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What do you vets think of what happened
Hi I’m not sure if this is the correct forum for this but something happened to me recently and I wanted the opinion of the Cow’s Vets. I’m changing some of the details to keep the companies anonyms. For 5 years I had been an editor at one of the biggest broadcast networks. I would say most people watch it daily. I recently left for a local tv editing job in a big market. After 6 weeks I was fired for performance. This might lead you to believe I’m not very good at my job but I can assure you I was a top editor at the job I left. The company who fired me never provided any training for their main edit system (a very primitive system not in production anymore). Their secondary system was final cut which I know very well however they almost never used it so no one knew how to patch the system to be able to use it. When I was told to use final cut I spent more time trying to patch it the actually using it. No standard operating procedures were given to me such what nats and sots should peak at. What to do with sd bumps vs sd vos. Do I blow them up or does one get blurrybars the other pillar bars? No naming convention when publishing clips. I never even felt comfortable with the schedule because it would be taken down for days at a time. So after getting in trouble for things like 7 frames between 2 sots and improper audio levels what got me fired was I moved over a clip for air that was wrong because it had the same name as a different clip from earlier in the day (poor naming convention). So they let me go and told me I wasn’t ready for the big time and an operation this big! I couldn’t believe that because I come from a very high end network with 100’s of editors and 100’s of producers and control room personnel. Have any of you vets heard of this sort of thing happening?
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3 Replies
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Have I seen this before? This exact situation, no, but something similar.
There are ‘houses’ that think they are to busy to do it right the first time, or that having a standards convention is a waste of time. Me, I lean the other way and prefer things to be organized as a way to get more done. But there are as many ways as there are facilities, with no two alike. Even in large market group ownership situations there can be huge differences in the station work flow(or lack thereof) between facilities.
Not to put the blame on you, or defend this type of thing…but this shows that during an interview, you need to interview the employer as well as being interviewed. I hopes others can learn from this.Scott Sheriff
SST Digital Media
Multi-Camera Director, VFX and Post ProductionThe Affordable Camera Dolly is your just right solution!
“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
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There are always goiing to be these places out there, naming conventions and a cast iron database are the heart of a broadcast facility. learn from it, put it behind you and as has been said, you kind of have to interview them as much as them you.
Old editors never die, we simply fade to black
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Gee, I dunno. FOX news keeps making whopping errors on things like lower-thirds, identifying (R)’s as (D)’s when its a negative story (strangely, never the other way around) and calling it a “simple error”. Yet nobody there ever seems to get fired for it, though their boss says it was policy to do so.
I think in your case its more likely that they decided they had someone else they liked better for the job (or who would work cheaper) and cooked up an excuse to dump you before you got “vested” or passed the “probationary period”, after which it becomes harder to dismiss for cause. And sometimes people just don’t mesh with an established group. It is important to objectively document everything that’s going on when the work environment starts to go sour, and to try to find corroborating testimony or proof, otherwise, it’s just “he said/she said”, whenever there’s a disagreement, and management will always back management.
The background you give regarding their tech setup suggests to me that you’ve probably dodged a bullet, though it doesn’t give much comfort right now. If you’re good as you say, I think you will land on your feet. Best of luck on the search.
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