Slashdot Mirror
Frustrated Reporter Quits After Slow News Day
Norwegian radio journalist Pia Beathe Pedersen quit on the air complaining that her bosses were making her read news on a day when "nothing important has happened." Pedersen claimed that broadcaster NRK put too much pressure on the staff and that she "wanted to be able to eat properly again and be able to breathe," during her nearly two-minute on-air resignation.
Seems to be a slow news day here as well
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
FTA: NRK spokesman Oeyvind Werner Oefsti says Pedersen's actions were a surprise.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Slashdot hires Norwegian radio journalist as story aggregator.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Doesn't stop slashdot from posting
Ok, not really, even no news on slashdot is better than what they call news on some of those other sites. Seriously, credit to the Pia for making the point that saying nothing is better than just talking when you have nothing to say. Where was I again, yes, rambling on
There's plenty of out-of-work journalists available to fill your spot. Immediately. Better. And for less money.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1311208/Here-news-I-quit-Norwegian-radio-reporter-walks-minute-rant-air.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
cute.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I type medical transcription for a living. I've not seen any truly emergent cases come up in my queue so far, so there's nothing important enough for me to stay online. Fuck it, it's one of the last few nice days left of this season. I think I'll bugger off for the rest of the day and go fishing. I wonder if I'll have a job when I come back? Hurrr and Durrrr...
"No noose is good noose...ha ha, haha" -from Men In Tights.
Funemployment!
Awesome headline, samzenpus. Nice one.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
and learn how to make the right headline for her non-stories:
"Could journalist's resignation mean the death of traditional news media?"
Her summary could then include several irrelevant opinions and speculations about Linux on the desktop, the unquestionably evil M$, and various private corporations and gov't agencies plotting to steal our rights. Throw in an opening for robotic overlord/insensitive clod/Netcraft/???...Profit! jokes and bask in the glow of nerd worship!
Only downside, it's kinda hard to breathe and eat properly when you never leave the basement.
I wish there were a way that we could take actors, news-people, and sports figures with good gigs who insist on complaining, and have them work at a real job for a couple of years. Take anything you see on the show 'Dirty Jobs' and have them do that for a couple years. Then tell them if they insist on telling the world how hard they have it once back at their easy job, permanently install them in the real world with the rest of us.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Jeg er så gal som helvete, og jeg har ikke tenkt til å ta dette lenger!
It is unwise to ascribe motive
Life goes on. It's as if we were supposed to lament a journalist quitting?
This one is labeled "story." About a journalist quitting because she can't find any.
Stupid thing to do these days, quitting a job. The only thing to do after that is starve to death when the money runs out or put a bullet through the head first. The economy the way it still is, it's either that or take whatever ass fucking the boss wants to give you.
A good reporter is proactive. She should have made up some news.
According to her, and the workers unions, NRK is screwing and abusing their temp workers (which she was) royally.
In Norway the law says that if you are a temp for 4 years you will be granted the benefits and protection of a regular employee. NRK (which is government owned and run) will let a temp work for *almost* 4 years then leave them high and dry.
Before your four years are up they will not let you have any say in any matters, expect you to work un"bob"like hours, and keep your mouth shut while not on the air. She basically just had enough and gained a lot of sympathy for it in Norway, where the workers unions have been complaining about these practices by our state owned broadcaster for years.
But rebelling on the air.. Well, ballsy, but not the brightest of moves.
-RG.
She was bored as hell and wasn't going to take it any more.
...the woman with the beer and cigarettes in the photograph said.
(Giving her the benefit of a doubt, maybe quitting her job will ease her stress and allow her to quit smoking as well, in which case it would be literally true instead of ironic.)
Yeah, I would love to see her shoveling manure in a confined space, maybe then she'll be able to breathe... metaphorically of course.
http://www.historic-newspapers.co.uk/Old-Newspapers/1930-Newspapers
since 9/11, there have been maybe a few dozen non-slow news days. something happened again in the middle east? that's weird. china is still making us their economic slaves? had no idea. people are going apeshit over some product that they'll laugh about in 2 years over how apeshit they went? news is always just more of the same. the most interesting thing to happen in the last month was some vet decided to open fire on a cop on a busy public street. cop was injured in the leg, blew the other guys brains out. all this was happening while i was on my way home from class. does it happen in several US cities every week? yes.
but if God created circular logic...
"She wanted to be able to eat properly again and breathe"? This is Norway, were they working her at a unconscionable 40 hours a week? Only a month of vacation?
...a hateful malcontent gets undeserved page hits.
Never a slow news day there since they just make sh!t up.
Actors, newscasters, athletes, they don't really need to know what real life is like. Lets take the Senate and make them work the fishing boats and oil rigs. It might give them some perspective. Shit, my Senator even admitted to never having used an ATM. These are people who would really benefit from seeing things from the other side.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I wish there were a way that we could take actors, news-people, and sports figures with good gigs who insist on complaining, and have them work at a real job for a couple of years. Take anything you see on the show 'Dirty Jobs' and have them do that for a couple years. Then tell them if they insist on telling the world how hard they have it once back at their easy job, permanently install them in the real world with the rest of us.
Except that they're already in the real world with the rest of us.
It's all relative.
Sure, I can sit here and watch Myth Busters and think that's the greatest job in the world... But I bet they have shitty days too. I bet they've got folks on staff that they can't stand working with. I bet they've got bosses telling them to do stupid things. I bet they have days when they really don't want to wake up and go in to work. I bet they have days when they just can't wait to get home and relax. I bet there's stretches where they don't know if they'll be doing another season, and don't know if they're going to have a reliable paycheck.
Just because you aren't sweating and getting dirty doesn't mean you've got it easy. Just because you are sweating and getting dirty doesn't mean you've got it hard.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
+1, Sexist?
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
Are there any employed journalists any more? I haven't read or viewed anything that I would qualify as "journalism" in a very long time.
The day someone can't quit their job because of the working conditions aren't as bad as someone else's job is the day we all become slaves. Ever quit a really shitty job in the USA? Well you're a pussy, you should go clean 3rd world sewers in India while stuck in a repressive caste system with no chance of ever doing something meaningful or maybe you can go build iPods for 16 hours a day in China. That would teach you to respect that burger flipping job or mind numbing office work...
If we're going to race ourselves to the bottom like that then no one should ever quit their job because they are unhappy with it. The warm thoughts that someone has it a hundred times worse than you should be all the motivation you ever need.
Dirty Jobs?
Bahh.
Make them do telephone tech support for a year.
And lets be honest it is Norway. There probably wasn't anything happening.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
sounds like NHK needs to read blogs on air daily.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Looks like "deploying the slide" will be a thing after all. Employers everywhere, beware!
From the summary: ...Pedersen claimed that broadcaster NRK put too much pressure on the staff and that she "wanted to be able to eat properly again and be able to breathe,"...
I take it they have a fat man named Sven sit on your chest at lunchtime and make you eat soup with your hands?
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
That's what we have here. If she's not happy with her job, find another one. I'm sick and tired of dealing with people who have this sort of attitude. I'll go into stores and routinely encounter jerks moping around, rude, inattentive and apparently upset. Like that ass flight attendant who made that scene. What I find ridiculous is that there are idiots out there who have glorified what this jerk has done.
I've worked with quite a few people over the years who hated where they worked. It's not that it was that bad, but there was something about it they couldn't stand. But despite being perfectly able to go and find another job they wouldn't do so. It's like they had gotten too comfortable with their situation. Almost like there was satisfaction in being able to stew in their apparently misery. It allowed them to be self-righteous and gave their griping a purpose.
I always find it ridiculous when people working office jobs complain about grueling work environments, especially in the West. It's not that the work can be stressful and frustrating, but it's a far cry from what is faced in other fields and elsewhere in the world, especially Asia.
From personal experience everything I've encountered in the States pales in comparison to my work experience in Asia. One time over the period of 3 or 4 months I worked every single day, literally. I was averaging 75 - 80 hour work weeks. The work was tedious and the client frustrating to deal with. Many of my friends there worked long hours, although rarely on the level of what I've faced. However, I knew quite a few people who were openly abusive. They would insult employees, in some cases shoving them around and throwing papers in their faces.
In the States I've seen people throw a fit because they were facing the prospect of having to work until 8pm. Hell, I've seen employees at the supermarket piss and moan about being forced to stay at work 5-10 minutes late. Europe seems to be as bad, perhaps even worse in this regard. I guess once people have established a certain level of expectations any small deviation from that causes an uproar.
Without question things go too far in Asia at times, but people in the West seem incapable, or unwilling, to acknowledge how easy they have it.
In 34 years we've gone from I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more! to "I'm bored as hell and I'm not going to take it any more... sigh."
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
There is no such thing as a slow news day to a properly motivated, investigative news team.
The shenanigans of our state government here in California could fill a 24 hour news program on multiple channels.
Of course, the "properly motivated, investigative news team" is as mythical as the jabberwock and bandersnatch.
Literately - I mean noone actually stopped her during her 2 minute broadcast?
Sorry, please define a "real job". Are non-crappy jobs not real jobs??
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
From the article:
Pia Beathe Pedersen accused her employers at the regional radio station of public broadcaster NRK of putting too much pressure on the staff.
and then:
NRK spokesman Oeyvind Werner Oefsti says Pedersen's actions were a surprise.
Considering how out-of-touch with reality most Management-types are (especially HR management), I believe that this statement is probably truthful. I suspect, as is usual, Management and their sycophants will project their own biases onto this person and privately berate this broadcaster as being incompetent, mentally unbalanced, etc and so on. But of course I could be 180 degrees wrong. Maybe if I was (ever) in Management I would see things completely differently.
and don't know if they're going to have a reliable paycheck.
They've been fairly successful by this point. If they invested their money in even conservative things by now they shouldn't have to worry about that.
Well of course none of them have real-world experience. You can't run for office and hold a working-person's job, so all high-level politicians are in semi-self-employed positions (lawyers, well-off small-business owners, existing politician in another office) or retired.
And if a working person decides to become a politician, working his way up from office to office, he's called a career politician and scoured at. Heaven forbid he try to keep his job as long as the public will elect him, as the term-limit crowd will try to force him out as soon as possible.
Faced with returning to a life of fishing boats and oil rigs, or passing some corporate-friendly legislation to make friends and get a quick-and-easy PR or lobbyist position after being forced from office due to term limits, most people will end up screwing over their constituents anyway.
(If it's not obvious, I support public funding of elections, and I'm against term limits.)
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Immediately - Yes ....
Less money - Yes
Better - Debatable
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Just because you are sweating and getting dirty doesn't mean you've got it hard
That's what she said. Um.. hold on..
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
She could have quit like this: http://5secondfilms.com/watch/last_anchor_standing
This post cannot be rebroadcast without the express written constent of Major League Baseball.
Yeah, and all those heart surgeons that complain about the long hours should go and work in a butchers shop.
It's a trap!
You can define a real job by the clothes people wear to work.
The nicer the clothes. The less real work they actually do.
What you're really saying is people who make large salaries commiserate with the income they generate for their employers should STFU and be happy they aren't getting middle class wages or doing working class labor. But, they aren't. Actors make millions because they generate millions. Athletes make millions because they generate BILLIONS. Appreciate them for their talent. And, if you think it's so easy, then by all means try to take one of their cushy jobs from them.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Yeah, and let's make them try our desk jobs with the water cooler and cubicle and such! That will teach them!
If they invested their money in even conservative things by now they shouldn't have to worry about that.
The stock market is about where it was ten years ago, and interest rates are practically non-existent.
Just saying.
Anytime you have a set amount of time you have to fill or a set amount of time on-air, you'll get a bunch of "news" that isn't newsworthy.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
link
Probably better than most news broadcasts these days...
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
+1 best new word of the (day/week/month/year)
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
Really?
IMO journalists have become entirely oblivious to what they're reporting, and just cut and paste into the format.
Case in point: this submission, which was pretty much drag-and-dropped into the /. submission box.
By quitting in the way she did, she created news, which invalidated her argument that nothing had happened that day...
You can define a real job by the clothes people wear to work.
The nicer the clothes. The less real work they actually do.
I don't know about that.
Salespeople have to dress nice at a lot of places, and dealing with customers can sometimes be very difficult.
Having to lug samples around in whatever the weather is and make cold sales visits doesn't sound like fun to me.
I've dealt with any number of well-dressed salespeople at higher-end car dealerships, and I can tell you that between the pressure they get from their managers and the trouble I gave them as a customer, it was not a pleasant job. I could tell one guy was just ready to give up on the whole career after sitting down with me discussing pricing for a half hour.
I have any number of friends who have to dress nicely and work in higher-pressure and simply harder jobs than mine, for less money than I make. I'm at work right now, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and listening to my iTunes library. One of my friends is wearing business attire right now and being yelled at by retirees who Fox News has convinced that "Obama's taking away all our benefits" when in actual fact said retirees failed to pay their medical premiums and got their coverages dropped for non-payment. Which job do you think is easier?
Putting moderation advice in your
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D06b7qdywYo
Translation (by SiekanPijak, from youtube comments):
Now somebody please fix the typos and paste it into a subtitles tool.
I quit! Slashdot makes me read too much! I just want to be able to eat again!
Visit my Forums?
It's all been done
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Bullshit.
She knew she was going to get canned. She chose to quite the job in the most dramatic was possible, to protest events. I wish some news casters in the USA would do and quite on the air with a loud voice of protest. Rather the repeat the same vapid public interest stories, over and over again, 24 hours a day, just stop talking. If you can't find anything interesting and worthwhile to report from the canned script that the news services provide, run a quick 5 minute educational segment. Or better yet, do some actual journalism and report on some interesting events that are going on in the community.
I hate to say it but in the USA the quality of the 4th estate of government has become such a farce that I can learn more watching Sponge Bob then I can the news.
"I'm bored as hell, and I'm not gonna take it any more!"
You're totally different of course, indulging yourself with a 400-word diatribe about those contemptous, bothersome whiners. My experience. Look how I suffered compared to these spoiled brats. I I I, my my my, me me me.
Humans adapt to their living conditions. Their standards and tolerances adapt as well. Things will only get easier with time, but people will complain just the same.
What are you moaning about anyway? You're not a war orphan. You don't starve in the street. Entire generations would have considered your life an unbelievable series of divine luxuries, yet here you are posting on the Internet about your utterly pathetic problems to condemn others for their slightly lesser ones.
Relativism is a great rhetorical tool, isn't it? Take it far enough to make yourself look good but no further, and you're golden. Perfect for self-centred whining!
As a professional actor, I have to disagree, actors (read real actors) depend on knowing how real life is, how are we else supposed to portray a character?
You can't act someone you know nothing about. In the beginning of my career I was denied some jobs and educations solely because they said I had to have more work in real life with jobs that are not theater related.
If I hear anyone more bashing on how easy it is to be an actor I'll quit and get a 'real' job!
There aren't any unemployed people in Norway - we just give them sick pay instead!
This is blinging
I wish there were a way that we could take actors, news-people, and sports figures with good gigs who insist on complaining, and have them work at a real job for a couple of years.
Shouldn't the same standard be applied to the Slashdot poster?
Whose median income - or at least his expectations - are rather high.
All jobs look easy when you don't have to them.
Particularly when the pay is better than yours.
Amen. About a year ago, I had an opportunity to talk with a home-town boy who was now working at Scaled Composites; he'd been building SpaceShip One, and had recently switched to work on SpaceShip Two. (Yes, I'm a journalist). When I asked him what it was like working on projects like that, he said it was exciting -- but also sometimes long stretches of monotony, slowly building and assembling those composite parts.
Based on the typical self-destructive lifestyle that is constant companion to most movie stars and famous athletes, I imagine that commiseration with their income is not at all uncommon. For some the only real friend they have is their income.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Sure, I can sit here and watch Myth Busters and think that's the greatest job in the world... But I bet they have shitty days too. I bet they've got folks on staff that they can't stand working with. I bet they've got bosses telling them to do stupid things. I bet they have days when they really don't want to wake up and go in to work. I bet they have days when they just can't wait to get home and relax. I bet there's stretches where they don't know if they'll be doing another season, and don't know if they're going to have a reliable paycheck.
There are days when I think like you do, but most of them I think I'm just trying to convince myself of that so that I feel less shitty. I believe there are really people out there that do enjoy their job, that do enjoy having lots of cash to spend for minimal work, that do enjoy having free time so they can do some hobby projects.
It's more of a lifestyle thing than a job thing; the job is merely a convenient indicator, especially if it's one that pays millions of dollars per year. "Real jobs" are those that don't insulate you from the realities of the everyday lives of everyday people.
Do you never drive a vehicle yourself anymore? Never do any shopping for anything mundane (groceries, non-dressy clothes)? Live in a gated community? Never have to speak or associate with people not of your social and economic level?
Wealth (and/or power, they often go together) tends to do this to people given enough time. It'll even do it to the ones who started out "normal", but there are also those who were raised wealthy from the start. It shows when they go on an angry rant or try to say what they think other (normal) people should do, accidentally revealing that they have no grounding in practical non-rich life anymore. CEOs and career politicians can get this way easily. Lawyers, and sometimes movie and sports stars, can too, though IMO they're in and out of normal situations often enough that it's possibly to stay grounded. IIRC McCain got dinged bad on this during the last campaign, where he couldn't define "rich" at all (not even a sane ballpark guess* - it's not like anyone is expected to define this to the dollar), couldn't say how many houses he owned, or how much a house should cost, or how much a loaf of bread or a half gallon of milk costs. This while a critical part of the campaign was economic strategy and taxes and jobs.
In a "real job", even if you spend all day every day in a nice air conditioned office building, you (or your spouse) are still buying the groceries and clothes in person, dealing with the traffic jams in person, to some extent being involved in preparing your yearly taxes, managing your own finances in person in great detail, interacting with public schools and teachers if you have kids, and so on. Handling cash from time to time. Pumping your own gas. Eating at home, eating something you or a direct family member cooked there. Going to a store and browsing and picking out birthday presents. You are engaged in many levels of the overall community because you're there doing it in person and you really don't have a choice not to. The "non-real" jobs are the ones that allow you to skip all that, and that's how the detachment happens.
(* even if he'd just said something vague but reasonable like "when you have enough that you have a house and never need to work again", most people would have cut him a lot of slack. Or started with something like "well the cost of living varies from place to place". )
Does this remind anyone else of a common routine known as the Bridge skit?
http://www.scoutorama.com/skit/sk_display.cfm?sk_id=789
I am sorry, but I think you have it wrong. These jobs are shitty for you. :)
Somebody else from different part of the world could have a completely opposite view on burger flipping job.
I understand that for you living in a casting system would be horrible, but I also understand that there are people for which western system is far worse.
That's the matter of your values and philosophy, or world view if you want.
Westerners often do the mistake, and think all people share their "universal" values, but that's simply not true
Just my 2c.
The movie or play the actor is in generates the money. The team the player plays on generates the money. There are very few actors or athletes that aren't replaceable. For every actor or athlete that is discovered, there are usually several others just as capable that slipped through the cracks. Just like artists. In the end, it is just the luck of the draw who makes it through. Some times I admit, it is how well people promote themselves. Regardless, except for the very rare Tiger Woods out there, few of these people can't be replaced quickly and fade from the collective memory of the masses that they entertain. I don't see people pining that Curt Cobain is gone, or Heath Ledger, or even through retirement like Michael Jordan. Others have replaced them. And since you bring money in to it, the combined yearly salary of the NBA could probably ensure that everyone in the United States had at least one medical checkup in that year. There is more money lost in productivity because of preventable sickness than those NBA salaries. That is a ridiculous waste of money. Entertainment is a valuable industry but given that for centuries we didn't have professional sports where athletes made more money in a year than a handful of people would make in a lifetime; similarly for the movie industry and actors, they aren't a necessity and not worth the money spent on them. At least with sports, when the athletes went on strike, and tickets went up higher than the average fan could afford to take his/her family to a game, I stopped watching. It isn't much, but it is my way of saying fuck them, one less viewer for television ratings.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Heaven forbid he try to keep his job as long as the public will elect him, as the term-limit crowd will try to force him out as soon as possible.
"Once in Hawaii I had sex with a 102 year old male turtle. It is difficult to argue that it was consensual." - Steve Ma
In the UK we've always had a similar problem with teachers. Many of them go through school, go through college, go through uni, do their teachers training having never worked a minute in their life, and then start work and have unrealistic expectations. Whilst teaching in some schools is tough, and not all teachers are the same the expectation of this particular group is incredible.
It was summed up quite spectacularly by a young girl who stood up at a teaching conference a few years back and said something roughly akin to "I'm a university graduate and I've been working two whole years and am only earning £27,000 a year, so it's time we demand more pay". Of course, this received applause from the audience- but put it into context, this girl was getting paid around £3,000 more than the national average wage, despite being less skilled, and far less experienced than many many workers across the country getting paid less. Not to mention teachers in the UK get around 13 weeks off a year, someting that's unmatched in almost every other profession.
In some ways it extends to public sector in general, and perhaps a pre-requisite of working in any public sector role be it teaching, or being prime minister should be having some private sector experience. For what it's worth I worked in public sector for 6 years, and was even in a union and even went on strike with them- I'm someone who learnt first hand how different private sector is and how spoilt public sector workers are, and despite public sector life being a breeze, I would never go back because incompetence pisses me off and I just couldn't put up with being around so much incompetence ever again. Sure it exists in private sector too, but at least in private sector, more often than not it gets weeded out through redundancies and such.
That's what a director is for. Sounds like they just didn't think you were a good actor if they were recommending you do another career.
I think you missed the point there. Let's assume that for most bad jobs there exist jobs that are worse. That's normally going to be true by any definition of "bad job" that you want to pick. Just because worse jobs exist does not mean that you should feel lucky for the bad job that you have. That doesn't mean that quitting on-air after 18 months is the best first step in exploring your options, but if nobody is willing to ask for better working conditions, and to back it up by leaving (or refusing overtime or striking or calling government safety inspectors or whatever) when they are not satisfied, those conditions will get worse for everyone.
I want the amount of time that a politician needs to contemplate his post-office income to be as small as possible. A term-limited politician is one is looking for a job from the moment they start their last term.
Were I a paid politician, knowing that I'd likely never be able to return to an engineering career (my skills would be out of date, and who would hire and ex-politician for a developer job knowing they might quit again?), I'd want to stay in that job as long as possible. As long as I can keep getting elected, I work for the people. If eventually my constituents vote me out, I have to find some sort of unsavory PR or lobbyist or university president job to pay the bills.
I'd support the complete elimination of lame-duck sessions. The night of the election, losers are removed from office and stripped of any lawmaking ability. Once you are looking for a job somewhere else, you shouldn't be able to use your current job to entice a potential employer.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.