How The Sausage Is Made: Vanilla Bean coolattas

The elimination of one of my favorite drinks, the Vanilla Bean coolatta at Dunkin' Donuts, has made me sad this week. I'm not sure how many stores they have discontinued the flavor at, but I know it affects at least the two Westerly stores and one in Charlestown, for you Rhode Island folk. They still have it at the mini-Dunkin' Donuts next to Kingston Auto in Kingston, so apparently not every owner has decided to give it the ax.

For those of you not in the know, once upon a time – like four years ago – I worked at Dunkin' Donuts, and I worked there when I was 17 and a junior in high school as well. As such, I have fond memories of the Vanilla Bean coolatta, even if it led to constant confusion amongst customers. (“I want a French vanilla coolatta!” “Uhhh do you mean a French vanilla coffee coolatta or a Vanilla Bean fruit coolatta?”)

The actual process of making a coolatta is... weird. By that, I mean making the mix for the machine. Basically, it starts with a six-gallon bucket. You dump two cartons of the fruit coolatta mix into it, and then add about three to four gallons of water. This would normally create a pretty heavy bucket, with the water nearly at the brim, which I would desperately try not to spill as I hauled it over to the coolatta machine. (The process is the same for coffee coolatta mix, except worse, since that mix comes out dark brown and immediately stains your clothing if you spill it.)

If the machine is completely empty, then you have to wait at least an hour for it to turn the water and mix into slush. Ideally, you try to do it a bit before it goes completely out. It does have to get completely cleaned out every two weeks though, which is highly annoying, since there is no real way to make coolattas in the meantime.

As far as the Vanilla Bean goes, it is a tasty, vanilla ice cream-like drink. However, do yourself a favor, as Adam Carolla would say – If they still have it in your area, ask them to make you a medium coolatta, half Vanilla Bean and half Strawberry. The combination is simply divvvinnneeeee.

The picture is from this site. Apparently they have discontinued the Vanilla Bean coolatta in the past - For shame!

Tag Team Sequel: Steve and Danielle on nannying, Basterds and The Informant

Although Danielle is a dear, dear friend,
she ain't got nothing on this dame.

To rip-off the disclaimer for Bill Simmons' BS Report, Tag Team is a free flowing discussion between two adults that sometimes touches on mature subjects. This is the sequel to an earlier Tag Team I did with Danielle, which was mostly about South Park and how awesome it is. This time, we speak a bit about our respective jobs, and some of the summer movies that I haven't seen.

Want to do your own Tag Team with me? Send me an e-mail at sgre6768@gmail.com or leave a comment.

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Steve said at 1:47 p.m. on August 23:

I'm trying to queue up a couple of these, punk. And since Bob got a sequel, I suppose it is your turn, since your Tag Team with me is the second most popular thing on the blog, in terms of hits. Hurrah for you!

Anyway, how did you like Inglorious Basterds? I told you it was supposed to be awesome! I mean, it had Brad Pitt and was directed by Quentin Tarantino, so I don't know how it possibly could have failed. The other key thing it has going for it - Killing Nazis. Nobody likes the Nazis, not even their moms, so seeing lotsa Nazi deaths would be awesome. It somehow feels like an OK thing to watch, as opposed to Transformers 2, in which random people would just get wiped out constantly.

How is life (just outside) Boston? By the way, I saw this little girl yesterday that I was a substitute teacher for this past year, and she was so cute! She was helping out at a free dental service day that I had to cover for the newspaper I work for, and she was dressed up in the same polo and outfit as her mom. It kind of reminded me of you and Isabel. Have you two visited any fun puppet shows lately? And also, do people ever think you're her mom? You two don't really look alike at all, but kids are kids, and don't always look like their parents.

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Danielle Membrino said at 4:03 p.m. on August 25:

I promise I'm going to write you soon. Probably like Wednesday or Thursday. I just have some friends visiting right now, so I'm kinda busy. [what i'm saying is they're more important than you]. But I do have lots to say on these two subjects. I have this big patch of peeling skin on my wrist from a sunburn. It kind of itches. Maybe I'm just shedding.

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Steve said at 12:51 a.m. on August 26:

That part is definitely going in the entry, so that everyone knows to avoid you and your zombie-like peeling skin sunburn. Ugh, gawd.

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Danielle said at 11:05 p.m. on August 26:

I am so tired. But I'm going to answer this now because tomorrow night I need to work on editing photographs I took of one of my mom's friends kid. Ugh, I have lots of boogers in my nose.

Inglorious Basterds was pretty good. It was bizarre and entertaining. I felt Tarantino held back on the gore though this time! I've seen Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill (unfortunately) and comparatively, it's not as bloody. I mean, don't get me wrong, the scalping is pretty graphic (all the Jewish-Americans working under Brad Pitt owe him 100 Nazi scalps) and there's definitely lots of shooting and killing. But nothing made me go, “Holy shit!” or feel grossed out.

It was pretty long though - almost exactly three hours. I mean, the newest Harry Potter movie is almost 3 hours long, but a) It's Harry Potter and b) It didn't feel like 3 hours. Basterds felt long and kind of drawn out at times. There was a lot of dialog at times. It was funny and I liked it, but it still felt like it was dragging at these times. If anything, like you've said, it's definitely worth it just to see some Nazis get killed and Brad Pitt talk with that Southern accent trying to speak Italian in one scene.

Ok, so that wasn't a lot, but whatever. I'm not very good at reviewing movies. Either I like it or I don't. And if I do like it, then how much I like it is really based on... Would I buy it? I like buying movies. I don't really know why. I have more than 100 DVDs. But I don't think I will buy this. It was good and I enjoyed it, and I'm not saying I'll never watch it again, but I didn't love it enough to own it. That's just me though. Definitely worth seeing in theaters.

As for nannying and what not, it's going well. We, fortunately, do not wear matching outfits. Growing up (and even now) my mom was always very anti-matching clothes with children or husband. If she comes downstairs in the morning and my stepdad is wearing a shirt that's the same color as hers, she'll go back upstairs and change. Or if he would come downstairs after she was already dressed and ready, she'd make him go and change. She refused to match me or my sister either. Thankfully this means she never tried to make us wear matching outfits (and considering we're 7 years apart, that probably would've been weird).

Point is, I'm very anti-matching. It's vomit-inducing or hilarious. And yes, occasionally people have referred to me as "mom" and I'm like, “Uh... Definitely not. Just the nanny. I get to give her back!” (I'm so witty, I know!)

But Isabel's generally a well-behaved kid, so I'm not like ashamed to be around her. Yesterday we went to story time at the Harvard Coop bookstore, and I told her I was glad she was one of the good kids. She certainly can throw fits, but in public she's well-behaved. I cannot stand parents that won't take care or control their kids in situations like storytimes and puppet shows.

An example from yesterday: Isabel and I were sitting on the floor listening to the books and we were next to the snack table. This little boy who had to be around 2 1/2 walked over to the table and promptly knocked over a cup of water on the table. Now accidents happened, but no parent came over to take him away or to clean it up. The water started running off the table onto the carpet next to me and on/in my purse! And on top of that, he started splashing the water spilled on the table with his hands, therefore also splashing me!

Finally, I just got up and grabbed some paper towels and pushed his hands away and cleaned it all up. I kind of looked around; no one still seemed to be claiming him or noticing ME cleaning after HIM. I go to throw away the paper towels and when I turn around, the little boy is sitting in the lap of some woman was A FOOT AWAY FROM ME. She was sitting there the ENTIRE TIME and did NOTHING.

I am only a nanny. I don't have a child. I should not be a better parent than you! Don't think you can just ignore your kids now that you're in a group setting. RUDE!

Sorry, that was more of a rant than I intended. And this is getting long, so I'll stop for now! (Plus, your and Amanda's Tag Team was wayyy long so I didn't finish it. I read like half of it and then just skimmed the rest.)

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Steve said at 1:45 p.m. on August 31:

It figures that you were worried about replying late, since it took me even longer to reply than you did. Go figure, even! But alas, here I am, four days later, to your three days. You are still beating my friend Chloe in terms of response time, though.

Anyway. Okay, I still haven't found someone to go see Inglorious Basterds with, which is mildly upsetting to me. What gives??? At this point, I might just download a screener or cam copy, because I'm not sure if I can wait until it comes out on DVD. Pretty much everyone thinks it is awesome, and it even hit #1 at the box office for a couple weekends, which is rare for a Tarantino film. For all of the acclaim that Pulp Fiction got, I think it only made around $50 million in theaters. By the way, have you seen that? It is a little gross in parts, but so stylish and neat in others, that I think you might like it.

See, I definitely think you should wear matching outfits now, because almost nobody else matches. You're conforming to your mom's expectations by not conforming, Danielle! God, you conformist. And you're making your young daughter conform too! Sickening, really. Next thing you know, you'll give her YOUR cooties as well!

For some reason, this reminds me - Remember when we saw Transformers 2 with your sister, and we went to the Dollar Tree or whatever it's called before? And when we were in line, I was wondering who would get a pregnancy test from that store, and then you and your sister started talking about it... And the lady in front of you both reached back and bought one, right in front of you. Since I was only tangentially involved, the whole thing was really, really funny to me.

And finally, one, how DARE you criticize the length of Tag Team I did with Amanda Meyer! I thought it was the perfect length, although, I do love the sound of my own voice. And second, wow, that sounds like an annoying situation with that kid. I had to deal with a little bit of that when I would substitute for elementary school teachers, but luckily, I never had to do lunch duty, just a bit of recess. The harder part for me would be seeing kids struggle who obviously came from bad home lives. Not surprisingly, there was an overlap between inattention to detail on the kid (i.e. his shoes were untied, messy clothing, absolutely no school supplies) and his ability to do any sort of school work.

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Danielle said at 10:36 p.m. on September 2:

Noooooo, you should go see Basterds in theaters. Go by yourself. Or are you one of those people who won't do that? I actually don't really mind going on my own sometimes. I saw Up by myself and I was kind of glad because it definitely made me cry a bit. and crying is for weenies.

As for matching outfits - I hate it too, not just my mom. It looks SILLY. Especially when parents make siblings who are a few years apart wear the same clothes. I'm sure they REALLY appreciate that. Because they're exactly the same. Obviously.

I will definitely buy the awesomest clothes for my child, but then I'll let them dress themselves. It sometimes produces very interesting results. I let Isabel do it most of the time. I really only give my input to let her know how warm or cold it is outside so she knows what clothes to pick from or if it's something that just looks... Not good. Although a few times I've tried that and she wears it anyway. But I'm just like, fine, wear what you want. I'm not the one who has to walk around in it. (I don't actually say that to her. Just in my head.)

You asked me to answer in the e-mail how one becomes a nanny. So for me, it started with babysitting. When I was 11, I took the Red Cross babysitting course and after I completed that, I started babysitting occasionally for my next door neighbor. I babysat for her until I graduated high school and then a few times after that during my freshmen year of college.

Then I did odd jobs around Newport babysitting, took a break from it during my sophomore year of college. Then when I got back from studying abroad my junior year, I REALLY didn't want to work at Ritz Camera again so I started looking for babysiting jobs and ended up as a part-time babysitter in Maryland. And I continued doing that throughout my senior year too.

I was a little apprehensive because I found them on CraigsList and not long ago there had been a couple incidents down in Maryland where babysitters who got jobs off of CraigsList went to the house and got murdered. So yeah.

But the family was super nice. For my birthday, they bought me the entire Harry Potter bookset in hardback! So it all worked out for the best! And then last summer I worked as a camp counselor at a sleep away camp in Connecticut.

Once I moved to Boston in the fall I needed to find a job; great timing with the recession and all. No jobs in the art field were really coming out, so I started looking at babysitting jobs again. The family I nannyed for down in Maryland told me about this website, sittercity.com. It's a legitimate website and more secure because you have to register to use it and the website can perform background checks on people.

So anyway, toward Christmas time I responded to this one family's posting and they responded and we met up and it seemed to really click. They did the background check, called my references and voila, I became an official full-time nanny. Umbrella and carpet bag not included.

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Steve said at 10:35 pm. on September 8:

Wow, you went to a theatre by yourself AND you were crying? C'mon Membrino, get your life together! And yeah, I normally refuse to see a movie in a movie theater unless I have a friend to go with. It just feels weird going by yourself, or, I imagine it would. My friend Shaun would do it from time to time, and even he said it was weird, and he's normally a pretty mellow kid.

Kids mostly seem to wear what they want to anyway, judging from elementary school classes I subbed for. The difference is mostly in quality level - The girls from better families will have like leggings and Abercrombie clothes in angry, non-matching colors, whereas the poor kids have like ratty T-shirts and jogging pants in angry, non-matching colors. For that reason, I like matching clothes; it is a sort of conformity that suggests you are at least in your right mind a little bit. Speaking as a kid who never-ever really learned how to dress because of his family background, it's somewhat cringe-worthy when I see kids who remind me of me at that age.

I like your tale about becoming a nanny! While this is nowhere near the same level of complexity or coolness, I have been a house sitter twice for a pair of URI professors. However, all I had to do with them was to feed their fish and watch the dog, which required sleeping over at their huge house and feeding her twice a day. As you can imagine, this wasn't much of a chore, AND they paid me AND left me a bunch of food in the fridge! The whole experience was very, very sweet, and I secretly hope to get the chance to housesit again soon. After all, I don't really have a permanent residence, but I do have a college degree and a reputable job and references, so I'm still super qualified for it.

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Danielle said at 10:36 p.m. on September 10:

I really have no problems going to the movies by myself. The only time I felt like a creeper was when I went to go see Meet the Robinson's by myself. It was pretty full in the theater, so I had to sit next to this little kid who was there with his parents. I felt like a creeper for sitting right next to this little kid all by myself! But then they had some commercial about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (not a preview, one of those commercial things for the people who get there before the previews even start) and he said something to me about the Ninja Turtles. So of course I had to talk to him about them! But I also made sure to talk to his mom so I didn't seem so weird. And actually had a pretty interesting conversation with them, haha!

Anyway, I an early screening of The Informant tonight. And I'm going to tell you about it, cause I don't know what else to write about!

I'm not going to give too much away though, because it was really the unexpected in this movie that made it great. Being able to react to this movie was the best part. Matt Damon was great! His character, Mark Whitacker, is very much a go-getter, happy, bizarre person, and he plays the part perfectly.

For anyone who doesn't know, the movie is about Mark Whitacker trying to help take down the company he works at for illegal, worldwide price-setting. He becomes an informant for the FBI and it goes from there.

His seemingly innocent naivety of how he sees things is partly what makes the movie so funny. He seems himself as the good guy and the rest of the head honchos in the company as the bad guys. And that's that.

The other part that really makes this movie is the overhead voice. Throughout the entire movie you get to hear Whitacker's thoughts as he's talking to people or something is going on. Most of the time it has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on. In one scene he's going into this big meeting wearing a wire for the FBI and he starts thinking about polar bears and how their fur makes them blend them, except for their noses. Because they're black. But they know to hide their noses. But how do they know their noses are black? Do they look at other polar bears and say, "Am I not invisible?" That seems like a lot of thinking for bears.

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. You really get attached to the character Mark Whitacker because he just seems so endearingly naive and Matt Damon plays him so convincingly. I mean, I felt REALLY embarrassed for him at times. The only downside to this movie is there is a lot of bureaucracy behind it and it is sometimes rather hard to follow with all the terminology about what's going on. They don't really give explanations of some of the things going on and it can get confusing and you just have to guess at some things if you don't understand it. It was still very amusing and I would recommend going to see it.

(I hope that was a good review. I don't think I'm very good at them!)

Want to do your own Tag Team? Feel free to e-mail me at sgre6768@gmail.com.

How The Sausage Is Made: Substitute Teaching

The second part of a multi-part series going over the insides and outsides of various jobs I've had...

First, to answer a common question when people find out that I, of all people, am a substitute teacher: You don't need much to do it in Rhode Island. The only requirement to get the permit from the state is $25 and a bachelor's degree in anything.

From there, requirements vary from district to district, but almost none require an education degree. (The one exception, I believe, is Cranston, but they also pay $120 a day, vs. $75 for most of the state.) Most districts want three letters of recommendation, your past work experience, a cover letter and a clean background check. I technically had “teaching experience” anyway because I worked as a college teaching assistant, but I get the feeling that it wasn't a big determining factor.

Once the paperwork all goes through, most schools work via a substitute assignment system, AESOP. Basically, you get assignments in two ways:

1) Logging on to your computer and checking for unfulfilled substitutions. This is the easiest method, except that it normally only works for really long-range stuff. i.e. If it's March, you might see a bunch of dates up for grabs in June, and who knows what you'll have going on then? I was always reluctant to snatch a ton of these in case I found a full-time gig in the meantime.

2) Via an automated telephone message. Typically, they would call between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., and offer you an assignment, telling you the school (high, middle or elementary), the subject and the time frame (half or full day). This was how I got most of my assignments, since most of the permanent teachers and the school secretaries wouldn't put in the day-off requests until that day of school, meaning you'd get the call later.

The district I was at was big enough that I could work five days a week almost whenever I wanted, which was good, because I needed the money. I would usually work four days a week, and then try to leave one day free (normally Mondays, since there were less subs this day anyway) to do things like mailing out resumes and job applications.

Enough about the boring stuff, the juicy info – Watching kids. The term “substitute teaching” is a fairly loose definition, especially the second part, because you are hardly ever actually teaching. I probably did it between 50 and 100 days, and I taught an actual lesson a single class. Luckily, it was something I was qualified in – English for 7th graders.

The vast majority of classes, you are either having kids do a worksheet or quiz, read or watch a movie (less than you'd think for this option, though). My typical “bribe” thing was letting them talk for the last 10 minutes of class, if they had been good.

Most would talk throughout class anyway, which brings me to the main gripe about substitute teaching – You are a low-paid babysitter. Elementary school kids behave fine (and they're wicked cute), but they're not doing heavy-lifting educationally anyway. Also, being a male teacher normally amazed the kids I was around. This might just be an isolated thing, but there was normally one full-time male teacher per elementary school I subbed at, so I get the feeling that simple difference gave me some extra authority for no good reason.

Of the age groups, middle school is by far the most difficult. The kids are all just starting to hit puberty and becoming hellions, and there is a ton of bravado mixed in with that childlike innocence from elementary schools. As an example, I would get asked by punk 13-year-olds about whether I had a girlfriend or if I had had sex. Lovely, lovely stuff, really gentlemanly, even.

The high school kids at least would be subtle jerks, meaning that I could normally outwit them, since I do have a college degree and all that. Instead of being obsessed with letting the entire class know about their illicit dealings, like the middle school kids, the high school kids would normally just stick to their own groups and sometimes like slip their grand plans for wealth via selling pot. (One kid told me he was going to be a drug kingpin like Tony Montaya, to which I quipped, “You realizes he dies at the end of that movie, right? That's not exactly someone you should be trying to emulate.” He didn't have a good answer for that.)

Eventually, I learned that the best way to deal with A-hole kids was to use the cliche from sitcoms when someone goes to prison – Make a mark early by sending the shittiest kid out of the room, and the rest of the class falls in line. Otherwise, you can let a small group of two to five kids prevent the other 20 from getting anything done. Establishing consequences for actions worked far better for me than trying to reason. Also, contrary to cliche, I never got spitballs thrown at me, or a “Kick Me!” sign attached to my back.

This post sounds rather negative, but I should add that there were plenty of good kids I ran into, at the middle and high school levels, during my five months substitute teaching. One fifth grader even drew me a picture in art class, and while I think this was more because she was bored than an endorsement of me, I'll still hang it up when I do get a permanent place. It's a nice little reminder.

How The Sausage Is Made: Journalism

Because of the success of shows like Dirty Jobs, and the good response to my old entry about substitute teaching, I thought I'd do a series of entries about how some professions work. Obviously, I'm going to stick more to things I have firsthand knowledge about, unless this gets really popular, in which case I'll reach out and try to (gasp!) actually interview some people.

Anyway, because it is one of the few “real” jobs I've had, let's start with journalism. There is also the very real possibility that by the time I finish typing this sentence, every paper but The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal will be shuttered. (And even then, The New York Times looked painfully out-of-touch in this recent Daily Show piece (video link). So maybe just The Post and The WSJ will survive the newspaper holocaust.)

I'll get to the doom and gloom later though. For now, I'll focus on how a newspaper is actually run. First, the key to remember is that practically everything is driven by advertisement sales. On a basic level, this means that the size of the paper is normally set by the number of display ads sold, since classifieds has its own section. Rarely is a paper's size driven by content, unless the story is so important (i.e. an expose on a local police chief's cushy benefits, the one real-life example I saw) that it demands it.

You would think this would create some sort of ethical dilemma, but there would be more practical problems during my three years or so as a news reporter on the college and professional level. For example, one week I would be furiously chopping all my eight stories I had to about 500 words, because that would be the only space left after the ads and photos were laid out. The next week, or even the same week for the sister community's paper, we might have double the size, meaning I'd have to stretch the stories I wrote. Often, I wouldn't know the paper's size until the day before deadline, so I'd have to scramble to shorten or lengthen stories on the night before deadline.

In my professional career, I wrote primarily for a weekly, which also carries time management problems that I admittedly didn't handle great. My inclination was to always wait until as long as I could to start a pressing story, whereas editors would encourage me to start as soon as I could. For example, start and try to complete a budget story at the start of the news week, Wednesday, even though it wouldn't appear in print until the following Wednesday.

My training was primarily with the Cigar, which printed four days a week, and another Rhode Island paper that was a daily. I think the immediacy of both helped me; I have an intense fear of failure, and with a daily deadline, I produced some good work for both. My time at the weeklies wasn't so great, because I knew that even self-imposed deadlines could be doing a disservice to the reader. I had problems just finishing (or even starting) something and then putting it aside, when it's possible something could have changed between when I started and deadline. And when the paper can swell to 30 or 40 pages during the summer, and you have two full-time reporters and a part-timer on staff, it means you have to be producing throughout the week.

Things started to get even tighter right before I was laid off, as the paper's deadline was pushed to the morning before that town's weekly council meeting. So much for the printed paper being the best source and watchdog for government action. Freelance budgets were also nibbled to the bone, management wouldn't pay out any overtime without a note signed in blood, employees were obviously being or about to be laid off, and for some reason, there was a resistance to using the local colleges for free intern support, except for one editor.

With such an ominous air hanging over the place, the quality obviously fell off a bit. It's almost impossible for anyone to work at maximum quality when you have the threat of the axe hanging over your head at all times. I can't say this was a factor in my own situation – I didn't think I'd get cut, since it meant the two remaining sports guys would have to cover about a dozen high schools by themselves. Uh, whoops!

Anyway, at most smaller papers – think The Chariho Times, The Narragansett Times, The Bristol Phoenix, Newport This Week – you generally have at least one staff reporter that will cover just town issues. This ranges from features on the town's oldest residents and bake sales by Girl Scout Troop 117 to investigative stories on corruption at town hall. Generally, this reporter will also shoot some of their own photographs as well. A staff photographer will help out with the bigger or better assignments.

Two to six pages are also normally cleared for sports, sometimes in its own B or C-section, although almost every Rhode Island paper now has their sports department split over several towns. i.e. One sports reporter or editor will cover Chariho, Narragansett and South Kingstown, while another takes Exeter/West Greenwich, North Kingstown and Coventry. (If you're a private high school or a college, don't expect regular coverage, unless you're having an unusually good season in a sport, or if a parent complains.) If two teams in the coverage area are facing off – NK vs. SK – then that game will normally be covered, regardless of the sport, and run in both papers.

There are a few layers beyond these front-line writers. Generally, there is a city / town editor, someone who will edit the work submitted by the reporters and work in conjunction with the layout personnel / design experts to decide how to fit things into the paper. This person will also sometimes function as a part-time reporter, or if they prefer to write, more of a full-time reporter than a full-time editor.

After that, most papers have a managing editor, who normally looks at each week's paper for a variety of towns. I think every paper in Rhode Island, excluding The Providence Journal, now belongs to a local chain, so the managing editor position exists pretty much everywhere. All papers have a publisher; think of them as the owner of a sports franchise. Some are incredibly hands-off and let their managing editors do everything, while others are the complete opposite. Most fall somewhere in-between.

This is the primary editorial (content) hierarchy for most places, which is the area I'm most familiar with. All papers also have a similar setup for their business and advertising wings, although I'm less versed in specific positions for that side, except at the collegiate level.

As far as salary goes, I started at the high end of the spectrum for an entry-level reporter at a small weekly... $25,000 ($12.00 an hour). Try not to laugh. For comparison's sake, assistant managers at McDonald's made more than I did. Even more sadly, most entry-level journalism work is closer to $20,000 than $25,000. Photographers, design and layout specialists earned similar salary, from what little shop talk I had on the manner. A typical pay raise is 3 to 8 percent, although in this market, you are luckier if your pay isn't slashed. Most companies still let you opt into health and 401k plans, although at such a meager salary, I couldn't afford either.

Before the newspaper industry began tanking, the best way to get a good raise normally was to just find a new job. Once you got that offer, you either forced your employer to match, or more often, moved to a new paper. Rhode Island is a bad example, because there aren't any real papers between the small weeklies and dailies, and the huge metro (Projo). But as an example, a reporter from a small weekly in Rhode Island might move on to a mid-sized paper in another state, then move on to a major metro, like The Providence Journal or The Boston Globe (which is getting its ass handed to it by The Boston Herald, by the way).