*“This Beat Goes On/Switching to Glide” is the name of a song by the Canadian party-rock group The Kings, released in about 1980. I am using it in journalistic-allusion style just to have a semi-lame means of showing which way the wind’s blowing. [This journal entry may be edited as to content in coming days. Edits done on 11/29/12 & 12/6/12 & 12/10/12. More edits 5/28/13.]
Subsections below:
Wrapping up the Skoder story for now
Story of a lieutenant may come, but is decisively held off
The “bank functionary” phenomenon
Anything more on Gene Mulvihill?
We’re trying to serve your needs, and our needs. So here’s what:
You may have been wondering, “Where is this blog going, with this detour into its Skoder story and its war stories from over a decade ago at NJN? Sure, it’s an interesting little interlude, if we’re in the right frame of mind, but tough times call for simplicity, and relevance to the bold adventure ahead. This Skoder/NJN stuff is like, we’re enjoying Apocalypse Now Redux, and all the sudden the ‘French plantation sequence’ is bogging us down. Or we’re enjoying The Beatles’ ‘White Album,’ and suddenly we’re mired in ‘Revolution 9.’ We want a shortcut back to the foot-tapping rock. Weren’t we being primed for some hairy story tied to a medical-media firm in 2010?”
Wrapping up the Skoder story for now
Here’s the plan: I will post, on this blog, an installment with the category-tags “The place of Skoder, Part 2 of 2 (and Assault Close to Home, Part 5 of 5),” which will also have the tag “The Post-Assault Quixotic Phase, Part 1” (it won’t be called “Post-Abuse…”). It will be a fairly simple narrative and will definitely provide some groundwork for the pending parts of our medical-media story.
One important part of the larger “Post-Assault Quixotic Phase” of my NJN experience is a story that derives most of its charm from the personality of the lieutenant at NJN I’ve referred to previously. The whole NJN set of problems (in 1998-2001) is something I haven’t had to deal with in so concentrated a fashion in over a decade. When I started with the Skoder/1998 stuff, I thought it would go more easily than I expected. (And it had the “marketing hooks” of relating it to local-service parameters—“What is my local government supposed to do?” and “How do I interact with it?”—which are of interest in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Plus, it related to recently departed Gene Mulvihill, and to Election Day, making it topical to some slight extent.)
Well, most of the 1998 Skoder stuff is posted (including the woolly account on the “Jersey Mountain Bear” blog, Parts 1-4 of “Assault Close to Home…”).
Story of a lieutenant may come, but is decisively held off
The lieutenant, who was a young woman of about 27 in 1998, is interesting in her own right—and gives a more universally interesting example of how a twenty-something is wise or not in taking certain tacks in conforming to a company’s expectations—and, in a minor way, she is interesting as the apparent staffer who (as it happened, almost as a footnote) severed Skoder from the Argus in about 2001.
In writing the relevant material lately, I found that some of the details of her role in things, from 1997 through about 2002, I was fuzzy on, and while I’d wanted to write on her specifically in as separate a way as I could and in a largely impressionistic, mostly positive, and personality-centered way, I found that certain details were key, and this led me to look back in old records. I drafted some chunky stuff, but it may be edited and posted in January 2013 at the earliest.
The way I would describe this woman, Maria, is as a talented young sort who is an example of someone who in a rather difficult-to-categorize way was both a “conformist/joiner” to some extent and a self-promoter who expanded her opportunities and authority as far as she was allowed by our boss NR, who saw in her a perfect lieutenant. Yet each type of advancement within NJN that Maria enjoyed (or almost every one) was based on less of a track record she had of solid “preliminary work” (like reporter work before becoming a news editor) than others had in the office we shared who might have been about as qualified as she to take the higher positions.
Maria is an interesting, and in my experience unusual, example of someone who had a lot of ego and ambition but not a focus for her own purposes on learning a lot of craft/discipline that would have served her professional goals. (This is my opinion as someone who was not her supervisor and who wishes the story about her to be mostly positive.) She was smart and this was partly why she was advanced so quickly, but she was not “smart” about getting a lot of solid craft proficiency under her belt before she reached her new levels (e.g., proficiency in writing, in nuts-and-bolts editing, and even in particulars concerning local, volunteer civic service such as you might have learned if you had partaken in it—though at that newspaper company, I think very few workers actually did this last thing).
She also had business in her life on the side, such as a second job and going to graduate school (I had originally written more detail here; but I mention these side things in part to show NR’s double standards: she allowed Maria to pursue her multi-sided career, in a way that couldn’t help but leak into doings at NJN, yet my civic involvement in Vernon was handled as I indicated in the “Assault Close to Home” blog entries). Maria’s outside life was relevant (in my view) insofar as it made her intense/“busy” in tone with coworkers, to the detriment of some smoothness of relations. She was a very agreeable colleague (to me) in her first year at NJN, as she started as a staffer in about October 1997 (after having done stringer reporting for some months), and then her ego/self-promoting style really fell into place by about January 1999.
I assume she might be able to read this, and if she were to wonder (1) how I knew (or remembered) as much about her as I do and (2) why I am recounting this, I would answer that (1) it was easy to find this stuff out or appreciate it at the time, (2) I always learn conspicuous enough details of the lives of young women I work closely with, especially as this helps me when they pose ethical problems in the workplace (a point I can return to at quite forthcoming length, as to general considerations and not particular women, some other time), (3) I knew she was disappointed or such when I left the job in June 1999 and that maybe she couldn’t quite understand why I was quickly leaving (and I think my Skoder story would go a long way to explain to her the reason why), and (4) my story about Maria is mainly to be positive, and this is, I think, what any former coworker would want to be told about him or her years after a work engagement, and (5) the negatives that came from Maria (in ~1999-2000) I thought were fairly extensive and significant, and impacted a range of people, and this was the sort of thing I didn’t want to fully admit at the time. I am aware I pestered her in some way, in 2000 mostly, after having left NJN, and for this I am sorry.
But the (grim) Skoder story, which is much more within my rights to tell, automatically leads to the (more fun) Maria story—and of course I know Maria had nothing to do with the 1998 mess—but in telling something of the 1999-2000 Maria-related stuff, I am also, in part, apologizing to her for being a pest in 2000. But also, part of the reason I quit the NJN job in 1999 was due to the lesser behaviors of Maria, which I would say as gently and in as balanced a way as I can.
(This blog entry, of course, gives a tentative outline; if it seemed objectionable to any relevant party that I went further with the Maria story, I of course would be willing to take said objection into consideration; and actually, given how old this matter is, and the fact that in a lot of ways it amounts to water under the bridge, it would not take too much to persuade me not to go further with it. Heck, I might even decide that without hearing from anyone else at all!)
But I put the larger Maria story on hold, till January if not indefinitely. Meanwhile, for those fans of the Skoder story, it was Maria, I believe, who let Skoder go in late 2000 as a stringer reporter for the Argus, and the Argus as a special edition of The Suburban Trends was discontinued entirely, I believe, after fall 2002—and that latter was at the hand, I think, of a new editor, Matt Fagan, who succeeded Maria. (Details from 2000-03 concerning NJN, as I acquired them at the time, are tough for me to get straight today, and a fuller account of the denouement of the Argus may come later.) As far as I know, Maria left the NJN newspapers division (when she departed as editor of The Suburban Trends) in 2003.
In general (and my picture is a little fuzzy at first—I haven’t focused on her for some years), Maria was a complex personality, of mixed high confidence and self-doubt—the sort who seemed to depend on the good opinion on a senior staffer insofar as that person had been established at NJN before she had, or otherwise being “superior” (such as in nature of position). But once she was allowed to be more supervisory of others, she had a habit of stepping on the face of just about everyone new who came onto the WT/SL staff after her (who was usually, or always, junior in position). Thus you had a number of newcomers who found her a bit much to swallow, while I didn’t mind her—largely because, at least through about January 1999, she left me alone in my work.
This wasn’t simply a matter of trivial manners; her rapid advancement and flavor of occasional self-centeredness marked her as not entirely agreeable on some relatively deep professional level, to at least some. (One seasoned news reporter, a middle-aged woman, with whom I spoke at length, completely out of the context of NJN, about a range of things in 2003-04 or so, had worked for the Trends briefly in maybe 2001, and without my prodding much to indicate the particular nature of the personalities, she recalled the situation of NR and Maria as “[NR’s first name] and her golden girl.” So then I knew that Maria’s brownnosing lieutenant style was still going on a couple years after I’d left NJN.) [Clarification: This is rather hard-sounding. See new 5/28/13 entry on her.]
I knew Maria when she wasn’t that self-promoting brownnoser—and I thought she should have been above that style of editorial-worker comportment. I worked with her when she was in her earnest, more modest phase from October 1997 through about November 1998. However, in early 1999, she started pulling some ego stuff on me too. One instance of it I would probably not post in detail, though I definitely felt it was the sort of thing that, if it was done at a nationally distributing publisher, would probably have gotten her fired. In any event, in a subtle but painful set of experiences, behaviors on the parts of NR and Maria in early 1999 (and Maria’s generally were provoked by NR) led me to resign.
Let’s clarify: in the overall scheme of NJN stuff I have to recount, there is (1) the 1998 assault-phase/Skoder stuff (the blog entry “The place of Skoder, Part 2 of 2” will deal with the “tail” of this); (2) the long subsequent phase, from about January 1999 through January 2001; (3) the Maria story as a sub-part of this subsequent phase, which can be focused on in a “here’s a good example for young people” way; and (4) the fact that I left NJN because of NR and Maria (especially NR) as the initial cause. Lastly, (5) in the post-resignation period, from later June 1999 through January 2001, I did hold the Skoder mess as a prime cause for having a sense of grievance; and there was (6) NJN’s behavior toward me in later 2000 and very early 2001 that shows that things got attenuated in terms of my trying to get accountability from NJN.
Of all the things that could comprise useful blog entries today, there are these: the two factors of the Skoder fiasco/violence of 1998 and Maria’s change in manner in 1999 (and, significantly, NR’s role vis-à-vis Maria), which are important to understand if you want to appreciate the logic of what set up the attenuated dealings between me and NJN in later 1999 and through 2000.
In some ways, this latter phase is embarrassing for me to review (I have plenty of records of that time). In other ways, aspects of how NJN handled me in 2000-01 included their condescension; a certain ingratitude in terms of respecting my interests in light of all the “water I’d hauled for them” in editing thousands of press releases for two and a half years; and, after a while, their sort of overdoing some “self-protective” measures they took.
[A section of this paragraph was cut on 11/29/12 pending further research.] I find it a bit exhausting to further deal with these decade-plus-old doings. For your purposes, it suffices to know that NJN’s handling of me throughout 1999-2001 at the very least left a good amount to be desired, and if the Skoder story I have already represented seems to anchor this hypothesis in your mind well, I may want to leave the story beyond “The place of Skoder, Part 2 of 2” (except for any redeemable “Maria” stuff) in my archives indefinitely.
In sum, the Maria story—as able to be isolated from the larger 1999-2001 story—waits, and if I deliver it in January [Update: It is delivered 5/28/13.], it should be friendlier than it may seem here in the abstract.
Ironically, one tiny part of my 1999-2001 NJN story could be included in “The place of Skoder, Part 2…,” which has to do with an attorney at NJN’s parent company whom I spoke to, in about September 1999. This episode is useful because it represents one of a series of attorneys I spoke to (or otherwise had feedback from) on the 1998 Skoder assault. But I will hold off on the 1999 item; the reason I spoke to this attorney at all is better understood within the fuller 1999-2001 story.
The “bank functionary” phenomenon
One general phenomenon I can remark on here could be seen (to some slight extent) in the fuller Maria story, and it also occurred at All American Crafts in 1991 and even at CommonHealth in 2010: the female’s “bank functionary” phenomenon.
This is something that always irks me deeply when it appears. It basically means that a young female reaches a point—in an ongoing work situation in which, in the larger scheme, things are fluid, demanding, and a little irrational—where she suddenly has a rigid sense of how she wants to work—as if there is a set of boundaries as to her tasks and even personal prerogatives that she assumes can and should be there, and which she blames you for not heeding.
It especially comes up when you, the craft worker, have an enormous amount of work, some of which entails your interacting at your will with the woman, while the work makes you more stressed and maybe “intense” than you ordinarily would be. In seemingly instinctive reaction, she can express resentment that you impinge on her in a way that makes you seem as if you’re bumptious or reckless for not realizing “the way she feels her job is.” Meanwhile, the objective measures of your load of work, which means you are more in the right in this matter than she thinks you are, are the sheer volume of work, limited hours you work, and maybe arbitrary demands on you from management (all of which, at the time, the female may not be subject to except as it comes through your presenting it).
Thus, for example, you can momentarily demand this woman’s attention and she can be resentful as if the problem is your tone or something else about you personally; meanwhile, you know the sense of urgency mostly reflects the objective nature of the work.
A fancier example, and an indication of the illusory quality, of the woman’s suddenly feeling she should be able to work as a “bank functionary” is that she demands that you respect her right to attend to something really petty in her “own business,” like a phone call from a friend that has nothing to do with work, while you have a demanding issue to get her involvement with.
This “bank functionary” tendency, which seems to arise in situations of extreme workload (which in turn may reflect higher-level mismanagement), has always outraged me, and to me it is a measure of how much of a professional the young woman is in terms of understanding that high-volume/high-density work requires workers to meet it with heightened focus and sense of seriousness, and being a more unruffled “bank functionary” is not appropriate.
When we return to the 2010 medical-media story, we will see how absurd this “invocation of the ‘bank functionary’ sense” can be.
Anything more on Gene Mulvihill?
Fairly surprisingly to me, my first entry on Gene Mulvihill (November 6) has been by far one of my most popular in terms of readers’ sending the link elsewhere, of all my entries since the late summer. If I had known it would have that much interest, I would have written it with more focus and more crisply.
I didn’t mean to get so much into such a local-news story. But it remains of interest to me in part because the news coverage of his death was amazing for lacking much or any reference to his legal problems in the 1980s. It was partly these legal problems that led to the negative reputation he had throughout town in the 1980s and ’90s. It would seem to perform a public service (for me or someone else) to present some of the facts on the legal problems, and indeed I have some little blips of information and leads in my notes from my Vernon News work in 1989. I have to emphasize that I would not simply want to put, even on an informal blog, simply information such as I have, which is tantalizing, because it is piecemeal, and I have numerous references to other news stories on the ~1984-86 legal case. What I would want to do is corroborate some of what I have with information from more reliable sources, which might require research in a library (some of it could probably be done online), which I hadn’t anticipated doing. I will see what I can do, and what I might do is post some “rump” information along with a few outside corroborating sources, which other people—either historical researchers or journalists—can take as a starting point for doing their own research.
Among the fairly reliable information I have is that Mr. Mulvihill pleaded guilty to six counts of wrongdoing within a set of charges (some were criminal; I’m not sure if others were civil) that included setting up a dummy corporation to seem as if Action Park and/or its associated business(es) had liability (?) insurance it was required to carry. There was also a component of some alleged misuse of state land [I need to look at this aspect further] (the Action Park
As a more homely piece of evidence, as I have discussed informally with my mother, Mr. Mulvihill was repeatedly referred to in the local news for some time (at least in the early 1990s) as a “convicted felon.”
Lastly, and I’m not sure how integral this is to the matters I’ve just listed, as far as I know (and don’t quote me as the best source on this), one person involved in scouting up investment money for GAR was Robert E. Brennan, who ran First Jersey Securities, which I believe was a penny-stock operation that advertised heavily in the 1980s (with TV commercials showing Brennan in a helicopter). That firm later closed down in a welter of Brennan’s being charged with securities fraud and/or the like (Brennan’s Wikipedia article says things about this; I can’t vouch for the article and I don’t have on hand right now any details on his collapse/legal problems, other than what I remember offhand). I remember a 60 Minutes story on Brennan, probably from more than 10 years ago, which showed brochures of some of the companies he sold penny stocks for; one was Vernon Valley/Great Gorge or some such entity within the GAR fold.
