Work In Progress

Out of Work in Progress: my final post

lisacullen — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 23:57:07 +0000

In the summer of 2006, I went to my boss, TIME managing editor Rick Stengel, with a pitch. "I want to cover the workplace," I said. "I want to write about cubicle psychology and office etiquette and working parenthood. And I want to write about it in a blog." Blogs were brand new in the olden [...]

10 things I'll miss about my job

lisacullen — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:29:14 +0000

1. Morning meeting smackdowns, nerd style. ("In my admittedly jaundiced opinion..." "It's hard to fathom..." "Of course, you're familiar with the Cartesian argument...") 2. Plastic cups of red table wine at closing night dinner. 3. Two-month deadlines. 4. Time Inc. office gossip. Juicy, juicy stuff. 5. My corporate Amex. Oh, how I'll miss you, little green plastic friend. 6. Hanging [...]

How I decided to vamoose

lisacullen — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 17:18:07 +0000

These last couple of weeks were pretty intense. Ever since my managing editor at TIME announced an open invitation for buyout volunteers, I've been a whirling dervish of pre-unemployment. What do I mean by that? I mean that no one in the history of buyouts has more thoroughly considered and weighed and analyzed and lost [...]

The floor is sticky with blood

lisacullen — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:04:25 +0000

The newsroom is not a pretty place — and by newsroom, I mean the imaginary one we work in at TIME, which is actually a collection of flourescent-lit offices with about as much Hollywood panache as, well, a collection of flourescent-lit offices. We reporters are not a queasy people — and by reporters I mean [...]

Why I'm volunteering for a buyout in this cruddy economy

lisacullen — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:38:49 +0000

From the tone and subject of my posts over the past couple of weeks, you may have guessed this was coming. Yep: I'm sacking myself. What kind of brainless ninny would volunteer for unemployment in an economy so crappy we've run out of hyperbolic adjectives? If my mother were alive, she'd ask the same thing. Or, [...]

Journalist, this is your future

lisacullen — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:39:54 +0000

A few reports from the front lines of the battle for journalism's future (yes, it's a hardship post, deserving of three weeks' R&R in Phuket): No journalist who works on staff anywhere is safe—including those at successful dot-coms. The kids over at Gawker who usually report on media layoffs are wincing from their own. That said, [...]

Did Tina Fey's scar affect her career?

lisacullen — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:15:59 +0000

You've doubtless heard all the buzz about the January Vanity Fair cover flaunting Tina Fey, as photographed by Annie Liebowitz and profiled by Maureen Dowd. (Talk about a PR juggernaut over there at Condé...and how come Tina hasn't graced the cover of TIME yet, I ask you? The Sarah Palin cover doesn't count.) One nugget the [...]

Don't toss out the brand with the bathwater

lisacullen — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:02:59 +0000

Sometimes, when I tell young people where I work, I add a little explainer. "TIME. It's a magazine. Sold on newsstands. It's got a red border. No, not the Times. No, not Newsweek, you little cretin. TIME." Turns out I was wasting my breath. A new survey by Anderson Analytics finds that TIME is among the [...]

The memo can wait. It's Cyber Monday!

lisacullen — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:24:39 +0000

Today is a big shopping day for office workers as we put our deadlines aside, crack our knuckles and start clicking on online holiday sales. Reports CNN.com, "Cyber Monday," the first weekday after Thanksgiving, usually sees the first spike in online spending habits for the holiday season. That's in part because people are shopping from work, [...]

Would you prefer a layoff or a demotion?

lisacullen — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:59:01 +0000

Editor & Publisher reports: When a newspaper cuts its staff, those who remain in the depleted newsroom become valuable. But as The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. slowly says farewell to 151 newsroom folks who took buyouts last month, at least two longtime journalists have been reassigned to the mailroom. That's right. The reporters were considered so valuable [...]