According to many people that work there, or have recently worked there, the New 12 stations have really gone downhill after being bought up by Altice.

Altice. took over the hyper-local cable news stations and have made cuts and dumped a number of longtime employees.

While the company seems to have no problem kicking longtime staffers to the curb, they aren’t at all happy when a staffer just gets up and decided to leave.

Reed McDonough joined News 12 Long Island and was not happy working there. He claimed that his long commute to work was causing him problems at home.

While that is certainly something he should have looked into before taking the job. He talked to his bosses about changing his schedule and they refused to do so.

So he quit.

But now, the station is suing him for doing so.

In their lawsuit, News 12 says that McDonough’s quick departure cost them time and money. “As a result, News 12 devoted more than 200 hours, including significant amounts of executive management time, to the process of securing coverage for McDonough’s sudden and unexpected absence,” and paid “premium compensation” to cover his on-air shifts, according to the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages.

McDonough’s attorney, Lou Pechman, slammed the legal filing as “a baseless lawsuit with a false narrative.

Now, you can look at this and say that both McDonough and the station could have handled this exit better.

Clearly, he wasn’t happy working at the station and the station didn’t seem to care as long he was on air filling time.

I would think that if a station has an employee that doesn’t like working at the station, they would be more than happy for him to leave. I have found that oftentimes unhappy employees are like a cancer and it can spread quickly through the newsroom.

I would rather be rid of the employee and move on than to keep them around.

But that’s just me.

Let’s look at this a different way. News 12 recently kicked a number of longtime employees to the curb. They were called in and told that their services were no longer needed.

Can those employees now use the same logic that the company is using to sue their former employer?

How about a recently bounced employee says in a lawsuit, “As a result, News 12 getting rid of me, I have devoted more than 200 hours, including significant amounts of executive management time, to the process of securing a new job. I also lost “premium compensation” and am now seeking unspecified damages.”

My advice to Altice. is to move on. You hired a guy, maybe without doing the required due diligence, he didn’t like the job, and he quit.

Maybe spend less time on lawsuits and treating your employees a bit better, then maybe you won’t have them quit and not have to sue them.

Just saying….