M
y first job out of college was as a as a reporter for the Piqua (Ohio) Daily Call. And though the salary was higher than two other western Ohio newspapers I interviewed with, it was still ABYSMAL, which made me vulnerable to a work-related melodrama not of my own making. The villains: my boss and his boss.
Within a few months of relocating, I went searching for a cheaper apartment and ended up renting the upstairs of an older home from a coworker and her attorney partner. That helped my budget, until they decided to sell the house.
A new city employee—its first-ever planner—bought the house, moved in with his wife and baby and in one fell swoop more than doubled my rent. He dropped this bomb in a city office also occupied by a pair of consultants who administered the grant paying his salary (meaning NOT in private but within earshot of said consultants). And he joked about how little I’d been paying, as if it was some sort of scam I was working that he was born to remedy.
He embarrassed me. Moreover, he was glib about it. Glib. (Not a word I have much cause to use, but it fits here.)
The plot thickens
This new landlord and his wife, as well as the newspaper’s general manager and his wife, all belonged to a local theater group. At a subsequent theater group meeting, this guy razzed my GM, Rich, about how poorly paid his employees were, according to me, who he said had given him a big sob story about how I couldn’t afford to live.
The next day, I watched from my desk as Rich stormed across the newsroom and motioned for Larry, the managing editor, to join him in Larry’s small office, glassed in to one side. Rich’s face was purple, puffed and stern. He slammed the door behind him.
I heard loud voices—mostly Rich’s—though I couldn’t make out the words.
What was up? I had no idea.
As soon as Rich stomped out, Larry called me in and shut the door again. I was still clueless. What had I done? Was someone at city hall or the police department complaining about my coverage?
No, turns out it wasn’t about job performance at all. It was PERSONAL.
Larry told me my “loose tongue” with planner-guy humiliated Rich in front of friends and important people in the city when my rent conversation was repeated (and embellished), and if I ever talked about my salary again in public, “Rich said you’d be fired.”
This second post of BN@TB (Bosses Not at Their Best) is a double-whammy, skewering two bosses. First Rich jumped to conclusions and caused the spectacle, then when Larry didn’t have the guts to stand up for me and suggest they listen to my side, he repeated the firing threat prefaced by “Rich said…”
What should have happened
Would it have been so hard for either man to ask me my side of things before they blew up? After all, I was the one scraping to make ends meet; Rich was merely embarrassed (as he deserved).
Furthermore, I didn’t initiate any conversations about my salary with anyone. I merely told my new landlord I couldn’t afford the unreasonable rent hike he had just dumped on me. What was I supposed to say? Thank you, my lord? Then kiss his feet?
Ah, DUH.
When Larry delivered the firing threat, I should have marched up to Rich’s office immediately and explained my side of it, that it was my landlord who chose to embarrass him, not me. I think he probably would have seen reason. Maybe.
Another possible WHY
Or was this maybe Rich’s payback for the fire chief’s retirement dinner–a roast–which I was covering and he was speaking at (wife not present), during which he sent drinks to my table all evening faster than I could drink them. I appreciated it to a point, given that money was tight and he could expense them.
But afterward, his offer to join him in the hotel bar for more drinks made me uncomfortable, and I declined. Anyway, I already had plans. A couple at the event asked me to their historic Caldwell Street Italianate mansion for coffee, and I was dying to see inside it.
The after-party quickly turned into a snipefest about Rich, which I neither contributed nor reacted to. And then–voila!–the doorbell rang and Rich entered, looking shocked to see me amongst his “friends.” I politely excused myself and headed for home soon after.
The heroine gets some revenge
As city reporter, I worked closely with those two consultants who were my landlord’s bosses, and I told them how I’d been threatened with firing and why. They were incensed. The upshot was they told planner-guy if he ever treated a member of the press that way again, HE would be the one pounding the pavement.
The whole melodrama was stinko from start finish. And the entitlement of the male perpetrators smacks of Trump’s comment to protect women “whether they like it or not.” I guess we’re just supposed to be satisfied with the crumbs men leave us, still.
I know development of the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle takes most of the credit for the demise of newspapers—particularly small-town dailies like the one I worked for. But I also think they died because they were built on the backs of idealistic, recent college grads, many of them young women like myself, eager to make a difference.
My wage in 1978-79 equated to about $3.87 an hour ($8,060 annually), compared with the federal minimum wage at the time of $2.65 and the average household income of $15,060. I received no reviews or raises in the 18 months I worked there. I also had no health insurance (one time I had bronchitis, couldn’t afford to go to the doctor, and my dad sent me the money to do so) and no mileage reimbursement for job-related travel.
Oh yeah. I forgot to count the complimentary drinks at the fire chief’s retirement dinner. Still a paltry valuing of a newly minted bachelor’s degree, don’t you agree?
Closing act
My rent went up despite my protestations, but I found a roommate. I left the Call several months later to go back to school, but not before another Larry-Rich incident I’ll recount in a future BN@TB. Rich moved on to another paper, and his replacement soon fired Larry.
In fact, in a weird twist of fate, I was working part-time in classified ads at the Indianapolis Star-News and took the ad for Larry’s job.
Maybe I should have applied? Nah. It probably didn’t pay that well. They wouldn’t have hired a woman anyway. A deserving woman had sat in the news editor seat for years–Gloria Minnich McCoy–and she’d been passed over for managing editor more than once, not counting this time.
Not with a bang but a whimper
The Daily Call ceased publication in 2019, when then-owner AIM Media Midwest merged it with the nearby Troy Daily News to form Miami Valley Today. The exhaustive coverage the call provided of county government and courts, as well as of Piqua, Covington, Bradford and other surrounding towns, subsequently evaporated.
When I worked at the Call in 1978-79 it was owned by Thomson Newspapers, a Canadian chain, started by Roy Thomson. Kenneth Thomson took over for his dad in 1976. At the time, the company was worth about $500 million. At Kenneth’s death in June 2006, it was valued at $29.3 billion.
At least somebody, somewhere, made a decent wage. I’m sure they were men.
Use comments to share about…
- YOUR first job: the good, the bad and the ugly
- A run-in with a boss
& {sometimes} WHY 
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