So I work for a large local news company. They make papers for the entire country with over 100 local editions. I've only started the job last fall, and I have appearently had extremely bad luck with the editor of my edition. I try my freaking best, I work tons of (unpaid, of course) overtime, weekends, nights (off the book of course, in my country you can't tell someone to work on the weekends in most cases), i am so stressed on edge that especially recently I've slept badly, this morning I woke up and had a really bad panic attack dreading her and her constant criticism.
Most of our paper is local news, but there are always one or two pages made by our national editor-in-chief. And I usually don't read it, but whenever I do, it is just astonishing how these pages are allowed to basically miss every single criterion that I would be scolded to hell. If I wrote an article like the one the national editor this week, it would get torn to absolute shreds.
To some extent, I agree with the criticisms my boss would have with that article (Like the picture used for example was literally a stock image. A stock image. For an article that it would have been beyond easy to find a relevant picture). Other criticisms she would have of course are just stupid, like how we always need to write out percent, not use %.
So I don't mean my boss should just let us do it the way she does ( I mean, I know it sounds beyond pretentious to criticise your literal highest editor of a nation-wide country when you've had the job for half a year. but. still.), I think she does have valid points, and quality control is important. But I don't get how me and my colleagues get torn down for what is essentially peanuts while in the same paper, in the entire country, there are articles that don't meet her standards by the longest shot.
It just doesn't make sense to me. Why do I, with 6 months of work experience, have to kill myself trying to fulfill her requirements when appearently the higher ups can basically do anything.
Also lmao, the article by the editor-in-chief was about inflation and how so many people struggle financially, while they pay us EUR 10.38 per hour (USD 11.44) (not counting unpaid overtime!!), while the cost of living is of course soaring. What is absolutely insane is however what they pay our graphics / design people. 8 Euros per hour. USD 8.80. And I live in a country with cost of living in the top third in Europe. Literally, if you only got money from welfare you would only get 250 or so less per month for that wage, and if you have to drive to work, that's probably about what it would cost you. So you are literally not off any better working 40 hours a week (if your very lucky) than just not working. If you get welfare and maybe spend a few hours working under the table, you would be far better off.
It is all just insanity.