There has been a noticeable increase in stories about the shitty jobs newspaper employees are being given in order to continue receiving their pay. Editor and Publisher reported this morning that Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger employees, “Reporter Jason Jett and Assistant Deputy Photo Editor Mitchell Seidel have been filing, sorting, and delivering mail for more than a week, according to sources”. Later this afternoon Westword Blogs reported that, “Staffers at the (Colorado newspaper) Longmont Times-Call recently received an internal e-mail inviting them to work as valets at a private Christmas party for the Lehman family, who own the paper”.
I’m sure the owners of the companies think they are doing a great thing for their employees. I can’t think of a better way for employees to generate revenue than manning mailrooms and parking cars. WTF!? How about parking your own car and paying your employees to do something they are trained to do?
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What’s even more insane about that Lehman party valets story is it’s almost exactly the image Michael Moore used in Roger and Me to show how evil the car companies were. I barely remember the movie, but they had a party and invited laid off employees to serve hors’douevres (or however you spell it). Regardless of what you think of Moore, he used that as an image because it resonated, and here are people repeating the act. Unreal. Ah well, maybe they’ll be throwing torches through there windows next year when things grind to a halt.