I have been working at my current job since october 1st 2021, so less than half a year. And I am already so done with the company it is unreal.
I am working in local journalism, but in my country, there is one huge company that publishes over 100 small, local newspapers, I don't live in a big country, so that's basically as local as you can get. As you can assume, working in journalism is all about connections and networking. You want the mayor of the town to talk to you comfortably, you want the police to take time to give you statements, and most importantly for this company, you need businesses to advertise since it's entirely ad-financed.
Well, this company has an insane turnover rate. barely anyone makes it more than a year, especially in my region. And it is just simply embarassing, people all the time tell me that our staff changes all the time. Of course it's also simply stupid, the company hires people with 0 experience (well, no one else would apply for a wage like that), they then have to constantly teach the new kids everything from scratch, they have to invest a ton of time and resources, and then the people leave, just when it probably starts to pay of. It is ridiculous, and it is stupid. Often, simply no one knows what's going on because simply no one has a real clue due to (perfectly understandable) lack of experience.
I am technically supposed to lead the team of 4 journalists (+ me) that works in my greater region (it's kind of complicated but technically i am supposed to be the leading editor though the translation doesn't work well), technically, I was immediately hired for a position that does have a fair bit of responsibility with 0 experience leading anything (and for a wage that I shouldn't have more responsibility than an intern – it literally is in the range of better-ish internships). I didn't know this at the time of applying.
Just yesterday I worked my ass of, I was at an important event, produced a video, all by my self, then rushed home, edited it until 10 pm so I could publish asap, and that's after also not really not working all day, starting at 8, with maybe 2 hours break total. Not all days are like this of course or I wouldn't have any sanity left at all at this point, but on most, I work long hours. I am salaried, so work for free whenever I work more than 40 hours, and I can't take time off to make up for it, or my co-workers (who are in the same position as I) would have to make up for it.
So the company keeps driving people into burn out, or they get off the sinking ships to the competitors – so the company has to keep training new people, who have to network again from scratch, and are likely gonna be gone a year or two later. They are literally killing themselves. They don't have enough resources for existing staff, because they have to keep hiring, training, hiring, training, and so on.
I mean, and it's not just the grunts, the upper ranks fluctuate a lot as well. My current manager started after me (again, I haven't even worked here for half a year)
If they bit the bullet and invested into expanding to a point where the staff doesn't have to kill themselves working, raised salaries to a point where you would stay longer than just for the training and focused on building up staff so they are happy as long-term emplyees, then the problem would fix itself.
The job itself is absolutely amazing and I genuinely love it (I would not stay up until 10 pm if I didn't, I couldn't), I love the experiences, my team is amazingly dedicated (especially given the circumstances), I think I could grow into a real asset for the company, but under these circumstances, I'm not going to.
The company is killing itself. It is going to collapse, they can't keep this going, or even the few remaining loyal people are going to quit as well.
But the most interesting thing is, we had an internal workshop thing where we got to talk to people from all over the country, in small, private groups, about how we as employees view the future of our company, and literally everyone, in different divisions, is experiencing the same. So it's not only my small, local region's team affected by this, it is the case everywhere.
I'm thrilled to see where this all leads, I know I might not be able to find a job that easily afterwards, but I am just really looking forward to seeing the whole ship burn down.