You People Don't Know From Sweat Shops
It probably won’t tug too hard at the heartstrings of anyone who works in finance, but apparently the turnover rate at Forbes.com is astounding. Same thing in your line of work, right? Right. But do people leave their finance posts not long after they’ve started because of “sweat shop” conditions? (No one from Pirate Capital answer that. Or any first-years. Or Bear Stearns employees). The Observer reporters that at least 50 editorial departures have taken place since early 2005. The main source of trouble in paradise? Pressure over page views (although management claims its because they “have a big target on their backs…we’re the first place that our competitors come to poach.”). It’s apparently taken over the integrity of the (online) publication! We hate to see the Forbeteers beating themselves up over this so we thought we’d offer some tricks for getting some hits:
- Two words: Dick Fuld. Two more words: Body Butter.
- Bring back PC World’s “20th Worst Tech Product of All Time”: the CueCat.
- Quant Centerfolds (yes, James Simons, yes)
- More “In the Pictures” (i.e. content for the illiterate segment of your audience).
- As one former Forbes.com staffer suggested, "Everyone should do the poor staff a favor and go click some headlines today – if you can find any amongst the pop-ups, page takeovers and AP wire stories."
Good luck!
Comments
is the cuecat thing real?
Posted by: Anonymous | May 16, 2007 05:07 PM
As a Forbes.com alumnus I can verify that yes, the CueCat was very real.
Posted by: David Minkin | May 16, 2007 05:19 PM
Two words: Dick Fuld. Two more words: Body Butter.
I just spit out coffee all over my desk.
Posted by: Ruthless Gravity | May 16, 2007 05:25 PM
Freakin' hilarious.
Many techies would hoard the cuecats to hack 'em.
http://cexx.org/cuecat.htm
Posted by: F. | May 16, 2007 05:35 PM
Just goes to reinforce our common opinion that journalists are ignorant, idiotic slackers who have no idea of the meaning of the words that they use. "Oh no! We can be held accountable for what we do, rather than just writing whatever crap we want and making a constitutional case out of any attempt to make the business work!"
Welcome to the real world kids. Your productivity can and will be tracked and you better suck it up, cause in a few months it won't just be Forbes doing this.
My laptop got stolen and th replacement that IT gave me has a weird keyboard. This is apparently the "new standard", so I'm dropping letters at radom until I learn to use it or get back to my actual desk and can use a real keyboard.
Posted by: Bulging Bracket | May 16, 2007 06:20 PM
There is one huge reason why the turnover is so huge among staff members in general. Its simply that forbes.com does not pay well! they may exploit their editorial staff but I used to work there and alhough its a great place to start you r career and learn, its simply a job you can only afford to have if your parents are still claiming you as a dependent on their 1040EZ. for the position i worked in i was underpaid to industry standards by about 15k i barely could afford to pay my rent and bills and was constantly on late notices, but nice parties though.
Posted by: Bradley Brentworth Bailey | May 23, 2007 01:35 PM
There is one huge reason why the turnover is so huge among staff members in general. Its simply that forbes.com does not pay well! they may exploit their editorial staff but I used to work there and alhough its a great place to start you r career and learn, its simply a job you can only afford to have if your parents are still claiming you as a dependent on their 1040EZ. for the position i worked in i was underpaid to industry standards by about 15k i barely could afford to pay my rent and bills and was constantly on late notices, but nice parties though.
Posted by: Bradley Brentworth Bailey | May 23, 2007 01:37 PM