Bureaucracy lays atop the organization like a frozen snow.

June 3, 2015 7:27 AM

HuffPost would rather not fire people, since that often comes with severance, so it torments them into leaving whenever possible. One editor was barred from all but slideshow management because she accidentally crossed a friend of Arianna’s. Others have been stripped of all responsibility, with reporters or staffers they oversee reassigned. Another favored tactic is for people to be suddenly told that they are miserable failures and given stringent story quotas and harsh warnings. The ending is almost always the same. Driven mad, people flee.

Hell Is Working at the Huffington Post
posted by griphus (27 comments total)

They forgot to include the bit about how working for HuffPo's direct competitor Gawker Media means rainbows and unicorns, candy for breakfast, and magical elves sing you to sleep every night.
posted by Wretch729 at 7:36 AM on June 3, 2015 [25 favorites]

From the comments:

Still not convinced? I was there when they brought in a former assistant to Hunter S. Fucking Thompson on a provisional basis (everyone was provisional). She lasted two weeks.
posted by almostmanda at 7:38 AM on June 3, 2015 [11 favorites]

Well, since you mention it:

Gawker: How We're Voting on the Union, and Why
posted by box at 7:38 AM on June 3, 2015 [5 favorites]

Maybe the folks who helped organize the Gawker unionization drive (which they are slated to vote on tomorrow) need to be looking at HuffPo.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:39 AM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Not that I'm defending horrible HuffPo, it's just always a little off-putting (if unsurprising) to see a media company publishing a hatchet job on their direct competitors. Does the NYT publish editorials about how terrible the NY Post is? I mean they wouldn't be wrong but...
posted by Wretch729 at 7:42 AM on June 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

According to former Gawker editor Choire Sicha: Gawker Media majority owner Nick Denton doesn’t oppose the union at all—it appeals to his trouble-making streak, and he thinks it’ll have interesting ripple effects towards places like Vice.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:49 AM on June 3, 2015 [4 favorites]

It's okay to punch up, Wretch729.
posted by notyou at 7:49 AM on June 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

Does the NYT publish editorials about how terrible the NY Post is? I mean they wouldn't be wrong but...

I think this would be more like the the Post gleefully knocking the Daily News.
posted by griphus at 7:55 AM on June 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

Don't you guys have laws about Constructive Dismissal?
posted by Francis at 7:56 AM on June 3, 2015 [5 favorites]

You may have a point there griphus.
posted by Wretch729 at 8:14 AM on June 3, 2015

Does the NYT publish editorials about how terrible the NY Post is?

No, they mostly just post editorials about how terrible everyone but their editorial staff is.
posted by Fizz at 8:16 AM on June 3, 2015 [4 favorites]

Not that I'm defending horrible HuffPo, it's just always a little off-putting (if unsurprising) to see a media company publishing a hatchet job on their direct competitors. Does the NYT publish editorials about how terrible the NY Post is? I mean they wouldn't be wrong but...

Hatchet jobs about competitors are par for the course for Gawker. They had a pretty huge one about Al Jazeera America a couple weeks back, and whenever they can report anything at all negative about Vice or Buzzfeed, they rip in to it with the gleeful abandon of an unpopular ten-year-old tattling on a better-liked kid to the teacher.
posted by Itaxpica at 8:23 AM on June 3, 2015 [4 favorites]

Francis: "Don't you guys have laws about Constructive Dismissal?"

In HuffPoWorld, this is Arianna saying "maybe if you lost some weight you might find a job faster?" in the exit interview.

Seriously though, I don't know how constructive dismissal interacts with right to work.
posted by boo_radley at 8:35 AM on June 3, 2015

Yeah, seriously. In Canada this sort of behaviour would lead to lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit. It's flat-out illegal to make someone's working conditions so undesirable that they have no choice but to quit. I mean yeah there are grey areas obvs and a lawyer can explain those bc I can't; to a first approximation though, all of these would be grounds for going to the Labour Board.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:38 AM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oops shoulda previewed

Seriously though, I don't know how constructive dismissal interacts with right to work.

Right to work is such an Orwellian phrase. It really means right-to-be-fired.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:39 AM on June 3, 2015 [9 favorites]

I thought Hell was reading the Huffington Post, but I now see that working there qualifies, too.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:52 AM on June 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

You had me at Hell Is Working. Unions are on the decline, the Right has invaded government, employers feel free to treat employees like absolute crap. Every place I've worked for the last 20 years is always re-organizing, so the threat of layoff is always hanging there. It's rotten for morale and productivity.
posted by theora55 at 9:00 AM on June 3, 2015 [8 favorites]

If anyone doubts the veracity of this article - does anyone? - just look at the site. Or don't, which is always my choice when I see a HuffPo link. The place is, as far as I can tell, an irrelevancy to anyone not connected with it or its competition.

But, like a good hack, I went to check before writing this.

My god.

I have never looked at What's Working... my GOD.

BRB - taking a shower.
posted by Devonian at 9:00 AM on June 3, 2015

The tech/consulting company I used to work at used to do this. In addition to severance, I think it has to do with chargeback liability to the employer for state unemployment benefits.. They used to layoff small divisions and do that bullshit culling of the "low performing" employees(bottom 10%) so driving people out I think them saved quite a bit of money. I hope some more knowledgeable than I on the accounting issues could comment.
posted by roguewraith at 9:17 AM on June 3, 2015

Right to Work is the government saying, "OK we fixed everything wrong with being employed so you shouldn't need those nasty unions anymore." The problem is they've had the success rate the government enjoys whenever it sets out to fix anything important.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:06 AM on June 3, 2015

There's so many things wrong with that statement, I don't even know where to start.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:31 AM on June 3, 2015 [4 favorites]

In 1947 Congress passed the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, generally known as the Taft–Hartley Act, over President Harry S. Truman's veto. It repealed some parts of the Wagner Act, including outlawing the closed shop. Section 14(b) of the act also authorizes individual states (but not local governments, such as cities or counties) to outlaw the union shop and agency shop for employees working in their jurisdictions. Any state law that outlaws such arrangements is known as a "right-to-work law".

Right to Work is simply another piece of the Death by a Thousand Cuts rollback of the New Deal that's been happening ever since FDR took his last breath in office.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:59 AM on June 3, 2015 [11 favorites]

This was, of course, a complete lie. Jimmy was literally never seen or heard from—or even mentioned out loud—after that.

The Cask of HuffPotillado.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:52 PM on June 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is definitely one article where you can read the comments, which actually, unbelievably, serve as a useful resource to echo and reenforce the allegations put forth in the article.
posted by nevercalm at 1:06 PM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's flat-out illegal to make someone's working conditions so undesirable that they have no choice but to quit.

That would require a hell of a paper trail, though, wouldn't it? I'm sure the management / HR could get away with "they weren't being singled out, they were just receiving coaching about their job performance", and similar platitudes.
posted by theorique at 2:13 PM on June 3, 2015

If things like constructive dismissal can't be worked out within a company in the UK, you can go to a tribunal, where evidence is heard and a decision reached. If the company can produce evidence that the employee was being treated fairly, then they'll win, but if the employee can show evidence of unfairness, they'll win. If you've received favourable reviews/awards for years and suddenly you're out with no obvious reason, then that's good evidence; likewise if the reasons given for your dismissal can't be backed up.

As many companies are risk-averse and have haphazard HR, it often boils down to who blinks first. It's no substitute for a humane working environment, but it is something.
posted by Devonian at 4:32 PM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's not flat-out illegal in the US. You can be as big an asshole as you choose, as long as it's not based on a protected category. Ain't it grand?
posted by theora55 at 9:30 AM on June 4, 2015