When the work you live for starts becoming the work that’s killing you.
It was the ideal start to a career. The type people dream of. A bookish girl who had spent most of her life dreaming of being a journalist gets hired to work for a TV station in the nation’s fifth largest city. Not just hired, but hired before even graduating college. This is what dreams are made of.
And they were. My dreams were made of this and I was living them in 2013. Fresh out of college with a full-time job as a producer and multi-media journalist. I didn’t have to leave the city I grew up in. I didn’t have to make new friends or learn new streets or pack up my apartment. I worked 14 hours days with no compensation. Weekends, overnights, two-week stretches with no days off. I lived on Red Bull and Starbucks. Sometimes forgetting to consume anything other than those two things and puking in the middle of the night while producing a show in a newsroom where not another soul would be seen for hours. Answering phone calls from weirdos and creepers at 3 a.m. because God forbid you don’t answer the phone and it ends up being breaking news.
Even the calls on my personal phone were never pleasant. They always meant someone was sick, so I was needed. I answered each one with a yes. Showing up to work another shift after only having been home for a few hours. I sacrificed time with friends, and at the time a husband. When that got to be too much, I sacrificed sleep for people I cared about. How many times did I start to doze off while driving to or from work? I can’t remember. I endangered others and myself because I had something to prove. I had to prove I was worth taking a risk on such a young and fresh journalist working in a market of seasoned journalists. Why did I have to prove it? Not only for my self-worth but because I was told by the man who hired me “I don’t usually do this. Don’t screw it up.” Those words echoed in that 22-year-old brain of mine. They bounced around with the self-doubt and confidence that constantly fought a battle in my skull. I was going to prove my worth and I was going to do it no matter what it took.
Until what it was taking became too much. It took being broken in my personal life for me to realize my self-worth. An unfaithful husband gave me perspective. I was worth more than I was allowing myself to accept. If I had enough self-respect to file for a divorce at 23, I had enough self-respect to say no to being taken advantage of in other areas of my life. And that’s when the real trouble started.
It’s almost comical the way people in the news business respond to someone saying “no.” It’s like they haven’t heard that word before. Or they don’t understand its meaning.
“Can you come in tonight, so-so called out sick?”
“No, I’m out of town because it’s my weekend.”
“Is there any way you can get back in time?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
It started out small. Me refusing to go in on my weekends, which were generally other people’s weekdays. I still worked every holiday. Made treats for the rest of the crew stuck at work on those days. Organized gift exchanges every Christmas. Made sure the rest of us “B-team” members were made to feel like we mattered. You see, in the world of TV news, there’s always the unspoken B-team and A-team. I was never part of the latter. The A-team are the people they want on the forefront, but the B-team are the ones who are forced to do the work when things get hard. It was almost a point of pride to be a B-team member because you knew they couldn’t survive without your hard work. For A-teamers, pride didn’t come from work, it came from titles.
I was offered a few A-team titles here and there. Did a few stints on the glorified Monday — Friday schedule. But it was always short-lived. Because in the end, B-team was where I belonged. And where management wanted me to stay. There were always excuses of “this is where you are needed.” And when the fake ego-puffing didn’t do the trick, it was about demoralizing. “You haven’t proven yourself to be a team player, that’s why you won’t get that show.” If you want a tip on how to be a bad manager, here it is: When lying to people doesn’t work, make them feel like shit, so they’ll let you treat them like shit.
Despite the treatment, I kept doing my job. Better on some days than others, depending on how the week was going. I still took pride in my work, wanted to try new things, wanted to challenge myself. The thrill of breaking news still gave me a buzz. That went on for a few years. Then it became too much. The stress of work never left my bones. I became a zombie. Walking into work instilled such a sense of dread that sometimes I’d hope for a car crash on the way there. Coming out of work, the stress of getting called in or the next “lashing out” stuck with me. I felt sick. I ate terrible food at terrible hours. I gained weight. My days off were spent sleeping or laying around. I lacked motivation to do anything about any of it. It was what many symptoms of depression look like. And it wasn’t just the environment. It was the work itself. It was no longer about journalism, news and creativity. It was about ratings, edginess and following a formula. It was everything I was ethically against in news. Exaggerating, misleading, finagling. Not only was I being treated poorly, I was also no longer doing work I loved. In fact, I was doing work I despised.
The more I said no, the more I disagreed, the worse I got treated. Until finally it came to a head. A particularly emotionally-charged conversation with a manager put me over the edge. It was contract time, and to reduce my self-worth, he started berating me. Not only professionally, but personally. Taking stabs at my character, my work ethic and my skills all in one. He used it against me that I called out sick when I was in the E.R. (Due to stress-related stomach issues). It was that previous bad management tip at work. Make me feel so small that when I get offered a new contract with either no pay increase or a decrease, I would agree. Because who am I to deserve any more? It would have worked on the 2013 version of me. It did not work on 2017 me. Did it shatter some pieces of my spirit? Yes. Did it make me cry and feel like shit? You bet. But did I fall into their trap? No, I didn’t. I left the meeting, made a phone call and accepted an interview for a job opportunity I had been hesitant to take (being a loyal employee and all). That one phone call changed my life.
I ended up moving to a different news station in the same city. It was still the same business, but the biggest change was the atmosphere. I walked into a type of environment I hadn’t been in for years. People were nice. For the most part. Managers were not demoralizing. There were still the odd hours and filling in required, but at a much less demanding rate. The first few months, I was just in awe of how much people who had been there for years had to complain about. For me, it was equivalent to being treated like royalty after being a serf for so long. I tried to provide perspective to people I spoke with. Grass is always greener, right? The newsroom and environment were not perfect. Not by a long shot. But I don’t think any place is. There will always be some bad management and some mind-boggling policies, but at least the entire culture wasn’t damaged. For the time being, at least.
Then management changed again. Slowly, the old management from my previous station came in. Mr. “Don’t Screw It Up” was my boss again. It was a horrible sense of deja vu. The people who made me feel relieved when I first walked in were gone. I was without a support system. That’s when I made the decision it was time for this so-called dream to end. I knew I could leave and start at another news station, but I also knew the same thing would likely happen again. The world of broadcast news is small. Sometimes frighteningly small. I have no urge to move, so I would just be stuck rotating through local stations with the same people, reliving the same scenarios, calling it journalism when it was really anything but. So, I made a career move. I left television news with the intent of not going back.
I still teach producing for television news at my alma mater. I’m proud of what I have learned and can pass on, and I am genuinely excited when students want to become producers. But I also have a fear for them. A fear that they will live through the same treatment I did. I fear that the scarcity of jobs will force them to be treated as inferiors, when really all they’re looking for is experience. So, I do what I can. I urge them to put themselves first even when everyone tells them to put work first. I encourage them to be strong and their own advocates when it comes to work-life balance. I cannot change the culture of workplaces, but I can arm my students with the knowledge to raise a red flag when something doesn’t feel right.
In an ideal world, young adults entering the workforce wouldn’t have to face these issues. But that’s not the world we live in. Some of them will get lucky enough to enter a healthy work environment where they will work hard and earn their way to the next step. But many will encounter toxicity at some point. They don’t prepare you for that in college. They don’t teach you that a good work ethic does not mean never saying “no.” They definitely don’t teach you the fine line between being a self-advocate and being cocky.
We cannot continue to let people believe that “paying your dues” is about sacrificing your dignity. Working hard is one thing; working yourself to death is another. Hard work should always be rewarded, not ignored or even punished. One of the biggest signs of a toxic work environment is never feeling appreciated, never feeling “good enough” and never getting compensated adequately for your work.
For those in positions to alter the culture of workplaces, I urge you to do so. Don’t keep a toxic environment going just because it’s “always been that way.” For those in mentorship or teaching roles, prepare those entering the workforce. And for those who recognize you are the ones in a toxic environment, I encourage you to find a way out. It might seem bleak and unlikely right now, but it is possible.
