Everybody's got their box, doing what they're told
So. The NUJ Chapel at Newsquest York is striking for five days from today (Thursday) to Monday. The NUJ is the National Union of Journalists, and basically, half of our editorial staff are on strike for fairer pay right now (they've been offered a 3% pay rise but argue this is a real terms pay cut of 1.2% as inflation is at 4.2%), spending their time outside the building BEING the news, instead of writing the news.
Now, this is fair enough. Everybody throughout the company gets paid absolutely bugger all in the greater scheme of things. And yet Newsquest is part of Gannett, the multi billion dollar company who own USA Today, amongst other things. It's not like they couldn't afford to give a more substantial pay rise.
It means our paper has very little content in it for the next few days, all put together by the people not in the Union. So today I went in early so that I could find somebody to cross the picket line with. I'll admit I was a little scared. Thankfully they were picketing literally outside the front of the building, not blocking the staff entrance so Vicky and I just walked straight through, they weren't bothered at all. It was fairly peaceful, actually. There was amusement occasionally when people would honk and a cheer would go up.
Anyway, sitting inside the building today listening to this all going on gave me goosebumps and brought back a lot of memories. Memories of Mutant Enemy Day. There were between 25 and 50 people standing outside our building at any one time today, with journalists, council members and TV cameras, supporting the striking workers. On December 7th last year, onmycrew and I were doing exactly the same thing - but on a much larger scale.
That was a day that I don't think I will ever forget, and yet because of the craziness of the day and the events around it (we got back to the hotel late at night and had to be up crazy early for flights the next day) I never actually blogged about the day itself.
It was a day of awesomeness. A day that began at 4.30 in the morning, with a Greyhound from San Diego to LA, and ended with this:
Today, reading the NUJYork blog, I spotted this:
"Picketing is hungry work. But we we've been replenished throughout the day by two friends of the union. One delivered a batch of 25 muffins and doughnuts for elevenses. Then a supporter in Newsquest York's advertising department brought us four pizzas donated by Dillons Bridge Fisheries, in Burton Stone Lane, in Clifton, York. There was further solidarity from fellow workers. One department brought out two boxes of Heroes chocolates, while another good friend in advertising supplies sausage rolls. Thank you all for the solidarity."
And you know what that served to do (other than want pizza)? Make me go "Yeah, but you didn't get Krispy Kremes from Sarah Michelle Gellar, did you? No. I win!"
So I thought I should get something down in writing, before (despite my earlier statement) this becomes a day I actually have forgotten.
Very, very early in the morning, at around 4.30, Shirley and I dragged our asses out of our beds in the incredibly comfortable and way too expensive for us at the normal, non-convention rate Courtyard Marriott in Downtown San Diego. This is after we didn't get to bed anywhere near as early as we had planned, thanks to TV and internet based distractions (yes, we did go down to the lobby of the fancy hotel in our pyjamas. More than once. What of it?).
We got to the Greyhound place (luckily just a couple of blocks away) for 5am - our bus left at 6 and we'd been told to arrive an hour before. We thought that was probably excessive but we didn't want to risk anything. So we got there. Showed our tickets. And sat. And sat, and sat, and sat some more. Just before six, Sue and Tom arrived - I'd spoken to Sue on the Browncoat Cruise board beforehand, and though we hadn't managed to meet up on the Cruise, we were sharing a taxi once we got off the bus in LA.
We boarded, we got seats, we left on time, and I went to sleep the entire way. I don't think Shirley slept the whole time like I did, but I'm the Queen of sleeping on public transport. Just before 9, we got off (though we weren't exactly sure we were in the right place, thank god we were!) and all four of us piled into a cab to the park across from the Fox Studios on Pico.
When we arrived, we were obviously in the right place. We were given name tags, and I saw jenskijen. I showed her Michelangelo and his little sign. Jen took a photo (as did a fair few other people!).
Then a guy with a video camera accosted me and asked me stuff about why Michelangelo supported the writers. I talked bollocks but I think I came off okay!
Me, Michelangelo and Shirley make an appearance around 1.15. :D
Once it got to 10am, we headed over to the studio. When we were moving back into the car park area, snoopypez came over and asked Shirley if she was Shirley, and so we became a group of three for the day. When we got over to the studio, we picked up placards and labels (_______ fans support the writers), and wrote on them. I wrote "British" on mine, Shirley wrote "TV" on hers. There were signin sheets, too. And I signed in underneath (and therefore right after) Brian K Vaughn, which I knew at least somebody would find cool even though I don't do comics.
Joss was there, and Morena (in her favourite grey coat) was there too. We started to walk. And walk, and walk some more. The walking area kept being extended because there wasn't enough room for us all to walk without a bottleneck. That never really got resolved because there was around 400 people there for the majority of the time. The celebs came and went, Juliet Landau was there most of the day, Amy Acker, Eliza, J, Nathan, Summer, Felicia Day and loads of others were around. We mostly left them to themselves, they all seemed to want to catch up with each other (Amy Acker's new short hair was seriously cute!) and I wasn't going to interrupt that for photos. It kind of wasn't the point of the day. So we just kept on chatting and walking, and the four hours actually went kind of slowly.
We only stopped once, to go get a drink and a donut (the aforementioned Sarah Michelle Gellar donuts), and when we came back across to rejoin the masses, we took a minute to take a few photos from the sidelines before launching back into it. We walked right through until 2pm, all three of us - I was surprised not to kill myself on the pipe sticking out of the ground, because it was really dangerous and while most times I remembered to step over it, occasionally I would see it, and go "I didn't step over it the last time! I could have killed myself on it!"
(Photo by danregal)
It had been really raining when we left the hotel in San Diego, so the fact that the sun was out most of the time in LA was a great joy to us! I even managed to ditch my sweatshirt on the pile of clothes that became the turning point for the bottom end of the picket.
A guy from the Writer's Association talked to me because he saw the "British" on my sign, he made some notes. We all talked to Jen's video camera, and Jen accosted me to speak to somebody else because I was from England, though I don't remember who now!
And then the picket part of the day came to an end. Joss made a speech with a megaphone, which we couldn't hear at the time, and then we dumped our signs and all headed to the park, sometime during which we lost snoopypez.
By the time we sat down, Shirley and I were agreed that our legs would never work again. When it came to time to stand up later, we realised exactly how much pain we were in. We basically just picked a bench and sat there, not moving. We saw Joss standing over at the other side of the picnic area talking to people, but as well as the not wanting to stand up thing, we also didn't want to be weird and pushy. The main aim of the day was to get a photo of Joss with Michelangelo.
We were sitting sleepily, chatting about nothing, when suddenly Joss was beside us. How he'd crossed the entire area in a fairly short amount of time without being accosted over and over, I have no clue. And nobody was talking to him, he was just standing there, taking it all in.
So I said "Jooooooooooooooooooss..." in such a tired whiny voice, like I knew him personally or something. The tiredness is to blame for my confidence, totally. He went "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees?" and stepped the two steps towards our table. I said "Can I take a picture of you with our Ninja Turtle?" and showed him Michelangelo's sign. He said "Sure!" though I think he was slightly confused, bless him, and then asked where he needed to hold Michelangelo so they they were both in focus. Bless him!
So then we asked about his lurgy, and we talked about flem, which is always nice. I told him I had to go back to work on Monday in England (this being Friday in LA) and if he wanted to give me any lurgy, he should go right ahead, I'd appreciate it. He lunged towards me slightly with a jokey look on his face and said "There's only one way to make sure of that!" then laughed, apologised, and made a joke about my "come hither glasses". Which I didn't actually catch until later when Shirley said "Did Joss say you had come hither glasses?!" and it dawned on me. I was like "Yes! Yes I think he did!"
I told him gossi would have come, but he spent the flight money on an iPhone. Joss said he was a smart boy, and that he would have got an iPhone too given the choice, because right now he had a phone that didn't ring, and sent him messages he already had, and had alarms that went off two days late.
And then he was accosted by some people, and we went back to our sitting and chatting.
After a little mingling (with the pain! The leg pain! Oh, the pain!) we managed to get some directions back to the Greyhound depot (smart me didn't bring a cab number or any directions) and a lovely girl said she'd give us a ride. We decided that we would be really really stupid if we didn't get pictures of US with Joss instead of just Michelangelo, which was our original plan. We would really have regretted that. A lot. And since he was standing with people happily posing, we got in the semi-line and jumped in for a joint one, because that would be easier. I love my picture of me and Shirley with Joss. Best picture ever.
We took one for our new friend with him, too, and then I said a few goodbyes, and we left. We got a bit lost, because we were reversing directions FROM the Greyhound place and she didn't know that part of town so well, but we found it, and in heaps of time for the bus before the one we were booked onto, which they let us switch to with no problems.
We got back to the hotel around 8pm, packed, watched what if I recall correctly was Agent Cody Banks on the TV, and then went to bed. We woke up the next morning unable to walk, but it was completely worth it.
As was the time spent writing this all down, because it's something I don't ever want to forget.
Now, this is fair enough. Everybody throughout the company gets paid absolutely bugger all in the greater scheme of things. And yet Newsquest is part of Gannett, the multi billion dollar company who own USA Today, amongst other things. It's not like they couldn't afford to give a more substantial pay rise.
It means our paper has very little content in it for the next few days, all put together by the people not in the Union. So today I went in early so that I could find somebody to cross the picket line with. I'll admit I was a little scared. Thankfully they were picketing literally outside the front of the building, not blocking the staff entrance so Vicky and I just walked straight through, they weren't bothered at all. It was fairly peaceful, actually. There was amusement occasionally when people would honk and a cheer would go up.
Anyway, sitting inside the building today listening to this all going on gave me goosebumps and brought back a lot of memories. Memories of Mutant Enemy Day. There were between 25 and 50 people standing outside our building at any one time today, with journalists, council members and TV cameras, supporting the striking workers. On December 7th last year, onmycrew and I were doing exactly the same thing - but on a much larger scale.
That was a day that I don't think I will ever forget, and yet because of the craziness of the day and the events around it (we got back to the hotel late at night and had to be up crazy early for flights the next day) I never actually blogged about the day itself.
It was a day of awesomeness. A day that began at 4.30 in the morning, with a Greyhound from San Diego to LA, and ended with this:
Today, reading the NUJYork blog, I spotted this:
"Picketing is hungry work. But we we've been replenished throughout the day by two friends of the union. One delivered a batch of 25 muffins and doughnuts for elevenses. Then a supporter in Newsquest York's advertising department brought us four pizzas donated by Dillons Bridge Fisheries, in Burton Stone Lane, in Clifton, York. There was further solidarity from fellow workers. One department brought out two boxes of Heroes chocolates, while another good friend in advertising supplies sausage rolls. Thank you all for the solidarity."
And you know what that served to do (other than want pizza)? Make me go "Yeah, but you didn't get Krispy Kremes from Sarah Michelle Gellar, did you? No. I win!"
So I thought I should get something down in writing, before (despite my earlier statement) this becomes a day I actually have forgotten.
Very, very early in the morning, at around 4.30, Shirley and I dragged our asses out of our beds in the incredibly comfortable and way too expensive for us at the normal, non-convention rate Courtyard Marriott in Downtown San Diego. This is after we didn't get to bed anywhere near as early as we had planned, thanks to TV and internet based distractions (yes, we did go down to the lobby of the fancy hotel in our pyjamas. More than once. What of it?).
We got to the Greyhound place (luckily just a couple of blocks away) for 5am - our bus left at 6 and we'd been told to arrive an hour before. We thought that was probably excessive but we didn't want to risk anything. So we got there. Showed our tickets. And sat. And sat, and sat, and sat some more. Just before six, Sue and Tom arrived - I'd spoken to Sue on the Browncoat Cruise board beforehand, and though we hadn't managed to meet up on the Cruise, we were sharing a taxi once we got off the bus in LA.
We boarded, we got seats, we left on time, and I went to sleep the entire way. I don't think Shirley slept the whole time like I did, but I'm the Queen of sleeping on public transport. Just before 9, we got off (though we weren't exactly sure we were in the right place, thank god we were!) and all four of us piled into a cab to the park across from the Fox Studios on Pico.
When we arrived, we were obviously in the right place. We were given name tags, and I saw jenskijen. I showed her Michelangelo and his little sign. Jen took a photo (as did a fair few other people!).
Then a guy with a video camera accosted me and asked me stuff about why Michelangelo supported the writers. I talked bollocks but I think I came off okay!
Click to viewMe, Michelangelo and Shirley make an appearance around 1.15. :D
Once it got to 10am, we headed over to the studio. When we were moving back into the car park area, snoopypez came over and asked Shirley if she was Shirley, and so we became a group of three for the day. When we got over to the studio, we picked up placards and labels (_______ fans support the writers), and wrote on them. I wrote "British" on mine, Shirley wrote "TV" on hers. There were signin sheets, too. And I signed in underneath (and therefore right after) Brian K Vaughn, which I knew at least somebody would find cool even though I don't do comics.
Joss was there, and Morena (in her favourite grey coat) was there too. We started to walk. And walk, and walk some more. The walking area kept being extended because there wasn't enough room for us all to walk without a bottleneck. That never really got resolved because there was around 400 people there for the majority of the time. The celebs came and went, Juliet Landau was there most of the day, Amy Acker, Eliza, J, Nathan, Summer, Felicia Day and loads of others were around. We mostly left them to themselves, they all seemed to want to catch up with each other (Amy Acker's new short hair was seriously cute!) and I wasn't going to interrupt that for photos. It kind of wasn't the point of the day. So we just kept on chatting and walking, and the four hours actually went kind of slowly.
We only stopped once, to go get a drink and a donut (the aforementioned Sarah Michelle Gellar donuts), and when we came back across to rejoin the masses, we took a minute to take a few photos from the sidelines before launching back into it. We walked right through until 2pm, all three of us - I was surprised not to kill myself on the pipe sticking out of the ground, because it was really dangerous and while most times I remembered to step over it, occasionally I would see it, and go "I didn't step over it the last time! I could have killed myself on it!"
(Photo by danregal)
It had been really raining when we left the hotel in San Diego, so the fact that the sun was out most of the time in LA was a great joy to us! I even managed to ditch my sweatshirt on the pile of clothes that became the turning point for the bottom end of the picket.
A guy from the Writer's Association talked to me because he saw the "British" on my sign, he made some notes. We all talked to Jen's video camera, and Jen accosted me to speak to somebody else because I was from England, though I don't remember who now!
And then the picket part of the day came to an end. Joss made a speech with a megaphone, which we couldn't hear at the time, and then we dumped our signs and all headed to the park, sometime during which we lost snoopypez.
By the time we sat down, Shirley and I were agreed that our legs would never work again. When it came to time to stand up later, we realised exactly how much pain we were in. We basically just picked a bench and sat there, not moving. We saw Joss standing over at the other side of the picnic area talking to people, but as well as the not wanting to stand up thing, we also didn't want to be weird and pushy. The main aim of the day was to get a photo of Joss with Michelangelo.
We were sitting sleepily, chatting about nothing, when suddenly Joss was beside us. How he'd crossed the entire area in a fairly short amount of time without being accosted over and over, I have no clue. And nobody was talking to him, he was just standing there, taking it all in.
So I said "Jooooooooooooooooooss..." in such a tired whiny voice, like I knew him personally or something. The tiredness is to blame for my confidence, totally. He went "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees?" and stepped the two steps towards our table. I said "Can I take a picture of you with our Ninja Turtle?" and showed him Michelangelo's sign. He said "Sure!" though I think he was slightly confused, bless him, and then asked where he needed to hold Michelangelo so they they were both in focus. Bless him!
So then we asked about his lurgy, and we talked about flem, which is always nice. I told him I had to go back to work on Monday in England (this being Friday in LA) and if he wanted to give me any lurgy, he should go right ahead, I'd appreciate it. He lunged towards me slightly with a jokey look on his face and said "There's only one way to make sure of that!" then laughed, apologised, and made a joke about my "come hither glasses". Which I didn't actually catch until later when Shirley said "Did Joss say you had come hither glasses?!" and it dawned on me. I was like "Yes! Yes I think he did!"
I told him gossi would have come, but he spent the flight money on an iPhone. Joss said he was a smart boy, and that he would have got an iPhone too given the choice, because right now he had a phone that didn't ring, and sent him messages he already had, and had alarms that went off two days late.
And then he was accosted by some people, and we went back to our sitting and chatting.
After a little mingling (with the pain! The leg pain! Oh, the pain!) we managed to get some directions back to the Greyhound depot (smart me didn't bring a cab number or any directions) and a lovely girl said she'd give us a ride. We decided that we would be really really stupid if we didn't get pictures of US with Joss instead of just Michelangelo, which was our original plan. We would really have regretted that. A lot. And since he was standing with people happily posing, we got in the semi-line and jumped in for a joint one, because that would be easier. I love my picture of me and Shirley with Joss. Best picture ever.
We took one for our new friend with him, too, and then I said a few goodbyes, and we left. We got a bit lost, because we were reversing directions FROM the Greyhound place and she didn't know that part of town so well, but we found it, and in heaps of time for the bus before the one we were booked onto, which they let us switch to with no problems.
We got back to the hotel around 8pm, packed, watched what if I recall correctly was Agent Cody Banks on the TV, and then went to bed. We woke up the next morning unable to walk, but it was completely worth it.
As was the time spent writing this all down, because it's something I don't ever want to forget.