Newsroom employees at California's Desert Sun in Palm Springs received the following memo today.
All:
In the coming weeks, we will transition to a more logical, pod-based structure that is intuitive to our goals: collaboration, enterprise, urgency and engagement.
Practically, this means we tear the sucker down and build it back up.
This will be disruptive. Loud. Messy.
This is how it will work:
All:
In the coming weeks, we will transition to a more logical, pod-based structure that is intuitive to our goals: collaboration, enterprise, urgency and engagement.
Practically, this means we tear the sucker down and build it back up.
This will be disruptive. Loud. Messy.
This is how it will work:
- We clean the place up. You will need to mark file cabinets with a sticky note and your name if you believe the stuff inside is valuable. You may keep a maximum of one large file cabinet. If this is a hardship, please find me and we’ll talk. All unclaimed file cabinets will be moved out. THIS WORK NEEDS TO BEGIN TODAY
- Clean, minimize your current work station. Think Zen and Steve Jobs. Throw stuff away. Liberate, recycle, cleanse. THIS WORK NEEDS TO BEGIN TODAY
- Nick, Vince, Carla and Louis are equipping a temporary staging center across the hall where you’ll transition while your old place is razed and/or your new digs are assembled. THIS COULD BEGIN AS EARLY AS NEXT WEEK
- Nick, Vince, Carla and Louis are working on a warning schedule so you’ll have a week or so prepare. Retention of personal items, stuff that you need to keep, job tools, should be boxed and ready to roll.
- You’ll hear pounding, hammering and cracking as they tear down and reassemble cubes. Don’t be alarmed. Bring ear plugs or an iPod. Conduct an interview in one of our offices.
#2 Clean, minimize your current work station. Next sentence should say, "Be prepared to be canned and gone with zero notice."
ReplyDeleteThey did this in Reno in 2007. It was a resounding failure. Resounding.
ReplyDeleteIs this rearranging the deck chairs?
ReplyDeleteKeep an open mind, you make like the new environment. I'm a germ-phobe and I always welcome a renovation... Especially when they take out old carpeting. I hope they incorporate some plants, even air-ferns or containers of that fake grass, which is popular now.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they should ask the employees if they have any suggestions for the renovations.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Foreman grill??
ReplyDeleteCincinnati has been "renovating" for months. So far, it consists of an empty hole in the newsroom called a "gathering space."
ReplyDeleteanother managment planning failure, how much space will they need after the early retirees leave, why not wait and see what space they'll need instead of ending up with lots of open desks to help moral.
ReplyDeleteApparently Palm Springs isn't as strapped for cash as the rest of the company. Why renovate? Put the money where it's more useful: technology, data plans and content generators (even stringers and free-lancers can feed the beast).
ReplyDeleteUnbelievable. The place is falling apart and these buttheads are worrying about rearranging the furniture and spending money on this nonsense.
ReplyDeleteThey are doing the same thing in Wilmington. Must be something from corporate they were told to do. Yes, lets worry about lounge areas while no one can even take a vacation day because there are not enough employees to do the work if you do. This company is so screwed!
ReplyDeleteSounds to me like they're trying to become the next "Google" workplace. This is laughable. The people at corporate seriously don't "get it".
ReplyDeleteWhy do lame editors spend so much time and energy writing cute but condescending memos on things that just depress the staff, no matter the spin? Do they really think they are winning over converts? Maybe the editors are "30 Rock" wannabee writers. Sorry. It does not work.
ReplyDeleteYes, except my guess is corporate doesn't have a clue nor care about this.
ReplyDeleteDid this come from Greg Burton? Sounds like him.
ReplyDelete8:03 Yes; it was Burton.
ReplyDeleteI know these lounges are being created elsewhere. My question: How will they lead to better journalism?
ReplyDeleteAre members of the public expected to drop in for spontaneous interactions/brainstorming with reporters/editors/photogs, etc.? (That's a real question; I'm not being snide.)
This mandate came from corporate. Sites are supposed to create friendly relaxing places with sofas, chairs. Maybe they think it will pacify the staffs. Some corp guru saw this on site visits last year and thought all sites should do. And since no one has extra money laying around to pay for it, sites are to bargain with advertisers for the furniture
ReplyDeleteJim. Management is retarded. They saw this in fort myers (where they painted a wall purple and put in a couch to appear hip to yahoo staffers), and dickey et al. Carried on like it was the moon landing during a site visit.
ReplyDeleteThere was a similar concept in schools in the 1960s-70's called the open classroom concept. No walls. It was a resounding failure and the schools that bought into it spent a lot of money building those walls so the kiddies could learn.
ReplyDeleteI have shelves with books in them, corkboards with things I need hanging on them and they serve as semi-sound barriers against my workmates who may talk a tad bit too loud when I'm on the phone.
Did I mention this is a business where we have to interview sources on the phone? And we need to hear them so we can avoid that lurking libel suit.
Yes minimize your work space, it's bad enough we spend so much time there already, let's make it claustrophobic and closet-like.
Funny how the people proposing this still get to keep their spacious glass offices.
How exciting. look forward to reading more in Maryam's on the road blog.
ReplyDeleteI smell a Presidents Ring.
ReplyDeleteThings suck, jobs are being eliminated, readership is dropping, ad revenue is dropping, corporate doesn't have a clue- The answer is no more than one file cabinet per person. A clean space that is comfortable... No we're talking about a leading edge media company!!!
ReplyDeleteThe Journal News has sold its building in Westchester, where it once employed over 1,200 employees during its heyday. The first thing the purchasing company plans to do is demolish the building. The surviving employees, now somewhere around 300, are moving into a local, leased office space with this new design style. Walls will not reach the ceiling, small cubicles and "pods" will be the norm, most offices will be gone, those with offices will have frosted glass.
ReplyDeleteAbsurd. What is supposed to happen in those lounge areas? And Greg, how much stuff did you throw away when your office was made open?
ReplyDelete4:57, thanks for knowing it didn't work. 8:44, thanks for know where this came from. 9:06, thanks for the prediction that it won't work.
Is there any thought regarding readership, product, management direction, the future... Apparently this "lounge concept" exceeds my capacity for rational thought.
ReplyDeleteHere's a new pitch to advertisers, Circ is down and you should ignore that when evaluating ad rates because nobody has more than a single file cabinet and we have a very clean lounge area. What's really needed is a "Laser Beam", then they can control the world.
I know little of the day to day operations of the Desert Sun Paper. I do know they are cutting jobs left and right. So putting a new office install seems strange when they should be investing in new tech and online media. I just feel sorry for the good people they are letting go.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is going to save jobs and how do you justify the expense? What a joke. The suits are loosing their mind's, do they (any of them know how to run a newspaper anymore, all the vets are gone, Sure AL would love this)
ReplyDeleteThe idea is also to get rid of miles and miles of once full cubicles. It is demoralizing to see more and more empty deck chairs as they creep ever closer to yours.
ReplyDeleteI'd trade all the purple paint in the world to have a chair where all the adjustments worked.
I want to see how long I can hang out in the lounge on the couch before my editor asks what the [expletive] I think I'm doing.
ReplyDeleteI want to know if Greg Burton is going to move out of his big office and be in the center of this pod? Now that would be Steve Jobs like. LOL
ReplyDeleteJust WTF?! I'm lucky if I leave my desk twice a night shift to pee, let alone maybe take time to heat my gruel and eat it at my desk.
ReplyDeleteWho has time to lounge? Seriously.
Gannett, out of touch and hopelessly lost as always.
ReplyDeleteCherry Hill was rumored to have a Wii and couches put in. That project, to my knowledge is stalled. Name was supposed to be "Champions Lounge" or something like that for performers in advertising. News was then lumped into it at the last minute as to not anger the 8 remaining writers.
ReplyDeleteNow "management in Palm Springs " has built a stage so they can better communicate with the shrinking staff. It makes it much easier to stand above the workers and bark orders.
ReplyDelete