The turnover was insane when I was here. I started in May 2006, by August I was the most senior person on my team (there were only two people left on the entire team!). Everyone left cause my boss was horrible. He was quickly demoted then fired for being so awful and to this day I struggle to provide potential employers with the contact information for a supervisor from the Post since it was such a mess.
I worked the night shift, and the day shift supervisor became our interim manager, but she didn't work at night and she wound up quitting a few months later. Then we had a series of day-shift people alternate taking the helms a few nights a week, and they weren't very happy about it.
It was ridiculous, I had been here only a few months and was pretty much on my own deciding what to feature on the HOMEPAGE seen by thousands (millions?) of people. On Saturday nights when I tried to call people with questions they were typically out drinking; on weeknights they were in bed and angry that I woke them up.
I constantly requested a move to the day shift due to health issues (and that the night team was such a horrible place, I'll get to that more later) and applied for more than a dozen day-shift positions, but every time I was told "But you're so good on the night team! We NEED you there!" That's a great way to treat your employees, punish them for doing a good job. One time they gave a day-side position that I applied for to an intern and I was told it was because she had never worked the night shift and I was so good at it. Yes I took the job knowing I'd have to work nights, but I was also lied to in my interview. My boss said I'd have either Friday or Saturday nights off. I wound up with Mondays and Tuesdays off. How can I meet people or see my out-of-town friends and family working every weekend?!
They could not care less that I had a note from my doctor about how the night shift was causing me all these problems. The HR department was a joke.
Working for the Web site and on the night team was a double blow in terms of lack of appreciation. The people at the newspaper considered everyone at the website to just be button-pushers (not real journalists) and the day-side people treated us like seat-fillers, just keeping their chairs warm while they were in bed or out partying. If we ever made any kind of editorial decision overnight (which we had to do since we had no supervisors and no one wanted us calling them in the middle of the night!), then we were greeted with very mean, insulting e-mails the next morning reminding us that we aren't important enough to make such decisions. Because we rarely saw these people in person, they had no problem treating us so badly, especially the paper people, we were just voices on the other end of the phone to them.
Working at the Post made me a bitter, negative person. It was such a toxic environment and it's taken years for me to shed that bitterness in my inner-office communications. I just got into such a habit of receiving and writing mean e-mails during my two and a half years there. I would never EVER work there again and would never recommend the Post to anyone.
