You don't have to work at the Palm Beach Post or work at a newspaper to appreciate the following email from management. All you need is some knowledge of corporate America. Or, better, to have seen Office Space. I hate this kind of shit so much that if I were in that newsroom, I'd probably overturn my desk. Anyway, it comes by way of Post Content Editor Nick Moschella (thanks again to the person who posted it as a comment).
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From: Moschella, Nick (CNI-Palm Beach)
Sent: Fri 7/17/2009 4:47 PM
Subject: REORG UPDATE . . .
As I mentioned during Alex's staff meeting this morning, we have devised a short-term employee rating system to help determine our final reorganization structure.
This is not a formal evaluation process. Unfortunately, we have been inconsistent through the years with administering performance evaluations, an oversight that absolutely will be corrected as we move forward.
For now, with the help of Human Resources and considering time constraints as we approach the reorg deadlines, we developed a rating/points system based on specific performance expectations for the following positions:
Reporters
Copy editors
Web producers
Photographers/videographers
Newsroom assistants
The rating process will be conducted by at least two-three immediate supervisors, independently of each other. Each supervisor will attach a point total to each requirement and add a short comment explaining the reason for the specific number. The final points total (max. 100) will be based on the average of the ratings by the supervisors.
Employees are welcome to review their overall rating and accompanying comments when the newsroom-wide process is completed. They can discuss the rating with their immediate supervisor and adjustments will be considered, if valid.
Listed below is each rating area, criteria and points. Ratings will be completed by July 31.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Nick
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Here's the kicker: I hear that the 20 to 25 reporters who score the lowest in this "rating process" will be shown the door by September 1. In other words, the newsroom is being turned into a Survivor show with real-life consequences. How diabolical, how brutal, how stressful, how... corporate.
In the news, we have Anthony Man's piece in the Sentinel about campaign fundraising in for the state Senate seat in the 25th District. This Nick Loeb, a Republican, has raised eye-popping money in the last quarter, about $240,000. His nearest challenger, Ellyn Bogdanoff, raised only about $90,000 (which isn't bad and normally would have been tops). I'm starting to wonder if Bogdanoff, the Sarah Palin-loving state rep, picked the wrong race here. I expected to read that most of that money came from the blue-blooded Loeb and his family, but as Man reports, the great majority of it came from different sources within the state. I would never count Bogdanoff out of anything; she's an extremely shrewd politician. It's sort of exciting; I think we've got a nail biter in the making.