Saturday, December 07, 2002 :::
A Perch reader wrote me about his experiences with the now-defunct Daily Planet.
Just wanted to write in and let you know that I liked your entry on the Berkeley Daily Planet; ever since I heard about their recent demise, I’ve been up to my eyeballs in schadenfreude. I was offered a job there two years ago, you see, and have hated them passionately ever since.
At the time, I was just out of college, and was finishing up an internship at a paper in southern Oregon when I answered the BDP’s ad. I drove down for an interview, which went so well that they decided to hire me on the spot. They then handed me a contract that said the salary was $27,000 a year (plus stock options) for a full-time editing/reporting job. I said I’d look it over and get back to them. When I found out how expensive the Bay Area was, I called back and asked them if they’d be willing to negotiate on the salary. I suggested $32,000, expecting to bargain down from there. Instead of making a counter-offer or simply saying, “No, we don’t want to negotiate,” they hemmed and hawed for a bit, asked me if I’d looked into getting roommates, and then went into some spiel about how they were looking for someone who wanted to GROW with the PAPER, and weren’t the stock options generous, and they’d consider it and get back to me the next day.
Well, the next day came and went. Pretty soon weeks had gone by, all of my calls to the BDP went unreturned, and I eventually got a job with the paper I had interned with.
The worst part is that — being fresh out of school and not knowing any better — I was beating myself up about this, convinced that I had somehow ruined a golden opportunity by being greedy.
Several months later, I heard back from the BDP’s editor out of the blue. He asked if I’d be interested in working at their “sister paper” in San Mateo, so I shrugged, said “OK,” and was promptly subjected to the same line of bullshit again. Except this time they were offering $29,000 (about what I was making in the ass-end of Oregon) and acting like I was taking them for everything they had. And this time, they ended the long “grow-with-paper” spiel by saying that they didn’t “like to bargain.” They also had the gall to add that if they were to pay me any more than they were offering, there wouldn’t be any room for raises later on.
Needless to say, I told them where they could stuff it, and have since found work with a Bay Area paper that doesn’t jerk potential employees around.
So now you know that not only did they write ridiculous stories with words like “octenegarian” in the headlines, but their hiring practices bordered on criminal, which probably had a lot to do with the quality of the paper.
::: posted by Andrewski at 7:08 PM
Stealing papers was wrong in '96, and it's wrong now. Thanks to "Carlos" for the link.
::: posted by Andrewski at 6:59 PM
Appalling!!
Unbelievable. The mayor of Berkeley has come forward and admitted that he did trash 1,000 copies of the Daily Cal because the paper endorsed his opponent, Shirley Dean. How low can you get? I agree completely when the Daily Cal Editors say that Bates needs to resign. Some example he set- trashing the papers, then lying about it. Not only is this a slap in the face of free speech, but it's also a big "fuck you" to the students who spend hours putting together a daily newspaper- editors, writers, and ad salespeople. It's no easy task. Throwing away the paper is an insult, shows immaturity on Bates' behalf, and shows the community that we have a mayor who is willing to lie to us to save his ass.
Pathetic. Tom Bates, you should be ashamed of yourself. Resign immediately.
::: posted by Andrewski at 6:55 PM
Thursday, December 05, 2002 :::
Sorry I've been away for long. My network card went kablooey, and I just now got back my internet connection.
So much in the news these days. Firstly, there's a new Patriot out. I'm dissapointed to report that the magazine takes a dip in quality this issue, with typographical errors abound (including the sentence that gets repeated twice in the body of Melanie Smith's "Cal Students Fail Basic History Test" article. I know it's important to tell us what the Battle of the Bulge is, exactly, but why does it have to be repeated twice? Because some editor was copy-pasting his way through too fast, and didn't bother to read the story before it went to press? I hate it when that happens).
But despite that and a few other errors, the Patriot isn't all that bad. Just... misguided. Take, for example, the amount of howling and bitching over the fact that preschool kids were protesting the war on Iraq. While it is dubious that social-minded parents drag their kids to protests, I doubt that Republicans would throw such a shitfit if it was a Pro-American rally. After all, indoctrination is only wrong if it's something you don't agree with, right? Berkeley Republicans, please stop bitching about kids going to protests. I think it's about the same as when parents drag their kids along to church- to make them believe and support something they're too young to decide for themselves if they want to support.
Anyways, check out this month's Patriot for some of the best-funded and under-represented ideas on campus.
I was handed a flier on Sproul earlier this week. Astoundingly, it was an anti-circumcision flier. Anti-circumcision! Male circumcision, that is. Please! Are the rainforests all saved, and the whales all protected, that we have to start focusing on other men's penises as a social movement? My people have been having their peckers pruned for 5.763 years now. Abraham was eighty years old when he did it, and you don't hear him complaining. Seriously, though, male circumcision is really nobody's business except for the parents of newborn males, and doctors. These anti-circumcision people are the same guys who attach barbells to their dick to try to regrow a foreskin. Don't tell me there's not something seriously wrong with that.
::: posted by Andrewski at 6:50 PM
