For those of you who don't know, my name is Sarah Fields and I'm the Editor in Chief for Odyssey at Murray State University. I took on this role because I wanted to be challenged in my writing, learn how to be in a position of leadership, and enhance my skills as an editor. If you asked me on any other day if I have fun being an EIC, I would tell you the truth: I absolutely love it. I love being able to read the thoughts of the creators under me and to be able to have a community of editors whom I call friends. However, today is not the day where I gush about my love for Odyssey. Honestly? Sometimes it really just sucks being an Odyssey editor, especially in a community as small and unmotivated as mine. Because of the network of people I'm associated with, I'm able to get the thoughts about Odyssey as an EIC from other EICs across the nation. I have so many thoughts about being an editor for Odyssey, but I've narrowed it down to ten reasons why it really sucks to be an EIC sometimes:

1. Odyssey doesn't like to take criticism.

I mean, when someone comes to you with a problem with your company, shouldn't your first priority be to assess the problem and try to fix it? Whenever my EIC friends and I approach HQ with a problem, we seem to get a cookie-cutter response to a specific problem instead of having a specific response.

2. All of the well-known problems and bugs with the software are not being fixed.

And by this, I mean that with the hundreds of tickets to technical support that I'm sure they've received, these problems aren't being fixed. For example, there's been an issue where punctuation is removed from articles after going live, and with typing features being messed up, and these issues still haven't been fixed.

3. There is a lack of communication from headquarters.

Members of the HQ team have admitted that because of the sheer amount of communities versus the number of content strategists in New York, they can't be in communication with smaller communities. This poses as a problem when Tier 1 (a.k.a. smaller communities) need help and HQ simply do not have the "bandwidth" (whatever the hell that means) to assist EICs in whatever issues they're having. Sure, you can schedule a video call with them, but they'll give you the same cookie-cutter responses then that they would give you over an email.

4. There is a lack of accountability from HQ.

Many EICs, especially in Tier 1, have been told for months (at least since September 2017) that there would be major improvements to the website and to the software we use to create content (MUSE/CMS, depending on to whom you're talking) and we have not had so much as a shred of new information from New York. A simple email would suffice as to the progress of the new website and software. Set a timeline and deadline for your improvements. Do this not just for us, but for yourselves as well.

5. Many of the features we as EICs once had access to are now gone.

Remember the major improvements they promised? We all found out that we weren't getting updates without having some of our much-needed features shut down. The biggest features shut down included being able to log in to our own pages to access our statistics (since the statistics within CMS have been broken). We now only get our community statistics once a month and creator statistics once a week (and sometimes those are incorrect. We would ask them for correction but at this point, it's just more effort than it's worth).

6. Sometimes we are treated like we are the problem, rather than the company itself.

I don't know how many times I've asked a simple question to only have it either shot down or given some dumb non-answer. What's worse is to be given an answer that has absolutely nothing to do with the question but is just a restating of what was said in another post/question. We are not the problem when a company we work for has been broken for a while and has promised changes in infrastructure for just as long. I won't apologize for wanting to be treated with respect and treated like I'm someone of value within a company that makes so much money off of the web traffic content of college-aged students who receive absolutely zero compensation for their hard work. Treat my time as voluntary? Sure, but at least give me some respect.

7. There is inconsistency in what the rules are for participating in and contributing to Odyssey.

This is connected to the fact that even though they are not supposed to allow articles which contain hate speech or pornographic depictions onto the site, it does indeed happen (and it ends up on the Odyssey Facebook page from time to time).

8. The social media practices of the company make it hard to be a representative of the company.

This includes articles that are posted to the Odyssey Facebook page. Yes, I am aware that there is a disclaimer at the top of the Facebook page stating that the opinions of the articles are not representative of the company, but when you have several articles in a row from authors who have bigoted, sexist, and otherwise not good speech, it really does reflect poorly on the EICs of Odyssey and it makes it hard for me to want to support and work for a company which supports any kind of bigotry outside that of giving a simple opinion.

9. Odyssey doesn't seem to know what its own guidelines are and it reflects poorly on the EICs and Content Creators.

Yes, we are supposed to have at least 500 words per piece if it is not a piece of poetry (which rarely shows up on the site). No, we are not supposed to have text in our cover images as Facebook sees that as an ad associated with a link and will display it as such. You are supposed to be at least 16 years old to write with Odyssey.

10. All of the above makes me want to throw my head into a wall. Repeatedly. Forever.

I really love writing and editing for Odyssey, but there are so many issues that have been created by Odyssey that they simply will not admit to causing in the company. Now, I know that the content strategists are not solely to blame for all of the problems, but they are representatives of the company and we expect them to represent us well.

Odyssey, I'm pleading with you to get it together. Odyssey is on my resume in several places but I have no problem removing it if it comes to the point where my reputation would definitely be negatively affected.

Get. It. Together.