Former colleagues facing possible layoffs, other changes

There is news brewing at my old stomping grounds. It isn't encouraging.

Changes are coming to USA Today. With those content and/or operational changes will be probable layoffs, perhaps as early as this summer. This would be the third round of involuntarily layoffs. The national newspaper also had a round of "voluntary" buyouts. The newsroom has been hit particularly hard, with a lot of the people who built the newspaper now long gone.

John K. Hartman, a professor of journalism at Central Michigan University and author of two books about USA Today believes he has some ideas (not ones I necessarily agree with) to help fix USA Today. In an opinion piece in a journalism publication, Hartman also brings up the possibility of the flagship paper offering transfers of laid off employees to other newspapers within the Gannett chain. This would surprise me. Not because it isn't a logical idea, but because transfers weren't an option in any of the previous rounds of buyouts and layoffs. If they were, a lot of highly qualified ex-USAT'ers might be working in Melbourne, Fla., Westchester, N.Y. or Phoenix, Ariz., right now.

I feel for my former colleagues who are under another potential threat, particularly the seasoned journalists who might have an especially hard time finding work if they are let go. While many newspapers are beginning to slowly rebound, others are still struggling.

Read the Hartman article.

Facebook messages reaching for the heavens

A former colleague of mine at USA Today died the other day after a long illness. He wasn't a close buddy, but he was a "friend" on Facebook. Because I don't work at the newspaper anymore, I learned of his passing through the social networking site.

Since his death, people have been writing messages to him on his Facebook wall. The key phrase is "to him." There are dozens of short notes, many assuming he has already settled in behind a computer in heaven, reading his messages. Writing short blurbs on Facebook is now one of the ways we express our feelings for dead friends.

I am not going to write on his Facebook wall. However, as with the deaths of most friends or acquaintances, his passing gives me reason to pause and to reflect on my own life, career and interactions with former colleagues.

Don Collins was one of the nice guys in an otherwise hectic and often stressed-out newsroom. Sort of a gentle giant type of a man, with a competent, dignified approach to his work in the sports department. In a business that often gets muddied by impossible deadlines, unchecked egos and not-so-hidden insecurities, Don was simply a respectful, decent fellow. That may not sound like high praise, but in the pressure cooker of the newspaper business, lesser men and women often lose their humanity, even if it's just temporarily. To the best of my knowledge, Don never fell into that trap.

If there is a heaven, I pray that it doesn't have Wi-Fi. I hope all of my former colleagues who have passed on, including Don, can disconnect from the Internet and not worry about being accessible 24/7. They've earned the right to unplug, kick back and ignore their in-boxes.

Reflecting back while looking forward

In 1994, after less than a year at The Associated Press in New York City, I was selected to go to Atlanta to cover the Super Bowl between the Buffalo Bills and Dallas Cowboys. It was quite an honor, especially considering there were far more experienced editors at AP than me at that time. I was so proud of being chosen that I kept my press pass for all of these years.

Even after I left the AP, I was contacted about a year later and asked if I wanted to return. I was flattered. They were offering me a better job than the one I had before. I declined for personal reasons. Soon after, I went to work at USA Today in Northern Virginia -- one of my favorite newspapers in those days. After hopping around a lot for the first 15 years of my career, I figured USA Today could be my last stop -- one of those places one goes to where they earn their gold watch after a quarter of a decade of service. I got my five and 10-year anniversary awards, but fell far short of 25 years.

Career moves came easily for me back then. In my first job out of college, I was promoted into a managerial editing position within my first six months. I was soon on a track to become a publisher in a small chain of newspapers, but I decided I wanted to live in Florida more than I wanted to be a publisher in Virginia. So after a short stint on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, I got a job as sports editor at a small paper south of Miami. I covered the Miami Dolphins and Hurricanes as well as the high school sports scene and professional boxing. Those were good years. Not much pay, but a lot of fun.

It never took me more than a few weeks to find a new job when I was younger. Sometimes they were marginally better jobs, sometimes they were significant leaps. It didn't dawn on me that I would be without work. I was fairly versatile and had a good work ethic that my bosses always seemed to appreciate. And it certainly never crossed my mind that I would be laid off.

Then on December 2008, as readers of this blog know, I was was laid off from USA Today after working there for 13 years. That was quite a shock.

The real harsh surprise for me came in the months following my layoff, when I began to search for work and encountered walls that were never there earlier in my career. I turned to friends and former colleagues, seeing if they could help. This was always a good method of finding work in the past, but not now. The recession wasn't helping, but there also seemed to be other forces working against me. The newspaper business began crumbling. A couple potential employers shockingly held it against me that I had worked at USA Today for so long. The national newspaper and parent company that owns it aren't well-liked within the industry for various reasons. It was guilt by association.

My early days at USA Today were filled with fancy office parties, views of Washington, D.C. from our windows and a pretty good newsroom staff. It was always tough work, but as a third-generation journalist, I was accustomed to the late hours, deadlines and contentious nature of the newsroom.

Here is a picture of me (left) at my first USA Today Christmas party in 1995 with two of my former colleagues who are still at the newspaper -- Dash Parham and Dave Merrill. These parties were very extravagant. The paper was doing well. The booze flowed. The shrimp were large. If you worked in journalism, it was a good place to be. Lots of resources. In fact, USA Today's parent company, Gannett, more or less had a hands-off policy when it came to its flagship newspaper. We enjoyed our independence and did good work. Eventually, Gannett got more involved with USA Today, which led to layoffs at the newspaper most people thought was immune. Read about the bonuses received after those record layoffs.

A lot has changed in the news business and my own career since the mid-1990s when that picture was taken. Essentially, I don't have a career right now. While I feel far from obsolete or incapable, I can't deny that finding work at this age is far different than finding work at 30 years old. There are days when I think back to how easily things flowed, the people I have met, the places I've been. And yet, things are so different now that it often takes my breath away how quickly one can go from cruising along in a modest career to ... well, I will let you fill in the blank.

One of the many lessons that I have learned from this is to never take anything for granted -- not even your own abilities. There is always something lurking out there somewhere waiting to take you down. If it's not a layoff, then it could be an illness. If it's not an illness, it could something else. So it's good to treasure what you have and not get too caught up in the little difficulties of a career, relationships or just everyday life, because when it's prematurely gone, it's awfully hard to rebuild.

Whether or not I get another shot remains to be seen. Whether I work inside or outside of the media, my batteries are recharged. I have a new perspective on work and life. I believe I have more to offer to an employer now than I did when I got laid off. Finding that right fit isn't going to be easy, but if I do I know that the latter years of my career probably will surpass the early days in some profound ways. Job satisfaction, I suspect, will come from other sources that don't necessarily include fat paychecks, free Heinekens and trips to the Super Bowl.

Journalists struggling to survive

Gannett, the publisher of USA Today (my former employer) and dozens of other newspapers, shed 8,100 jobs since 2007, according to Gannett Blog, which is published by a former employee, Jim Hopkins. The blog apparently has a large following and is worth a look for anyone interested in the media business.

That 8,100 number surprised me. It's about twice as many job losses as I previously thought. Read about it here.

Pictured at the top of this post are Gannett headquarters and USA Today in McLean, Va. -- two towers joined by one of the largest lobbies you will ever see in an office building. The pricey complex in a high-end part of Fairfax County is relatively new. Some refer to it as the "crystal palace." However, the palace has a low occupancy rate of late, not that all or even most of those 8,100 job losses came at this campus. The job losses were spread throughout the country. List of Gannett newspapers.

While the building is impressive and was a nice place to work, this level of splurging doesn't take place at other Gannett properties. For instance, here's the office of the Gannett-owned Daily Times in Salisbury, Md., a modest-at-best place where I worked in 1980, before it was bought by Gannett. It apparently hasn't changed much and is typical of smaller newspaper buildings.

Gannett has always been known for running lean operations at their community newspapers. But so have other media companies. Thomson Newspapers owned The Daily Times when I worked there and paid and staffed very poorly, despite fat profits from lots of paid advertisements and decent circulation on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Of course, those were the days when newspapers had high-profit margins -- higher than most businesses. Not sure exactly where the profits went. Most folks in the newsroom made less than first-year school teachers. That hasn't improved much over the years.

The Gannett building in McLean might give the impression that journalists are rolling in cash. I can say with certainty that isn't true, which makes all the job losses in that industry even worse because many laid-off employees couldn't pad their savings accounts enough to weather this storm. Still, many journalists are hoping they can re-enter the field once the economy improves.

Every empire eventually falls

Boy, what a mess Toyota is in. But history teaches us that being No. 1 often leads to disastrous results. Empires don't last forever.

In business, there are countless examples of how companies reach the top then fall from grace, often because of self-inflicted wounds. In certain cases, a top company can recover from turning out a bad product. Look at Microsoft. The Windows Vista operating system was a horrible product. It appears Windows 7 has fixed many of the glitches that Vista harbored, but how the heck did the faulty Vista ever make it to market? And don't people who bought Vista deserve a price break when purchasing Windows 7? Apparently not, according to Microsoft.

I worked for USA Today back in the glory days, when we worked ourselves into the No. 1 slot in terms of daily-newspaper circulation. But as soon as we got to be No. 1, things began to splinter. I first noticed it in the hiring. We weren't going after the best of the best anymore. As a result, the journalism got sloppy. Weak links began breaking. Some well-publicized scandals arose. Eventually, when the recession hit, the page-count went down. Then buyouts forced some of the best talent to leave. The company was further gutted by two rounds of layoffs. I was included in one of those rounds. The parent company, Gannett, got itself into deep debt by making some questionable decisions. When that happens, heads will roll and quality control will fall. Unfortunately, those heads are usually in the lower and middle ranks.

Now when I pick up USA Today, it doesn't resemble the product of 10 years ago. It's thinner. There are mistakes. It's also more expensive. It essentially has become the Toyota of newspapers. Not bad, but there are problems. And the reasons behind that can't all be attributed to the changing industry or the economic downturn. Like Toyota, it might be big enough to survive, but will it ever return to what it was in newsprint, online or some other form?

Read this article by Reuters if you want to learn more about the Toyota situation. It speaks of something called "big-company disease." I believe certain companies that make it to No. 1 begin doing things counter to what got them to the top. Maybe it's human nature to rest on one's laurels or to become corrupt with power. Look at the fall of the Roman Empire. History certainly raises enough red flags. Yet, businesses continue to falter soon after making it to the mountain top. Some fallen companies blame failure on the recession. But when you examine their businesses practices leading up to the recession, you begin to see a pattern of greed and self-destructive behaviors.

The big three automakers in Detroit were on top of the world, producing the best cars, feeding the local economy and wowing people at annual auto shows. Then they got complacent. Bonuses to executives were being handed out like candy. Leaner, more innovative companies came along, ones that placed a higher priority on reliability and fuel efficiency. Meanwhile, customer satisfaction with Detroit was hitting new lows. And to some degree, that continues today. If you go back and read my post from December about Chrysler/Jeep, well, that situation has still not been resolved despite receiving promises from the automaker. It's this type of thing that will steer me, and probably thousands of others, away from Chrysler for the rest of my life.

Then there are the AIGs and Enrons of the world. They take arrogance to a whole other level. Once on top, and nearing monopoly status, these companies not only bring themselves down, but they wreck entire economies, not to mention the financial lives of innocent people. The sense of entitlement at the the top in these types of companies should be, and in some cases is, criminal. Without strict oversight, these abuses will continue.

AOL was one of the most successful start-ups in Internet history. Many people got rich at AOL back in the day. It was a relatively small company that got the lion's share of the Internet-provider market. Then AOL decided to merge with Time-Warner, a media giant. From that day on, AOL started on a path of being a nominal player. They fell behind on broadband and other technologies. Once an innovator, they soon became stuck in a corporate muck. They went from being nimble to being trapped in bureaucracy. Now that they've recently freed themselves up from the corporate beast, it will be interesting to see if they can have a resurgence.

NASA, the premier space agency in the world, put men on the moon. But when pressured to push the envelope and produce more frequent space shuttle missions, the agency literally crashed and burned -- twice. The fault for the first space shuttle disaster was mechanically blamed on bad o-rings. But the real culprit for the disaster was the unreasonably ambitious pressure from above and the agency's desire to keep those who were trying to raise concerns from speaking out. The quest to silence those who were perceived to be obstructionists proved to be a fatal mistake that NASA has never truly recovered from.

If you've ever worked for a big company you might know what it's like to go against the grain. Just because you're in the right doesn't mean you'll be heard. In many places, in fact, you'll be punished for raising red flags. That's another strain of "big-company disease" and it too has a tangible cost.

If your company is No. 2 or 3, or maybe not even a major competitor yet, don't feel bad. It's likely that the work you're doing will be more appreciated. There probably will be more pride in your office and less bashing of those who refuse to stick their heads in the sand. Your company will probably be better situated to recover from this awful recession if it avoided the debt trap.

Avis car rentals had a slogan when they were No. 2. "We try harder," was catchy. I think I rather do business with folks trying harder and doing things correctly than companies who are living off their own fat or who act like they don't need my business.

Sorry, Toyota. You got too drunk on your successes and future ambitions. You cut corners to get to a place where there are no shortcuts. And then you didn't easily fess up to problems that cost lives. You aren't alone in acting badly, but you sure have a lot of work to do to restore your image.

Click here to read more about Toyota, Starbucks and other companies that go astray after reaching the top.

Taking typing to a new level

I believe my typing skills have vastly improved in my year off from work. A modest silver lining to an otherwise humbling and difficult year.

As much as I typed in my job at USA TODAY, it doesn't compare to how I burn through a keyboard now. I am almost always typing. It's how I apply to 90 percent of the jobs that I seek. Employers generally loathe when you call or show up uninvited to inquire about a position. They will redirect you to their web sites with lightning speed. Of course, web sites weren't so prevalent the last time I was looking for work, so this has been a change for me. Thus far, a fruitless change. I've applied to 223 companies, some of them several times. That's a whole lot of typing and navigating through multi-layered job applications.

Typing is how I primarily stay in touch with long-distance friends and colleagues. I do the social/professional networking thing and blog when I have a few spare moments. I cover a lot of ground on any given day. There is a sense of efficiency in doing personal and professional business this way, but there is also a feeling of losing human connections.

Despite the speed and efficiency, technology has its drawbacks. For instance, I have pains in my hands that I never felt before, probably from overusing my laptop and mouse. Nothing severe. But nonetheless annoying. When I worked at the newspaper, I was behind a nice desktop Macintosh, writing from one of those ergonomic chair-desk combos. Now I am on an aging Dell laptop with a bad screen, sitting in a $50 chair at a desk that is way too high. My questionable posture isn't getting any better working this way.

When technology fails or a server crashes it can mean even more time in the chair, retyping a job application or refiling an unemployment claim, literally adding insult to injury. It's no fun losing your tax information because of a software glitch or having your cover letter zapped from an employer's web site just as you're putting a period on the final sentence. Universities and government employers have a particularly technical and grueling process for applying to jobs. Better hope your internet connection is stable before getting started.

I am not sure what my typing speed is up to now. I am guessing I'm at least 10 words per minute faster than I was last year. As an English major, I've always been comfortable behind a keyboard, but have taken my game to a new level lately. Instant messaging is particularly useful for building up typing agility. Of course, I am not looking for data-entry or word-processing jobs -- at least not yet. But if and when the time comes for that sort of employment, I will be ready.

E&P: More than just a magazine

Editor & Publisher magazine is closing down after 125 years of publication. The web site will also cease operations.

Probably unheard of by most of the population, E&P was the magazine of newspaper professionals. Even more popular than its stories about the business were its famous classified ads. Long before the internet explosion, this is where many young and not-so-young newspaper people went to look for a job. I began subscribing to it while still in college in 1979.

In part, I got my job at USA Today in 1995 by answering an ad in E&P. I also was hired by a Miami-area daily newspaper in 1980 and found an editing job in Meriden, Conn., in the mid-1980s thanks to the E&P classifieds.

With newspaper jobs drying up and layoffs continuing, my search for employment just got a little bit harder today as I still went to E&P to read about trends in the business and to peruse the help-wanted ads.

Read more about the E&P demise.

Washington's other newspaper

The Washington Times, D.C.'s other newspaper, will layoff a "significant number" of employees. This coming on the heels of nearby USA Today slashing more jobs in McLean, Va. Even the mighty Washington Post isn't out of the woods yet. All of this in one of the more affluent areas of the country where the population is still growing. Cities like Detroit or the agricultural areas of California, where the recession has decimated businesses (potential advertisers), things are far worse. Wonder if the "jobs summit" at the White House today will bring any hope for journalism and other professions on the verge of extinction? Click here to read about the layoffs at the Times.

I am far from a professional musician, let alone recording engineer, but this song came to me yesterday after learning of more layoffs at my former place of employment, USA Today, and thinking about my year of unemployment. I won't bore you with the technical challenges of how I put this together on a simple laptop computer. Obviously, I wrote the lyrics first, then the music. I recorded the main guitar and vocals together, then played the bass and lead guitar parts later. Finally, I added a computerized drum track (since I don't play the drums) and created an MP3. After the song was recorded, I found some photographs online to accompany the music and merged everything in a video-editing application. I was tempted to turn this into a standard blues song, but decided on a different approach. Because I mumble a lot, I am providing the lyrics below.

LAID OFF
Lyrics and Music by Mick Calvacca

Went to the boss yesterday
got three months severance
that's all I'm going to pay.

I said what am I going to do
with all that money
I got bills to pay, it ain't funny.

When you're 50 years old and
feeling weary about the days
gone by and all that spirit.

Well times are hard and
I'm not believin' all I'm told
and all that I'm leaving.

You got to know someone.

You got to have some luck.

Note: Video slides compiled by Mick Calvacca with apologies to photographers and cartoonists who I was not able to credit

More layoffs at the nation's newspaper

USA Today, my former employer, laid off about 25 newsroom employees today. In the last two years, the newsroom has lost about 100 jobs, including mine, as the newspaper industry continues to struggle through the bad economy and massive debt acquired by some of the larger media companies. Apparently, however, this round of cuts caught many by surprise at the McLean, Va., newspaper. I certainly feel their pain on this, the one-year anniversary of my layoff. It won't be easy to find comparable work. Click here to read more about the difficulties laid-off journalists are facing in this article about former Los Angeles Times employees

An anniversary worth forgetting

This week marks the one-year anniversary of my being laid off from USA Today. I was planning to write about it at length but decided against it. I think I have said enough on this blog about my own situation and the predicament of other unemployed folks (see the archive). In doing so, it appears I have also lost many of my readers, which in a way was predictable based on what I have experienced in my personal relationships with folks during the last 12 months.

But a declining audience isn't the main reason for my not wanting to mark this week with an extended anniversary post.

While my layoff is in many ways similar to the millions of others, particularly in the field of journalism, it is also fairly unique and somewhat personal. The circumstances surrounding my layoff are particularly tough (some might say surreal) and almost impossible to explain to people in a way that they can fully grasp. It's been a rather lonely experience.

In order to avoid further frustrations and disappointments in not being able to effectively convey my personal feelings of loss, new challenges ahead and significant limitations in a worsening recession, I am going to curtail postings about my situation in particular and the economy in general. This blog will be considerably lighter (in words, not necessarily subject matter) from now on.

I hope I will be employed again one day and find some closure to what happened one year ago when I experienced unemployment for the first time in three decades. I feel I have a lot to offer to a stable company, big or small, and am open to new career possibilities at a mere 52 years old. But I realize I can't influence the future by airing my thoughts about joblessness or the recession here. Many things in life have their own momentum and timetable. The length of my job search is apparently one of them.

Thankfulness in gloomy times

I was preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday last year, going about my business while working at USA Today, and looking forward to a couple days off. It was announced a week earlier that there were going to be layoffs if not enough people volunteered for buyouts. We were under a similar threat the year before, but mostly older employees volunteered to leave in 2007 so no one had to be forced out. The buyouts in 2007 were more generous and there was no serious recession at that point. Some of the people who took the buyouts said they saw the writing on the wall and wanted to leave while they could. But 2008 had a different feel. Folks saw the economic firestorm that was coming in a business that was failing. So people were more cautious about volunteering to leave.

As I went into the holiday week last year, I was reasonably confident that I would not be laid off. My reasons seemed logical. First, I was there for 13 years and had performed well. Never received a reprimand, was a reliable and hard-working employee, etc. Always got my annual raises and so forth. I knew a lot of folks depended on me and that made me feel good.

Being that it was Thanksgiving, I was certainly feeling thankful I was in a relatively stable situation. Even with the buyouts and then layoffs, USA Today was not doing as badly as other newspapers. Gannett, the mega-company that owns USA Today, seemed well-positioned to navigate out of storm with its flagship newspaper in tact.

I worked in the graphics department but considered myself a complete journalist by trade, not just a visuals editor. Because other supervisors with a journalism backgrounds had left our department in recent years, I was the only manager remaining with diverse editing experience. In a department of about 60 folks, mainly photographers and artists, I figured my editing know-how, managerial seasoning and 16 years of journalistic background at other newspapers prior to USA Today made me a valued resource and would protect me from being laid off. Plus, I worked nights and was heavily involved with production of graphics on deadline. No one else wanted to work that shift, so in my mind I went into Thanksgiving thinking things would be fine.

About a week after Thanksgiving, I was laid off by the long-time managing editor of my department. It was disorienting to say the least. Only two people in my department lost their jobs. How and why I became one of them is still a mystery to me and many other folks. It seemed to defy all logic. The managing editor said little to me in the brief separation meeting. I try not to think about the possible politics or personal reasons that led to the decision, but it's not always easy to block out, especially as the job market worsens and various losses in my life pile up.

On a personal level, I was stunned by the lack of loyalty and empathy I felt as I was given the boot. My manager was someone I had broken bread with many times, had personal and professional conversations with. I was 51. He was about 10 years older than me. He had to know what being over 50 in a recession and coming from a dying business would mean for me. I thought, "why me and why not someone 25 years younger who had no particular attachment to USA Today or newspapering in general?" Why not someone who would have time to rebound when the job market improved? These were my prime earning years -- a gateway into retirement. Now I've shifted from thoughts of retirement to day-to-day survival mode. It's taken a toll on my spirit at times as I am sure millions of other laid off workers can relate to.

Layoffs can ruin lives as this unidentified protester's sign conveys, and I wonder if those making the decisions truly understand that. I don't believe layoffs are always just about business. I think it gets personal and petty at times. Far more people than me have been adversely impacted by my being laid off and by my extended period of unemployment. Trying to get back into a business which is struggling has been difficult. Trying to transition into another related field has been even more of a challenge as the unemployment rate worsens.

President Obama said yesterday that he "will not rest" until employers start hiring again. I sure hope that's true because as Thanksgiving approaches, it's getting real difficult for unemployed folks to feel thankful for much of anything other than perhaps their health and a few loved ones in their lives. Like for many people, unemployment is brand new to me. I worked 29 years without a break and turned down other jobs while at USA Today because I thought the national newspaper was a stable, somewhat-loyal employer. What I didn't see coming was that layoffs are not always driven by rationality or a sense of fairness. When GM stops making a certain truck model, a plant can close. It's not the fault of the workers, but at least they can understand the logic behind losing their jobs. No trucks, no plant, no jobs. I often wish I had that sort clarity.There is still a newspaper being produced 14 miles down the road from where I live. Still a lot of good people doing good work for a pretty vast audience. But it's getting hard living here, knowing I am no longer a part of that, and not quite grasping how I got to this point.

The quest this week is to try to find something to remain thankful for even in times where the future looks bleak. The challenge every day is to cling to some thread of hope that I can return to being a vibrant contributor to an employer that shares my values, ethics and workplace standards.

For millions of people like me, particularly those in their 50s and 60s who know that getting back into the workplace is extra difficult despite our experience and solid work ethics, these are some difficult weeks coming up. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's trigger many emotions. People take inventory at this time of year. Kind of assess where they are at in life. The holidays also coincide with when I was laid off, so there is that to contend with.

While 2009 was a time to try to make things work here by finding suitable employment in the D.C. area, 2010 might involve having to pack our bags. We are willing to go where the opportunities lie, but as of right now, I and many others are not sure where that is. Still, I am thankful things aren't worse and hope that by next Thanksgiving these struggles will be behind me and others who have been unemployed for the last year or longer.

Sunsets still worth seeing

We went to the National Harbor over the weekend to get away from the worries of my job search, finances, the recession and the general malaise of every day being more or less the same in the 'burbs of Loudoun County, Va. The harbor is just a few miles outside of Washington, D.C., on the Maryland side of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. It's a fairly new shopping/residential/entertainment area on the banks of the Potomac River. The massive atrium of the Gaylord Resort and Conference Center (pictured above, right) is the first thing to catch your eye as you cross the bridge. From inside, it's quite impressive. Parking is cheap, the scenery is nice and you can really stretch your legs walking along the clean streets and footpaths that wind through and beyond the harbor.

It was a fairly nice November day, with the temperatures hovering around 60 degrees. Yet, there weren't many people in the harbor. Stores were mostly empty. Some restaurants were about 50 percent full, but most had just a spattering of customers. This fairly new complex seemed to be in limbo, with many storefronts still unoccupied and parking lots barely a quarter full. Yet, what was in place and open for business was nice. The National Harbor is doable in an area of the country that is often impossible to deal with because of crowds and traffic -- far less cramped than Old Town Alexandria which lies on the other side of the bridge.

While we went to the harbor for a few hours of escape, thoughts of the recession came to mind with each empty store I saw. As I looked at the many condo buildings, I wondered how many units were unsold. I later investigated and found that as of mid-summer, 400 condos were vacant. In the D.C. area this would have been unheard of just a year or two ago.

There were billboards proclaiming Disney was coming to the harbor, but best I could tell that project is on hold, too. Apparently, Disney bought the land to build a resort right around the time the recession started.

If you look around, it's hard to not notice how much trouble our economy is in no matter where you go. Empty storefronts, undeveloped plots of land and abandoned homes are connected to real human beings who each have a story to tell. This is not some faceless catastrophe or just some problem that is a tax write-off for massive corporations like Disney. I am sure those jobs Disney would have created by breaking ground are needed in the harbor area. Yet, there are many people who prefer to live in denial about many things, including this recession and the lives that are being impacted in a very personal way.

As a side note, a small-business owner who I know recently shutdown her company for financial reasons. Not only did the recession hurt her sales, but many of her friends and acquaintances failed her in various ways through the five years she struggled to run her business. Since she announced the closing, only one friend expressed any kind of condolences. The support systems we sometimes think are in place turn out to be illusions when bad times arrive. I've certainly gotten to know more about people in my one year of unemployment than in my 29 years of working.

It was good to get away from Loudoun County for the day and to see something new, even if the harbor is only about 30 miles from where we live. We don't go far anymore as we try to save money, even on gas. Unfortunately, one can't run from the recession. You can't pretend away the afternoon.

Most of my days involve solitude and, of course, silence from most friends and former colleagues. So I have to force myself to get out now and then -- to see people and something other than the view from my den. I have to remind myself that last December was the end of a job, and perhaps a longtime journalism career, but not the end of life. I still have to continue to look for work no matter the odds or how unjust what happened to me at USA Today was by all accounts. I have to rub elbows with folks, even if in a mall or coffee shop. And while friends and former colleagues might continue to disappear, and storefronts could remain empty for a long time, there is still air to breathe and sunsets to enjoy from any vantage point.

A chance encounter

Ran into someone this morning from USA Today who got laid off from the newspaper at the same time I did last year. Neither of us previously knew the other had been laid off. We worked in different departments and only crossed paths on rare occasion in an office building that housed hundreds of employees. But seeing a familiar face today from the old stomping grounds was an unexpectedly positive experience.

He was at the paper for 23 years. I was there 13 years. He worked in production. I was an editor in the newsroom. But we were both part of the same overall "family." So when we saw each other in a coffee shop, it was like seeing fellow survivor of a plane crash on a deserted island a year after the wreck. You're just happy to see someone, anyone, alive.

We're both surviving but are without full-time jobs. Sadly, his house was foreclosed upon. I worry about the future every day, of course. Both of us agreed that we lost a part of our identities when we were removed from the family about a year ago. It's natural to feel a loss of more than just income when one loses a long-time job through no fault of their own. We know, in the dying newspaper field, resuming our careers is a long shot.

I think the brief coincidental encounter did both of us some good on another rainy Northern Virginia day. It reminded me that others were cutoff from their friends, livelihoods and identities on that December day in 2008. In some strange way, it was good to reconnect with a person who was in the same downed plane - to see another person on an island that often feels lifeless. From his expressions and body language, I think the feeling was mutual.

This is the real unemployment number. Yep, one in six Americans are out of work or are severely underemployed. Yet, the government wants the public to focus on the misleading 10.2% number it released on Friday - not that the lesser number is anything to feel good about. Read the whole truth here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/business/economy/07econ.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1257606205-mqGmdpcBD0gTILkBBxWlIg

And just to dispel the notion that it's easy to find a job in areas like Washington, D.C., take a look at this article. Even jobs at the mall are hard to come by. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AR2009110603958.html?hpid=newswell

However one wants to juggle statistics, there is no escaping the fact that most employers aren't hiring and some are getting ready for more layoffs. Those layoff victims from severely failing industries virtually have no hope of being rehired. Those wanting to transition to other careers have to get in line behind the folks who already have experience in those fields. After a certain age that just doesn't become a feasible wait.

While statistics show that those who are over 50 are less likely to lose their jobs than younger workers (probably due to the last-hired first fired protocol some businesses use), other stats indicate that if you are in the minority of older workers who get the boot, your chances of reentering the workplace are extremely poor. One article I read recently said that those who are 30something and in hiring positions don't like hiring their "parents."

In light of these facts, I can't help thinking about my layoff at USA Today last year and how it was particularly cruel. The search for viable work goes on, of course, but the odds are getting worse by the day according to the unemployment numbers, trends and the many first-hand tales being told by average Joes who have been looking for work longer than me.

More on the decline of USA TODAY

The Wall Street Journal is poised to move back into the No. 1 position of weekday newspapers, displacing USA TODAY. Some theorize the price increase is mainly responsible for the circulation decline at USA TODAY. However, as a former long-time employee, I don't believe the problems at USA TODAY can be blamed on just one thing. More about that in a future post.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/usmediaindustrynewspaperswsjusatoday

USA TODAY's circulation takes a major hit

USA TODAY, my former long-time employer, is facing some dismal news. According to an article in Editor & Publisher, the "nation's newspaper" will report circulation losses of 17 percent in the last six months. The actual number of newspapers: nearly 400,000 copies. To put that in perspective, that's more papers than the total circulation of many metropolitan daily publications.

For anyone who has worked in the newspaper business, you know these are staggering numbers, even in the age of readers migrating to digital platforms. They are particularly bad for the national paper because unlike many other newspapers, USA TODAY counts heavily on circulation for revenue. Other papers rely more on advertising.

E&P article: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004021019

Virginia close to ending the life of a monster

John Allen Muhammad is scheduled to be put to death on Nov. 10.

In 2002, Muhammad and a young accomplice terrorized Northern Virginia and Maryland for weeks, randomly shooting 13 people. Ten died. For those folks who were here at the time, you know the story all too well.

Muhammad was sentenced to the death penalty in 2003 for killing Dean H. Meyers near Manassas, Va. I was familiar with that particular shooting because I lived in Manassas for several years.

The entire D.C. metro region was on edge during the sniper attacks. People were being shot while pumping gas, walking across shopping center parking lots and so on. Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo positioned themselves in their car and blasted away at whomever was a convenient target. These were not racial crimes. Driving around and shooting folks was purely for sport for these two disturbed monsters. Malvo was sentenced to life in prison.

I remember many people began feeling less than at ease as they went about their business. Getting groceries was becoming an anxiety-filled task. Standing at a bus stop was scary. After-school activities were being canceled. The snipers got into everyone's head to some degree. My office building at USA TODAY was just up the road from one of the killings at a nearby Home Depot. I remember a sense of looking around more than usual as I came and went from the parking garage each day.

Now Muhammad is going to die either by lethal injection or the electric chair. His choice. If he chooses neither, state law requires he die by injection. His victims didn't have a choice. They each died from a bullet. No chance to say goodbye to family or friends. Gunned down just for kicks.

Monsters like Muhammad make it hard to be against the death penalty.

Every picture tells a story

I don't know a lot about this photograph. I found it on the Internet a few years ago.

I know that my grandfather, Anthony Calvacca, is the man pictured second from the right. He was the chief photographer of the New York Post, but is without his camera in this picture. I assume he's in the company of other newspaper folks and perhaps their spouses. Most everyone called him Tony.

Obviously, this group of people is on a boat or ferry, presumably somewhere around New York City. From the style of clothing and the apparent age of my grandfather, I am guessing this picture was taken in the late 50s or early 60s.

My grandfather, and later my father (a news cameraman for WNBC and WABC), were Big Apple-media guys, each with their own unique stories and colorful experiences.

My father, Michael Calvacca, was in Time magazine for getting in fight with another television station news crew during a union dispute. Another story for another day. He also came to the rescue of Mason Reese, while doing a story about the child actor. Reese evidently was being harassed on the street by a mean-spirited passerby. My father won an Emmy and was pretty highly regarded in New York City media circles. He was friends with on-camera personalities such as sportscaster Marv Albert. When he died, WABC aired a 90-second obit/dedication at the end of the evening newscast. That's a lot of air time to give to one of your own.

My grandfather was a newspaper guy in the grittiest, street-wise sense. His photographs often appeared on the front of the tabloid. He was fearless in making great images. He helped friends and relatives get into the business. It was an era when friends helped other deserving friends get a job.

I know a lot less about my grandfather's career, but I do remember that when he retired, Mayor Beame held a farewell dinner at City Hall for him. Not bad for a newspaper photographer without an education and who worked on a family farm in New Jersey early in his life.

My career in journalism has been a bit different. Less glamorous, among other things.

I entered the newspaper business about the time it was transitioning from sort of a blue-collar, rough-and-tumble industry, to a more corporate, college-educated profession. It was an adjustment for me because of what my first-hand view of what journalism was before the locker room mentality of newsrooms was cleaned up. During my time at newspapers, journalism became more corporate. Like in many other businesses, you got ahead by playing the game more than by what you knew or how hard you worked.

But there is one unfortunate thing I share with my father and grandfather. We all were laid off or forced to retire too early.

My father was laid off from WNBC after winning an Emmy. Television news reports were transitioning from film to video tape in the 70s. There was no longer a need for the artful cameramen who documented news stories in the field in a similar manner to the way classic movies were filmed. Any schmuck with a video camera could create images by simply pointing a camera at a burning building or any other news event. And they could do it for far less money than the film craftsmen. Of course, the creativity and quality of video tape couldn't compete with film. But film itself was far too expensive. Tape was a bargain. Plus, the bean counters calculated that the average TV newscast viewer probably didn't care about quality. Our culture was quickly moving to a fast-food mentality across the board. You saw it in music, movies and even the nightly newscasts.

Fast forward to 2009 and look at all the video on so-called news web sites. The quality and composition is horrible, yet everyone within the industry runs around patting themselves on the backs like they are all a bunch of Frederico Fellini proteges. There isn't anything artful or even journalistic about most amateur video streaming online.

So while the technology improves, the creative capabilities continue to get watered down. Maybe one day the art of visual journalism will return, but for now, we're stuck with "citizen journalists" with camera phones because someone in power has determined that that is what will make their web sites profitable. Those who once aspired to be National Geographic photographers probably should look into wedding photography gigs.

My grandfather was pushed into retirement, not because he couldn't make compelling pictures anymore, but because he was no longer the future. I don't recall how old he was at the end, but I sure know he didn't want to call it quits. I remember stories about the dishonorable tactics the new owners of the New York Post used to get rid of anyone over a certain age. Despite my grandfather's unbelievable work ethics and dedication, not to mention ability to make pictures that helped put the Post on top back in the day, he was sent packing.

I see my grandfather in this black and white picture, on top of the world, and rubbing elbows with New York City's movers and shakers. I don't know the exact context of the picture, but I do know what it feels like to have the respect of others in your field. I see respect in that photograph.

USA TODAY let me go at age 51. As I outlined in an August posting, the circumstances of my being laid off stunk and involved more than just age. I am in a fairly profound jam as a result of one or two trivial-minded people making irrational decisions at a time when it's not good to be without a job. I turn 52 later this month. I don't feel that old because I am still very much involved in everything from new technologies to blasting away on my Stratocaster guitar through my Marshall amplifier. But those are hobbies, not a career.

Predictions of employment continuing to climb are reported almost daily. The newspaper business is in trouble and other businesses aren't doing much better. I, like so many other Americans, am just fighting to survive one day at a time, hoping that someone will see the many benefits I could bring to their business.

When I say survive, I do literally mean survive.

My grandfather died a short time after he was forced into retirement. He once told me, with a certain resignation in his voice, that there is only so much golf he could play. In my case, there is only so much blogging I can do or rock bands I can form or join.

My father got cancer a couple years after his layoff and died in his 50s. His passion was golf, much like my grandfather's. It wasn't enough to keep him healthy during his period of unemployment.

You can imagine some of the thoughts that run through my mind as I try to get back into the workplace. But when I look at that photograph, I come to realize something else. Nothing lasts forever. Our time on this planet is very short. Our time on top of our careers is even shorter. The concept of fairness in the workplace is as obsolete as film in a news camera. There is no rule that says just because I went to college, had an outstanding track record during my career, that I can't end up living on the streets in five or 10 years.

Yes, 50something is too young to not be working. I have so much to offer now that I didn't when I was in my 20s or 30s. Seasoning, perspective, a mountain of skills and life experience to name a few. Assets that could help any company make money. Trying to convince employers of that is quite a challenge these days. When I was in my 20s and 30s, and didn't have much versatility, all I needed to do to find work was send out a few resumes. Boy, what an upside-down world.

I don't want to give up on journalism quite yet, even though some say I should. It's hard to walk away from something that has been in your blood. I don't like the trends I see in journalism, but rather than criticize them in a blog, I would prefer to be part of the solution in a job. Whether I get another shot or not remains as big a mystery as that photograph of my grandfather.

Old desk ornament with new meaning

A former colleague of mine gave me a magnet several years ago with a quotation on it. It's one of the few things I collected from my desk and brought home with me after being laid off at USA TODAY.

"If you're going through Hell, keep going ..."
- Winston Churchill