Friday, October 18, 2013

Oct. 14-20 | Your News & Comments: Part 3

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46 comments:

  1. Namaste,
    It’s pointless--but definitely cathartic--to discuss what the corporate bosses, and their minions at the local level, should have done, did do wrong, could do right and so on. It’s pointless because, even if they could turn the company around, they won’t do it; they don’t want to.
    The corporate bosses are only in the game--they see it as a zero-sum game--one bonus check at a time, and the long-term investments necessary to make a go of Gannett get in the way of that. They are only in it for themselves--how do you think they got to be the bosses?
    The corporate bosses speak of “Community,” “Journalism” and even “Gannett” as concepts they value and will work to nourish. More ironically, they talk of “Coworker” as if they are one of us, e.g. their memos begin with “colleagues.” Don’t bet on any of that talk having any substance. One of them will eventually pull the plug, do bet on that.
    Live long and prosper--elsewhere.

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  2. You mesn you dont find notes that address us as "folks" doesnt make you all earm and fuzzy?

    That memos from the CEO signed off with "best regards" ring as hollow?


    What's wrong with you, bunny?

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  3. This thread is another example of the uselessness of the blog. Five years later, still venting. One post even admits what will follow is pointless, yet on and on it goes.

    Do any of you ever get tired of this? Why not move on, get lives, grow a little, etc.? I have to assume the company laughs at how long some people here have carried the pointless grudge. Of course, Jim is at the top of the list of being laughed at.

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    1. And yet you deign to come here.

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    2. Just as you continue to provide examples of pointlessness.

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    3. It's easy. Stay away if you don't like it!

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    4. Or you could stay away if you can't handle the criticism.

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    5. Richard Michem10/18/2013 9:43 AM

      The more somebody criticize, somebody that speak out, The more they are afraid of the TRUTH coming out!

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    6. Exactly, Richard Michem. 10:24 is like other mouthy bullies who, if they don't like what you're saying, think that they can beat you down with harsh, mean words. And bullies, as we all know, are pathetic.

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    7. It's One Guy10/18/2013 1:38 PM

      Now, now, 11:06 AM. Anonymous 10:24/10:45/7:02 is very dedicated, sometimes coming here more than a dozen times a day to try to make it look like there's a whole army of eager, satisfied Gannett workers out there that hate the blog and want it shut down. Whether burning the late oil (10:45 p.m.) or up with the roosters (7:02 a.m.), One Guy is earning his cubicle! You just don't get that kind of dedication in Gannett anymore ...

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    8. It's One Guy, 11:06 here. You have made my day. Thank you.

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  4. The discussing of corporate antics is pointless as a means to change the direction Gannett is heading but, read between the dashes, it is still useful as a form of therapy for the trauma its abuses have caused. I repeat: “Live long and prosper--elsewhere.”

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  5. Right on, 1:10 PM. People shouldn't dismiss (not to mention underestimate) that a lot of trauma has been inflicted by Gannett — and it is healthy and normal to try to sort that out. Myself, I still check this blog about every three months or so even though I've gone into another field. I still have dreams (nightmares) about the place, and that's just not right. I'm "living long and prospering elsewhere" as freelance and a helluva lot happier. Really appreciated your post. This stuff isn't a joke.

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    1. You actually don't sound healthy or normal at all. I'm not sure you're even honest about it. You claim to be in another field, but then you claim you are prospering "as freelance." Either you're a poor writer, or you can't even keep track of your own lie.

      Not trying to be insulting here. You really should seek out some help ASAP. Posting here seems to worsen your condition.

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    2. 7:15PM! That poor woman or man...I am assuming but it sounds like a gal to be that affected by Gannett's BS. Dreams? Really?...does not deserve a reply like 12:42AM. I am glad 7:15PM only comes to Gannettblog infrequently...if true that is...so that person is not further abused. I agree with 12:42AM on one thing. 7:15PM seems to still be traumatized even while claiming to be happier. I read this blog every day but I did not read the remark as a lie but poorly expressed which tells me that the person is not a writer. Neither am I!!! There are many other occupations and fields at a newspaper than in the information center. Unlike 12:42AM I must wonder how many others took freelance as meaning self employed on one's own in another field, meaning another job than that person was separated from? Like going from circulation or sales to freelancing in graphic design or website building, another field in media? That is my plan any way once I get out of Gannett! Freelance. Have a little heart 12:42AM. Have a little heart! Unlike your pretending concern and advice, with time I hope for real that 7:15PM gets over the Gannett experience and is happier. Even with the restructuring there are plenty left like 12:42AM still spewing snark like poison every chance they get. I still have my job for now but people like that are the main reason I am soon moving on self employed!

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  6. Pension oddity: I'm wondering whether anyone else has had any odd experiences with Gannett over pensions. My odd experience goes like this: I got laid off in one of the recent rounds and rolled over my 401K all well and good. If memory serves, in the past several years that I'd worked at the company (the second time I've worked for Gannett), there was no such thing as a pension. However, I heard there was some "pension request" going around (not anything I'd requested) for me and that people were digging into prior employment records I'd had with the company decades ago (someone who had to look at the records also told me about an error in the file listing me as part time when I'd been working full time and getting FT benefits for years). In that earlier first round of employment, pensions still existed, but I had not been with the company long enough to be vested, ergo when I left, I never got any payouts and never heard another thing about it (no annual or quarterly reports). Well, I recently got a letter saying I had under a certain amount in pension and that it would be sent to me in a check (I cannot roll it over because of the amount, can't have it put in my other investment administrator's name, etc.; however, my IA tells me I have 60 days to still bring it to them, invest it and be fine tax-wise). The thing that strikes me as odd is that no one connected to Gannett seems to be able to provide me any information about what the exact amount is and when I accrued this pension. There's nothing in the letter. I called the number provided in it, but they will give me no details. They direct me to the benefits website, where I find no pension info. So, then I asked a company HR rep about whether there is a separate pension website and got an "I don't know" answer (I'll also go back to the letter and dig to see if something's buried in it that I missed the first time). Now, don't get me wrong; if I'm owed money, I'm glad they're sending it. However, the whole thing just has an odd feel to it, and I so I'm wondering if others have had similarly challenging experiences with Gannett over pension funds. Maybe it is just that, as with other services around benefits, the company seems to partner with other companies or provide customer service that are or is half-assed. I find it strange that I can get no details from any company/pension reps on it.

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    1. I find it strange that you don't have the first clue about a pension you had paid into. Yet you blame the company for your own cluelessness. Very odd.

      The last two weeks have shed a lot of light on how mentally helpless the Blogateers are. They really have trouble with tasks that normal people don't struggle with.

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    2. when my "position" was elimated at the end of 2011, i had kept a letter recieved a few years earlier giving me my pension amount. when i went to get my pension money, they had a lower amount, i said if the pension was frozen, how can it be lower and showed them the earlier letter. Oh they made a mistake and would correct it. when they send my check is was again the lesser amount, called and complained and then the finally sent me the difference to the higher amount. watch them, they'll cheat you out of what they owe you if they can. the HR reps are clueless !!

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    3. So Mr. Genius 12:46, when exactly did the company offer a traditional pension plan into which employees could contribute their hard-earned cash? Not since 1970 when I started with Gannett. The company offered a stock-purchase plan, but they didn't contribute a dime to it, except to wave broker fees. The 401-K plan offered in the early '90s was the first plan employees could contribute to. So it is very possible someone could have money in a long-frozen Gannett pension plan and not know it.

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    4. I believe that the Gannett pension plan started between 1970-1972. We did not contribute anything to it. However there was at least one Gannett plant that I know of where employees did contribute to a pension plan. I believe that it was something that the employees were offered before gannet offered their plan. As for information from Gannett on pensions call 855-442-4236,

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    5. Better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

      This is the pension benefits website:

      https://gannett.ehr.com

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    6. The company had a retirement plan prior to 1970. This was when the company was headquartered in the Times-Union building in Rochester and we had maybe 16 newspapers.When other newspaper chains were gobbled up by Neuharth beginning in the 70's their existing plans were mostly folded into the Gannett Pension plan. The Gannett plan was modified in the early 90's with the advent of the 401K. They used a formula to determine which plan modification applied to each employee. A combination of age and years of service totaling 75 kept you in the defined plan. Not sure when they froze contributions but it was after I left in 2007.

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  7. Look, paranoid people, if the company is taking your money and hiding it in some secret fund, you shouldn't be posting ramblings here. You should be reporting it. That would be a major deal.

    Of course, you won't because you know you would be exposed as morons for not knowing what was going on. Better to rant here, as you've done for several years. After all, you accomplish a lot with that.

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  8. You know, I hear some people had lunches disappear when they worked at Gannett. I bet the company has a secret lunch storage facility! Someone should look into that. Jim, get on it!

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  10. The company did that with coats, too. And umbrellas.

    Somewhere in Ohio, the company has all of those items stored in secret. The door isn't even locked. It just has a Do Not Enter sign on it, and the employees don't bother to go in.

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  12. Gannett used to offer a defined pension plan whereby an arcane algorithm they calculated what you’d get each month from the company when you retired. It was based on your best 5 years of wages and your total years of employment. In the mid-90s (?) corporate ended this in favor (theirs, of course) of a 401(k) plan. Workers hired after then got no defined pension plan, but workers hired before kept theirs and that plan kept getting annual bumps until ‘08 when the plan was frozen. Once again worker benefits were sacrificed to increase corporate ones. Also there’s way back when, when Gannett was buying papers, it sometimes left previous pension plans intact, rather than roll them into its own.
    So when you “exit” Gannett, you need to deal with up to three possible “pensions.” The 401(k) is pretty straight forward, get it and roll it over. The defined pension plan is a little more complex. Don’t take their first offer as correct. The calculating math is high school algebra so it’s doable--getting them to show you the formulas is the hard part--so do it yourself. Do this because, as often as not, they have miscalculated and “oddly” it’s always to their gain. Be prepared to threaten with a lawyer. You might also have a previous plan if you worked for a paper that was bought by Gannett, if you have the letters they sent when they did this, you might get some out of it.
    Where I worked, it got even trickier. There was an attempted unionization, but the attempt was abandoned after several years of futile “negotiation.” Workers affected were definitely denied 401(k)s during those years and they were probably also denied the annual bumps of the previous plan as well. The best guess as to the corporate logic behind this is that it declared that the workers were--in theory--in a union and owed only the benefits it negotiated for, which in this case were nothing.
    Live long and prosper--elsewhere.

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    1. When you claim that the shift to 401(k)s was some corporate plot, you expose yourself as clueless.

      Rest of post flushed as nonsense.

      *flush*

      Waste in, waste out.

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    2. What do you mean by “plot?” Do you mean a plan to do something that is kept secret from those who’d not like it? Then you are correct, I think it is one.
      I think the corporate bosses switched to a 401(k) plan because a defined benefit plan is more expensive for them, because with the latter, the company has to pay retired workers more and for a longer time than with the former. The 401(k) scheme allows more money to remain on the profits side and therefore makes for bigger bonuses for the corporate bosses.
      I do feel that the corporate bosses are by such selfish actions acting again the interest of their “Community,” “Journalism,” even “Gannett” and their “Coworkers.” If you can say any of this is not true, say it--your opinion is just as valuable as mine here. But I’d prefer you keep the ad hominems and the toilet metaphors to yourself next time.

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    3. That's the best this guy, 2:08, can do. I thought 1:46's post, agree/disagree, was worthwhile. 2:08 needs to get a job at Corporate. He'd fit right in. Oh wait.

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    4. 3:08/3:12 continue the conspiracy theory. There's only one response:

      *flush*

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    5. Gotta love people who talk about their retirement accounts while at this same time whining about corporate management doing its job (namely, maximizing profits). These same yahoos would of course be the first to raise a stink if their retirement portfolio didn't support their accustomed lifestyle. Apparently they don't even grasp the incongruity.

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    6. I don’t think I’m being incongruous or yahoo-ish I would be as upset if I knew the managers of my funds were doing what I perceive the managers of Gannett are doing--maximizing profit for themselves at the expense of their clients. By the way, I do suspect the fund managers of doing this as well, but have yet to find a blog to whine about that on.
      The fuel that drives us to post is a blend of envy and moral outrage. Moral outrage makes us look better so, if asked, that’s the reason we give. There's some jealousy mixed in, too; we mostly envy corporate power and wealth, but we are also jealous about their taking our careers.

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  13. when you escape gannett, take it all. everything they owe you. 401k, pension et al. if not they will find a way to cheat you or keep the money. CASH OUT !

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    1. Brilliant advice, 3:39. Cash out all the money and pay a big tax penalty!

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    2. No tax penalty if you roll it into an IRA. I've done it twice.

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  14. it's very entertaining when you read the blog and there is always that one person that knows everything, they will never get laid off, something is wrong with everyone else but them. Very amusing. Get a life perfect! ha ha

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    1. But it's more entertaining when the same people, like you post the same pointless stuff, like yours, and try to scare people into quitting.

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  15. Gannett had a defined pension plan for years. Changed it I believe in 1996, but through some complicated formula grandfathered in older long time employees. some get a lump sum, others, like me, get monthly check. The big problem: the monthly check is reduced by another complicated formula based on how much social security you get. - but that has always been the way Gannett did it. Not sure if any other companies do that.

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    1. Those restrictions are not limited to Gannett.

      The big problem here is too many people don't understand the system, yet they are quick to push a conspiracy theory. Why not try to get some facts first?

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Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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