A Tough Time For a Pink Slip

I sent last night’s post about how newspapers can beat Craig’s List to my friends in the ad dept of the local newspaper in Northampton. Think they would consider something like this? And let people place their own ads? NO way! But it’s fun trying to get their attention.

I was sad to hear that a fellow blogger from Greenfield came in and told us he had been let go from his job at a local paper. I remember well when that happened to me, back in 1981, around this time of year too. I got the axe from the Evening Express, in Portland Maine. My world was crushed—I was no longer a reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, I was an unemployed 21-year-old with a little baby named Kate and living up in Maine. I promptly moved back down to the Valley, and now, 25 years later, I am again an editor.

But I felt bad for my fellow blogger, a serious guy, who wrote about politics for the paper. I told him to keep his chin up, and advised that if you can contact someone in person, it’s better than all the emails, voicemails and letters you can send. Jobsearches, I counseled, are best done on foot. I hope he finds another gig soon, he just bought a new house so things may get tight.