When I grow up I'm going to be a.....................

[belfastboy]

That's really what killed it for me, sadly. The downside of having come from a fairly bourgeois background of relative privilege: sufficient financial security to really miss it were it gone, but not enough to be able to work for free or for pennies for years on the off-chance of making it enough to have a stable income. Maybe one day - if (now there's a word doing a lot of heavy lifting, given the decimation of academic pensions in the UK in recent years) I can afford to retire when comes the time, or at least use the pension to supplement going down to three days a week instead of five (i.e. working five days and getting paid for three instead of, all too often, working seven and getting underpaid for five...), signing up with an extras agency appeals. It's not the dream, but having done a bit of that kind of work I did rather enjoy it.



I think it's a clear case of getting what you pay for. The big newspaper publishers, seeing their profits diminish, aren't, as a rule, prepared to pay the money out to develop new journalists any longer. And journalists being paid a pittance aren't generally motivated to produce quality. Same old same old.

A really good short series, (just the one season on Brit TV) "Press" with Ben Chaplin as one of the all time bad guys of TV. A good dramatic series about modern newspapers and journalism in this digital age.

 

[belfastboy]

That's really what killed it for me, sadly. The downside of having come from a fairly bourgeois background of relative privilege: sufficient financial security to really miss it were it gone, but not enough to be able to work for free or for pennies for years on the off-chance of making it enough to have a stable income. Maybe one day - if (now there's a word doing a lot of heavy lifting, given the decimation of academic pensions in the UK in recent years) I can afford to retire when comes the time, or at least use the pension to supplement going down to three days a week instead of five (i.e. working five days and getting paid for three instead of, all too often, working seven and getting underpaid for five...), signing up with an extras agency appeals. It's not the dream, but having done a bit of that kind of work I did rather enjoy it.



I think it's a clear case of getting what you pay for. The big newspaper publishers, seeing their profits diminish, aren't, as a rule, prepared to pay the money out to develop new journalists any longer. And journalists being paid a pittance aren't generally motivated to produce quality. Same old same old.

I came from a not poor but not exactly comfortable single parent upbringing.....not used to privilege but there is much to be said for creating a life that is financially comfortable. The romantic notion of being a poor struggling actor, poet, painter, writer wears off rather quickly. I created a job that rewarded me well and that afforded me the luxury of pursuing my passions outside of my work.......and if truth be told I likely would have tired of these passions rather quickly if I had been forced to perform them under the pressure of having to pay the rent with the proceeds.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Never wealthy, never comfortable, but we didn't know anyone who was any other way. Life was lived in a perpetual awareness that the wolf was always, but always, at the door. Still is.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Yup. That’s how I grew up too. eventually worked hard and built a bit of financial stability. A bit. Nothing extravagant, but we are doing okay. (knock on wood and spit three times.) But, damn, the nights are still filled with nightmares of wolves sniffing around the front door. You can outgrow your upbringing but it is still there, chewing on your subconscious. Heaven only knows what tomorrow will bring.

 

[tonyb]

Never wealthy, never comfortable, but we didn't know anyone who was any other way. Life was lived in a perpetual awareness that the wolf was always, but always, at the door. Still is.

If most everyone you know is in that same leaky boat, there’s no stigma in it.

A few weeks back I had breakfast with a fellow I’ve known longer than I can remember. We met when we lived in “the projects.” I wasn’t yet in kindergarten. It wasn’t long after that when both our families (he never had a father in the house) moved to the same dead-end gravel road on what was then the outskirts of Madison, Wisconsin. It was a step up the ladder, but just one step.

The worst part of that hand-to-mouth living wasn’t coming home to find the power off because the bill hadn’t been paid in months, or wearing patched-up hand-me-downs, or having to walk because we didn’t have bus fare. That was how most of the people we knew lived. The worst of it was coming to the realization, as a typically self-conscious adolescent, that whatever we had beyond the bare essentials was largely thanks to others’ largesse. Always being on the receiving end didn’t do much for my self-esteem.

My mother usually worked two jobs, clerical work during the day and waiting tables at night. Her husband, the fellow who legally adopted my brothers and me, was far better at squandering money than earning it. His example taught me, later than it should have, to live within my means. And knowing that the payments remain long after the shiny and new has worn off.

 

[belfastboy]

Yup. That’s how I grew up too. eventually worked hard and built a bit of financial stability. A bit. Nothing extravagant, but we are doing okay. (knock on wood and spit three times.) But, damn, the nights are still filled with nightmares of wolves sniffing around the front door. You can outgrow your upbringing but it is still there, chewing on your subconscious. Heaven only knows what tomorrow will bring.

I went to work at 12, doing a man's days work at 14. I was always able to earn money so got beyond the fear of the wolf at the door. But my ability to keep the money I earned was not as well developed as my ability to earn it....but always earned enough to keep the fear of the wolf at bay. Nice thing about old age though is that I no longer have to worry about saving for my old age cuz ....here I am!

 

[ChiTownScion]

Since I knew at an early age that I could never grow up to become a steam locomotive engineer, the default wish was to become a trial lawyer. I was four, I think, the first time that my grandfather took me to court to watch a trial. (Had he applied himself I have no doubt that he could have gotten a law degree: back in his day it was an undergraduate degree. He had a full ride on a basketball scholarship but blew it because drinking and hanging out with his pals was a higher priority.)

Anyway, as a kid, along with hanging around the several passenger train terminals of Chicago, I began crashing trials as a spectator in both the county Circuit Court and the Federal District Court. I liked what I saw, and by a number of twists of fate I ended up as a lawyer trying cases. Had a lot of fun with it, and I think that, over the decades, the lives of at least a few are better off because I had the opportunity to do what I did on their behalf.

Whenever I encounter people who tell me that they are considering law school, I always tell them that, unless you see yourself in a couple decades staring into a mirror and saying, "Damn it, I could have been a lawyer!" find another path. It took me well over a decade to get through school and find my dream job, and another decade to pay off student loans. And yet, doing anything else would have been settling for less than what I wanted.

 

[Edward]

A really good short series, (just the one season on Brit TV) "Press" with Ben Chaplin as one of the all time bad guys of TV. A good dramatic series about modern newspapers and journalism in this digital age.

I saw that when it came out. Having a lot of contacts in the press, the word is that it's very much a cartoonised version, but nonetheless validly presents a true enough picture of the industry - not least the scene where they get a judge out of bed in the middle of the night to deal with an injunction. I've never heard of it getting as far as the trucks being ordered to return to the distributor, but this sort of last minute legal stuff can happen. It's why sometimes a big expose story is held back for the second edition, as that will often catch the litigious off guard.

It'd be interesting to see an updated version of this now that the websites are increasingly more important than the print editions (the circulation of the latter is falling off a cliff; even the top-selling daily, which is now the Daily Mail, is only in the region of 900,000 average daily circulation now. Small beer out of a total population of c.67.1 million (per ONS, mid-2020).

 

[belfastboy]

I saw that when it came out. Having a lot of contacts in the press, the word is that it's very much a cartoonised version, but nonetheless validly presents a true enough picture of the industry - not least the scene where they get a judge out of bed in the middle of the night to deal with an injunction. I've never heard of it getting as far as the trucks being ordered to return to the distributor, but this sort of last minute legal stuff can happen. It's why sometimes a big expose story is held back for the second edition, as that will often catch the litigious off guard.

It'd be interesting to see an updated version of this now that the websites are increasingly more important than the print editions (the circulation of the latter is falling off a cliff; even the top-selling daily, which is now the Daily Mail, is only in the region of 900,000 average daily circulation now. Small beer out of a total population of c.67.1 million (per ONS, mid-2020).

Yes, it was a very black/white, heightened drama that a TV production demands. And they touched on (2018) falling readership and the shift to a 'free paper" from the 2pound Sterling daily. I used to have the 3 (sometimes 4) paper copies of the newspaper delivered to my door each morning. Now it is down to zero. My wife loves it as I no longer leave black hand prints on the light switches in the house and stacks of old papers for the recycling bin. I read the daily news on my tablet and get the free feeds on the net or subscribe to bloggers. At least with bloggers they are forthcoming about their ideological bias something that our newspapers (as well as TV news) are unwilling to admit......still pretending they are unbiased purveyors of the 'truth'.

 

[Who?]

I’m not convinced by the “you get what you pay for” argument.

I see a general, overall, societal decline in literacy, ranging from some who can barely read and write their own name, “up“ through those who say the words when they read, to those who know nothing of parts of speech or sentence structure.

It‘s depressing.

 

[belfastboy]

I’m not convinced by the “you get what you pay for” argument.

I see a general, overall, societal decline in literacy, ranging from some who can barely read and write their own name, “up“ through those who say the words when they read, to those who know nothing of parts of speech or sentence structure.

It‘s depressing.

My humorous anecdote: My cousin's boy lived with us for a while during his senior year of high school so he could play for a local travelling baseball team. He ended up getting a scholarship to a Texas Juco. His English skills were deplorable.......grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary, spelling were all 'organic' and wrong. He managed a 'C' grade level BUT in his college university class he was the only native English speaker so with marking based on the bell curve his marks rocketed to the top and he began to pull all A's. Heck the other kids use to cheat off his papers!

 

[LizzieMaine]

How many people would rather watch a video showing them how to do something or explaining a point of view? How many would rather sit down and read a detailed explanation? We live increasingly in a world of images, not words, and that's a trend that isn't going to ever reverse itself unless the technology itself goes away. Post literacy, here we come.

 

[belfastboy]

How many people would rather watch a video showing them how to do something or explaining a point of view? How many would rather sit down and read a detailed explanation? We live increasingly in a world of images, not words, and that's a trend that isn't going to ever reverse itself unless the technology itself goes away. Post literacy, here we come.

I taught myself how to fix cars in the 1960's....all by reading books, Chilton's manuals etc.....if I was lucky they had pictures. Even a Luddite like me appreciates YouTube video instructions.

 

[Bugguy]

I began an entirely new career at 60 and worked it for 10 years. Then at 70 started a home business that has me eager to get out of bed each morning. So I ask.....what is stopping you? At the career from 60 to 70 years old I never advanced beyond entry level but that was the wonderful aspect of it. Going to work each day was about the work...solely.....not about career advancement up the ladder, not about pay raises. It was purely about doing the work, which I loved, without all the extraneous things that muddy the water. Now at 70 I am engaged in something new that I love without the angst of having to meet payroll, having rent to pay, .....so now it too is purely about doing the work and enjoying it. This to me is the reward of having a career from the age of 30 -50 that I did not necessarily love. It was challenging, rewarding and that work afforded me the many comforts of a good paycheque and I have been blessed with 20+ years of reaping those rewards.

Bellfastboy... you offer a great example of staying engaged and relevant. I'm in a transition after 45 years in my field and now one year into retirement., I'm taking advantage of the time to catch up on my 'bucket list' of self-improvement opportunities. Thanks for the validation and inspiration.

 

[Edward]

How many people would rather watch a video showing them how to do something or explaining a point of view? How many would rather sit down and read a detailed explanation? We live increasingly in a world of images, not words, and that's a trend that isn't going to ever reverse itself unless the technology itself goes away. Post literacy, here we come.

I think it depends what it is. If it's something I really need to visualise (like when I learned to tie a bow tie), moving images can sometimes be more helpful. That said, I do find very frustrating the apparent contemporary default notion that video is *always* superior; I particularly hate it when I'm trying to read the newspaper online, and I'm assaulted with loud videos that I don't want to watch - especially when, as happens all too often, they significantly slow up the loading rate.

 

[tonyb]

I don’t know if it’s just habit or if there’s another explanation, but I find paper to be the written word’s more natural habitat. Glowing screens are fine for short bursts, but to my ancient eyes anything more than a couple hundred words belongs on paper.

I’ve written millions of words on computers and other digital gizmos, and I would sooner resort to a stick in wet sand than go back to using a typewriter. But I find reading on paper a helluva lot easier.

 

[Edward]

I don’t know if it’s just habit or if there’s another explanation, but I find paper to be the written word’s more natural habitat. Glowing screens are fine for short bursts, but to my ancient eyes anything more than a couple hundred words belongs on paper.

I’ve written millions of words on computers and other digital gizmos, and I would sooner resort to a stick in wet sand than go back to using a typewriter. But I find reading on paper a helluva lot easier.

With all our assessments at the university moving on screen in the last couple of years, I've definitely noticed the marking takes significantly longer than when it was entirely paper-based (only partly because of the ever-increasing pressure to give ever-more detailed feedback). Interestingly, much younger colleagues have told ne they find the same, so it's not only a case of age / familiarity / user-norms.

 

[Who?]

I would sooner resort to a stick in wet sand than go back to using a typewriter.

If you want to be a bit more technologically advanced, you can use a triangular stylus on small clay tablets, and bake them afterwards.

(just a suggestion)

 

[belfastboy]

I don’t know if it’s just habit or if there’s another explanation, but I find paper to be the written word’s more natural habitat. Glowing screens are fine for short bursts, but to my ancient eyes anything more than a couple hundred words belongs on paper.

I’ve written millions of words on computers and other digital gizmos, and I would sooner resort to a stick in wet sand than go back to using a typewriter. But I find reading on paper a helluva lot easier.

Yes, I would rather read a book than a tab and do miss my morning newspaper(s) but don't miss the stack of papers in the corner waiting the trek to the recycle bin and my wife doesn't miss the black ink stains on the wall light switch plates. My tab has been a boon for travelling. It used to be the major decision when packing which one book would fit in the suitcase. Now I can carry an entire library in my carry on.

 

[belfastboy]

With all our assessments at the university moving on screen in the last couple of years, I've definitely noticed the marking takes significantly longer than when it was entirely paper-based (only partly because of the ever-increasing pressure to give ever-more detailed feedback). Interestingly, much younger colleagues have told ne they find the same, so it's not only a case of age / familiarity / user-norms.

I remember one of my profs admitting to me his methodology for grading papers.. He told me that he stood at the top of his basement stairs and tossed the lot downward. The ones that landed furthest away got the best marks as they contained the most pages and thus the heaviest. I am not sure he was kidding me.