The Probable End of an Era

So a couple of things have happened in the past two weeks that are probably going to make me quit the movie gig, which it seems is what they want anyway.

First off, we had our editor's meeting on the 24th of April. The meeting was mostly worthless, though from what I understand, it was better than the last one where they talked to everyone about "leads." Man, I run my own magazine and have a masters in mass comm. I think I'd have had trouble not laughing if some 24yo tried to talk to me about lead writing.

Anyway, after the meeting was over, I was standing in the front of the office talking to the music writer. He's a bit of a disgruntled guy anyway. He was jammering away at how he keeps missing his deadlines and blah, blah, blah. Then he says something like, "for as little as they're paying me..."

I said, "How much are you getting?" I was genuinely just curious. I assumed everyone was as underpaid as I was.

He said, "$75 a week."

...

I've worked for UT for 10 years. In that time, I've received three $5 raises, bringing me up to a grand total of $40 a week. This dude, whom I generally like, who's been there a substantially shorter amount of time than I have, gets $75 a week, and from all accounts, he can't hit his deadlines. I haven't missed a deadline in 10 years, and for that, I get "rewarded" with $40 a week and ticket reimbursements.

wtf.

I make the mistake of assuming that people are going to treat me fairly all the time. That I have some value to them and that they're going to do right by me. It doesn't happen and I end up disappointed.

Second thing. About a year ago (and I'm not picking on you with this, Holly), the UT powers-that-be decided I needed help covering movies. I'd disagree, but whatever. In any given weekend, two to four movies open. I tend to cover the salient ones. The water cooler movies, and then whatever's playing at the Circle (because we need to support our hometown theatre). If I don't watch it, basically, I don't think it's worth much talking about.

Anyway, it was explained to me that the kid would be providing basically supplemental coverage. He's supposed to check with me to see what I'm reviewing, and then do whatever I leave him. That's the arrangement I had with Holly, anyway.

I don't hang out with the kid, I only deal with him via email and whatnot, but what see is a pushy, irritating little rat.

You know, I feel for him. I get that he'd rather review better movies. But you know what? This is my gig. I made it. I'm not suddenly going to share something I've built just because some kid wants to see more entertaining movies. Sooner or later, I'll be gone (looking like sooner rather than later) and he can review whatever he wants. But until then, sorry, he's the understudy.

This week, he didn't bother checking with me to see what he could review. Instead, he went straight to the managing editor and I'm assuming begged her to get to also review Wolverine.

There are no papers in the country, no magazines, that review the same movie twice. It just isn't done. There's no need. One review from a source represents that source's stance on that particular film. You don't see Variety doing two reviews of the same movie. The NY Times doesn't do it. USA Today doesn't do it. I imagine you can be damn sure most alternative weeklies don't do it because space in those magazines is always at a premium.

So then what's the justification for running two reviews? It's dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb. If that's the decision they're going to make, so be it. I can deal with that. I'm more pissed off that the little weasel went behind my back to beg to pull it off. So much for being the "Film Editor." I know it's a hollow title, but I expect this small amount of control. Again, that's what I get, I suppose.

But the two things together have come down to this. I'm about to quit. I'm kinda tired of giving up my weekends, the pay isn't really worth it and the melodrama just sorta wears me out.

I'll ask for a raise that I won't get, and when that happens, I'm out. It makes me sad, really. I like the job. But if you do the math, I'm making about $5.70 an hour if I only do two movies. If I do three movies, which I often do, it drops to about $4.44 an hour. Last I checked, neither of those two totals comes close to minimum wage.

Anyway, you heard it here first.