Quitting Office Politics

A couple of weeks ago, I rendered my resignation to the paper.  I was having a lot of pain in my right shoulder, and one Mon. morning, it became critical when I couldn’t move my arm at all without sharp pain.  I didn’t know how long I was going to be down with it, and I was originally hired to be relief for the editor with back troubles.  It didn’t seem fair to the paper to hang them up while I recovered, so I told them I wasn’t capable of doing the job now, so they could advertise for someone else if they wanted.

  

As well I was having other problems at the paper.  I would be told to go out and cover an event, but most of my pieces weren’t making it into the paper, and when they did, they were heavily edited to sound like the editor’s style of writing.  Although I tried to have a forthright conversation with her, and I’ve been open with her all along, I think she might’ve somehow been threatened by me.  I tried to end this paranoia after the publisher told me in front of the editor that she wanted to keep me on indefinitely.  I said I would stay until the end of the summer but that this wasn’t what I wanted to do. 

  

Ms Editor isn’t new to the idea of having an assistant, but her usual summer assistants were young journalist students.  I am totally opposite – not young, not interested in becoming a journalist, but somehow I still wrote the local paper for a few months without any training at all, and some people enjoyed it while others missed the paper as it was.  I actually obtained a small audience appreciative of my writing, much to my surprise and delight.  Still, I think this lady had an insecure feeling about me, plus she likely wasn’t sure what to do with me.   I didn’t think the publisher factored into my problems at the paper, but she did.

  

Before I realized the shoulder was really bad, I was sent out of town to cover an important event in a neighbouring town.  It was a groundbreaking ceremony with local politicians and heads of various organizations etc.  The editor told me exactly what she wanted, and I delivered it very well.  The paper came out and I saw my picture on the front page, but the credit was to someone else.  I called the publisher and told her a mistake was made, but she denied it.  I re-sent her the picture, showing they were identical with details in the background matched perfectly and she still insisted another person gave her the front page picture.  I asked her to send the other photo to me at home.  She did, but it was my photo.  The specs were identical to mine.  I re-sent both photos with the specs open, but she still insisted someone else took the picture, even though that was proven to be impossible.  Another woman who works more closely with this publisher says she lies all the time, and that everyone else in the office knows and are trying to deal with it.  I believe she made a mistake and then covered it up.

  

I hate office politics, and I’ve never been any ‘good’ at it.  I’m too blunt because I hate all the ‘he-said-she-said’ things which seem to happen when you group human beings together.  And this flavour of office politicking was making me crazy.  Also, I felt like a pawn between the publisher and the editor.  And both seem to have silly ‘pumped up’ opinions of their own self worth.  We aren’t talking about the editor or publisher of a major paper here, it’s a small circulation! 

  

So this was my first exposure to working for a publication of any sort, and it did give me just enough experience to let me realize what working for any publication as regular staff would be like.  Freelance is tough – getting and finding work is ongoing – but you don’t have to deal with office politics.  Either they like and buy it or they don’t.  Pressure is controlled by the freelancer, at least in terms of controlling what you take on.

  

I suppose what cheeses me off most of all, is that I gave the paper valuable summer time – when I usually spend my days doing the staining on the house, repairing things that need repairing, managing the garden and my own writing, entertaining – because I thought I was really needed.  I worked hard for them and then they barely used what I gave them.  I would be told not to worry.  I’d get paid for my time.  But this was besides the point.  I wasn’t doing it for the money so much as I was trying to gain experience.  And when the editor edited my stuff down to sound like hers, I couldn’t insist on a by-line on my work, since what was published was at least 40% hers.  Frequently I didn’t like it anymore. 

So I couldn’t think of any good reason for me to be there.  They certainly needed me when I began, but I couldn’t see where I made much difference by the time I left.  I really should have left as soon as the editor returned to work, but they asked me to stay and seemed to still need me.  I was told they usually have a summer student, but wouldn’t this year because I was already there.  It seemed like a good idea to stay on at the time. 

  It gets very busy around here during the summer, and it was heartbreaking to see my garden get weedy and the chores go undone.  As time went on, and they weren’t using most of my work anyway, I began to really resent them, especially since I gave them the option of only using my services on a freelance basis, telling them I could be very flexible.  They simply had no respect for my time or for me.  My respect for them ran out after I realized they didn’t deserve it.