How I’m Living Ain’t Correct, But For Me It’s Just Right
Friday, August 11 - 6:40pm - NW Washington DC
I took this picture after the 6pm news on a Friday evening. The studio is quiet. The only sign of life is Derek McGinty’s jacket hanging on the C-Chair (as it’s called in fancy TV parlance). It was a different scene just 15 minutes prior, when the 6pm broadcast - produced by yours truly - had plenty of "breaking news" and excitement. It was a good way to end my first and hopefully last week as the 6pm producer.
I was thrown an alleged bone by management. Every now and then, they’ll take one of us overnighters, put us on an evening shift, and tell us we’re getting a cup of coffee up with the big team. We are so freakin’ lucky. Yeah, the hours are great. I got to waltz into work at 10am, leave around 7pm, take a half hour for lunch, go out to dinner at Carpool, sleep when it’s dark, wake when it’s light, and ride the Metro like a big boy. However, my day started with the 10am Assignment Meeting. It’s the part of the TV day where the news crew decides what stories will be covered. At the glorious 9NewsNowW*USALiveLocalLatebreaking meeting, it was an echo chamber. It’s the place where people say things when they have nothing to say. On the mornings, when you have something to say, you say it - otherwise, you shut up and do your job.
It got the day off on the wrong foot. I would then go downstairs to my desk and surf the web and the AP wires looking for stories. It wouldn’t matter, because the 5pm show (which gets more attention by the station, as it should) would take all of my good ideas and leave me with squat. Which is fine, because the show didn’t have much room in it for creative things (or interesting things, or important things, or neat things, or produced things…really, anything much). You would think I would enjoy this. I’ve been a morning producer for seven years. Most morning producers go at 100mph from the time they walk in the door, and don’t stop until the end of the broadcast. I feed off of it, as do most career morning producers. With the 6pm, I would put in the three live reporters I got, put in about two more stories, then call it time for lunch. I have a weakness for Chipotle, somewhat encouraged by others. Frankly, the shift was boring. I found it uninspiring, and it turn found my work to be the same thing. Maybe, if I were on it long term, I would find it more interesting and I’d find ways to challenge myself. But I learned that I like the hecticness (yes, I make up words) of the overnights. I liked being able to go home at 8am and be able to run errands at my own leisure. I liked the camaraderie of the early mornings. And even though my boss has his moments, there’s only one of him and he’s easy enough to deal with compared to three of him which I got in the evenings. And I discovered, as loony as it makes me sound, I actually enjoy my shift. The hours bite. I know that. But the job and the people are good. And I’ll take that any day of the week over boredom at work. I’ll take a raise, too. But that’s another battle for another day.
And oh yeah, if anyone important from work just happens across this - I would tell you this in person and not on my personal blog on my personal time, if you indicated that you cared about my opinions. God bless working for a corporate giant.
Title from the song "Crazy" by Alana Davis.
