Anywho, work has gotten a bit better. I still won't say I'm in love with my job but it's a lot more tolerable. I actually get work to do and I don't sit at my desk for nine hours waiting for my shift to be over. I've been getting a crash course in producing which is great--I'm setting up stories, going out with photogs to shoot interviews and writing scripts. Granted, my scripts always get changed by the reporter before it actually airs and I make screw ups a journalism major shouldn't, but I'm keeping a positive attitude and using it as a learning experience.
Today was a doozy, though. I went with a photog out to Palo Alto to cover a school supplies swap with little direction as to what the angle or the upshot was. Apparently it was supposed to be less about the event itself, but how this event ties into the economy. This wasn't apparent to me, so I covered the story like a features event. Cut to me and the photog feeding the footage via satellite to the station an hour before air time (where we stationed ourselves next to a big stinky lake with cranes...seriously, the lake was beautiful but it smelled like one gigantic sour fart) and my executive producer grilling me about not asking the right questions, getting the right info, and plain ol' failing at producing the piece. So I feel like crap and my photog is like "I'm glad I'm not you!" Thanks...
Luckily, when I come back to the station with my tail between my legs, my boss tells me it's all good and the footage was actually okay--not the best it could've been, but air-able nonetheless. She ultimately apologizes for telling me off on the phone and said that she's only tough on me because she wants me to learn and that even though I went to a good school, the real world is going to teach me a lot more and in a lot more different way. So...in the end, I guess it worked out. She said I still did a decent job despite her complaints and I realized that as much as I dislike my boss for how condescending, curt, and abrasive she can be, I appreciate that she isn't babying me. It's tough love, I suppose. She runs our newsroom like my dad would. Hella Chinese and hella strict (she could definitely be my dad...if she just lost the feathered haircut and vagina) But she has her heart and our well-being at hand. I'm not going to say I'll like it, but I think I'll end up better for it.
As I said before, this isn't my dream job, but I am trying to make the most of it. It's been humbling and it's been rough, but things will get better I'm sure. I haven't had a lunch break yet this week, so let's hope that's my first improvement.
On another note, I need to stop eating apples in the company bathroom. My after work snack is a fuji apple. I time it. Every day at 5:56, I go to the kitchen, peel off the sticker, wash my apple, grab a paper towel and dry it off, return to my desk, log off my computer pack up, say goodbye, and go to the bathroom for a quick pee pee. But when I'm at the urinal, I like to have both hands free. I KNOW I only technically need one, but I like two...just for safety purposes. So I always put my apple in my mouth and chomp down and hold it there. This is a bad idea, though. On two occasions my apple has fallen out of my mouth and splashed me on the crotch with my own urine and dirty urinal water. One another few occasions, I tilt my head back to avoid situation one, but I end up drooling so much I choke a little. The news director has walked in on me once doing this. Needless to say, my apple eating and pee break combo needs a little rewiring.
So that's life so far. Nothing too exciting. Eating apples and peeing, getting yelled at. The glamorous life of a local news worker.
I saw Vicki today! Yay!
Also, please look out for cheap flights for me, please. Tickets are effa expensive for no reason and I wanna go home to Seattle to see everyone!
Can't wait for Friday-ly yours,
Patrick
The Cary Brothers - Don't Give Up
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