It seems like every day another media figure–writer, reporter, editor, blogger–gets laid off. But what happens when the person who gets let go is a) not completely fired, and b) a career and workplace blogger?
Meet Marci Alboher, who until last week wrote the Shifting Careers blog for the New York Times online. In a fitting and somewhat morose end to her column, she wrote about her own layoff. Here’s a sampling of what she had to say:
It is hard to call this a layoff since I’m not an employee of the Times and I will likely still contribute to the paper occasionally. Yet I have been feeling a lot like someone who has been laid off. For starters, I have tried to build a narrative based on the little information that was shared with me by my editors, who have told me they were nearly as surprised as I was about this decision. As in a layoff, the decision was made in response to the economic realities of the media industry, which is a polite way of saying that newspapers are in difficult financial shape.
Unlike many people who have been laid off, I have not completely lost my livelihood. I have other clients and other income (or as I like to say, other slashes to fall back on). The Times doesn’t pay my health insurance, and I can still afford the mortgage. That said, The Times was my biggest client, a big part of my work identity, and this blog represented a healthy chunk of this year’s income.