WINOOSKI – Vermont’s premiere local satire site The Winooski has been forced to lay off its only employee. Media organizations across the state have been closing or reducing staff recently, thanks to social distancing and massive unemployment wreaking havoc with the economy. Citing low revenue from failing to sell any advertising at all, and lack off anything interesting going on other than this all-consuming quarantine, The Winooski will now be forced to continue with zero people working on the site.
“It was a tough decision for sure,” said site founder and editor Adam Hall, when asked about the decision to lay himself off. “But, you know, with VTDigger no longer able to publish us, and my complete lack of marketing desire or ability, it just wasn’t feasible to keep myself on any longer. I’ve been a good worker, despite the typos that do slip in from time to tome, and I hate to see myself go, but I have to homeschool my kids now, and I’m spending the majority of my time these days trying to figure out new math.”
Hall says that, without any employees, the site will have to go dark for a time, with no new articles being published. He hopes to re-hire himself in the near future, at full salary, or even double what he was making from the site previously.
“Yeah, this is going to be the last article until I rehire myself,” Hall confirmed. “Not sure when that will be. Could be this afternoon, could be this evening, but it will definitely be before tomorrow morning. I mean, I’m stuck in my house. What else am I going to do?”
You had me worried there until the last paragraph. As long as you are homeschooling the kids, perhaps this is the time to teach them the business so that they will be well prepared to inherit your publishing empire when you are ready to retire.
You’re the king of satire, but for a terrible moment there I thought you had fallen off your throne. Don’t you EVER do that to your devoted followers again! Only humor, especially finely wrought, will get us through these times. Thanks for doing your unique part in all this – and stay well!
April Fool’s! 😀
(laughing…)
Maybe some satire could be automated? Like, could you just program your site to just play Trump’s daily corona virus press briefings whenever they’re held? That’s pure satire gold, and it’s free!
Genius, Hugh. (And I’m sure that’s your real name). Intelligent use of resources, that suggestion.
If you lay yourself off, isn’t that economic suicide?