Friday, August 5, 2011

Priorities

Just laid-off Chicago Times/L.A. Tribune NBA beat writer Mark Heisler, who was advised of his termination while on vacation:
Five days later, I went downtown to turn in my company ID, laptop, Blackberry and American Express card. Unfortunately, my ID card no longer opened gate in the parking structure. They had already turned it off, along with my access to the Trib’s virtual network, my email account and, of course, health insurance.

I should point out that, believe it or not, I’m not angry about this. At 67, I was only going to work one more season and they just gave me the whole thing off, with pay, through April.

All that notwithstanding, I’m sitting in my car, behind the closed gate, marveling at the company’s efficiency, thinking, "If only we were as good at newspapering as we are at dumping people….”
Not that there'll necessarily be an NBA season for him to work anyway.

2 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

At 67, I was only going to work one more season and they just gave me the whole thing off, with pay, through April.


My deal was basically: your last paycheck paid you through today, and you're through, goodbye. Healthcare, etc.

Unfortunately, I lost a lot of pictures because they were on the work pc.

Fuckin' Jonah Goldberg is still getting checks, isn't he?
~

M. Bouffant said...

Times Change Editor:

No health ins. neither?

Cripes, when the Fascist Insect Bank laid us off in Sept. '95, we were paid & insured through the end of the yr., & then got US$10,000.00 in Jan. '96 (pursuant to signing an agreement not to sue them for age discrimination) & unemployment that didn't even require us to pretend to look for work.

And we could have kept our job had we wanted to move to Tempe, AZ. Ha ha ha.

Plus the $10,000 qualified us for maximum unemployment after we broke down & got a job & were laid off from it 'cause we couldn't sell shit to crackers over the 'phone.