don’t feel angry. I feel sad, and nostalgic, anxious, worried about my ever-dwindling financial stability. It’s also a bitter reminder of my other two layoffs and the emotional trauma I apparently have yet to recover from. I never had a deep reservoir of self-confidence, but what little there ever was is completely gone now. Forever, I think.

It’s also a reminder of the impermanence of life. Jobs, relationships…all fleeting and gone in an instant and beyond our control. Our lives totter on sand, not steel, yet we cling to the illusion of permanence as a shield against Bad Things Happening. It doesn’t work that way. Bad things happen anyway, and we clump through the dark to find another path.

We try to grab hold of things, people, jobs, yet are shocked when those objects turn out to be nothing more than projections of our own fear of loss. They’re really just 3-D holograms we can never touch or fully possess. We never really had them, so why should we be surprised when they are gone?

Let There Be Work

The computer screen glows with a soft blue backdrop. The table with the notepad sits at my left, as does my landline phone (yes, such contraptions still exist). I’m ready to work…except there is no work.

Is there any sadder, more pathetic tableau than an eager worker ready to work with no

work?

The foretold email came Monday morning. Changes were afoot, we were forewarned from the masters at the part-time, at-home copyediting job I’ve toiled at for a year. The harshness of those changes become painfully apparent after reading the email. My hours were cut, and not just by a little, but a lot.

My hours have fluctuated from between 18 to 24, an acceptable rate for a part-time job. This time, however, the cut in hours dropped to a shocking fewer than nine. Egads! Not only that, the editing queues I was switched to were clearly the dregs with very little copy to edit, ensuring I wouldn’t even reach that puny limit.

Thinking it may have been a misprint (yeah, right), I inquired whether those hours were correct. I sent another email to another supervisor, again asking why my hours were slashed so dramatically.

The responses I received were both hurtful and confusing. The one supervisor said the head honcho was concerned over my “mistakes” (more on that in a bit) and wanted me to improve my editing before I would be given any more hours.

Yet that very same head honcho later replied that those hours were the best they could do and that more editing opportunities may open up in the future. No mention of “mistakes.”

What is going on here?

Let’s first address the “mistakes.” (Apologies at the onset for what is surely self-serving and passive-aggressive excuses on my part.) Did I make mistakes? Yes, as does every copy editor. It’s the nature of the job — you only get noticed when you make a mistake, never for the numerous times you caught a misspelling or corrected a wrong fact or rewrote a horrible piece to make it readable.

Some of the mistakes were legitimate and on me. I misspelled a proper noun. Others classify as more subjective, and based on the preference of the head honcho. In some instances, style points were not clearly defined, at least in my mind. I could argue those points, but to what end?

To what end, too, can I ever hope to get back in the good graces of the head honcho? I know from painful past experience, once you get a reputation as a “bad” worker, it’s very difficult to change that perception (especially when your workload has been slashed to near nothing. How am I to prove any improvement?). Indeed, it’s nearly impossible. When I asked the head honcho twice to clarify what he meant when he told the supervisor about my mistakes, I never received a reply, which I think is disrespectful.

Yet I’m also getting a feeling there is more going on here than my mistakes. The head honcho’s first reply indicated there were cutbacks in assignments from the clients. And the supervisor also mentioned in a later email that the head honcho was under pressure from his bosses.

Yet as someone who has been laid off twice due to corporate budget cuts, I’ve become accustomed to being jerked around by bosses. None of this surprises me. In fact, the signs started about six months ago when they outsourced some of the writing responsibilities to the Philippines. (I kid you not.) Then they pulled out the go-to corporate cheap trick of hiring an intern (aka free labor).

This is merely the logical progression of vicious, zero-sum corporate cost-cutting. What’s next? Robots to write and edit the stories? What happens when those AI marvels make mistakes? Slash their hours? Replace them with a newer technological model?

I also wonder if the other copy editors’ hours have been slashed similarly. I thought about asking them, but thought better of it. It would be intrusive and they are under no obligation to tell me. Since I was the last one hired, I stood to lose the most hours versus the more senior copy editors. They have seniority.

I wonder as well, why go through this pretense of stringing me along? Do they want me to quit? If there is no money to pay me, then lay me off. Or, tell me there is no work right now, but there may be in two months and I can start up again at that time.

Hey, I’m a part-time 1099 worker for this company. Meaning, I receive no benefits nor do I possess any employment rights. When an employer wants to rid itself of a full-time employee, they typically make his or her life miserable in the hopes they will quit, thereby freeing them of any unemployment payments or severance pay. I know how this game is played. I’ve been there myself and seen it happen to co-workers.

But in this instance, that is not the case. They can let me go without any explanation or payment. Just a fare-thee-well email. So why jerk me around like this? It’s unnecessary and frankly, cruel.

Now, I’m thrust back into that same bad place I fell into after my two layoffs. One night, as I nestled my head on my pillow, tears stung my eyes: I’m stupid, I’m incompetent. I’ll never work again.

What do I tell my family and friends? That I was let go because of my mistakes? Then, they’ll think I’m stupid and incompetent. I know my sister. If I told her, and I haven’t yet, she’ll profess sympathy to my face, then cut me to piece in front of her friends. “Oh, my sister, what a stupid idiot.” Better to say my hours were cut and leave it at that.

I’m also irritated and ashamed of myself. I worked hard for this godawful company. I took on extra work when asked, toiled over the weekends, declined other jobs when offered, all because I felt loyalty to these bottom-line loving jerks. Ha! I was the jerk, thinking my hard work and loyalty would ever be reciprocated. When will I ever learn? Maybe now I have.

This whole distressing incident underscores how precarious my financial situation is as well. Between this part-time copy editing job and my content marketing writing duties, I was pulling down about half of what I made in my previous full-time job. Not flush by any means, but I was able to pay my bills without dipping (too much) into my savings. Now? Well, it’s going to be a lot tougher, and I’m not sure I can survive much longer.

Right now, I don’t know what my next move is. Right now, the fall chill has descended and my beloved Mets’ mangled season came to a jolting yet fitting end. I need time to think and let my simmering depression lift. Perhaps my hope of cobbling together two or three part-time jobs is no longer financially viable. Do I try for a full-time job — even though my chances of getting one are pretty much zilch at this point?

For now, I’ll wait a bit to see if the head honcho comes through on his hint of more editing opportunities and therefore, more hours.

Until then, I sit ready to work.