My first week

Well, my first week at the new position is over, and I'm friggin' exhausted. I had to switch from a 1-10pm shift to a 3am-12pm shift, and it really disrupted my sleep patterns. I'm trying to break up my sleep so that I sleep for a few hours after work in the afternoon and then again before work at night. This way I have the evenings to spend with my friends or the gf. It's working now with moderate success, as I seem to keep getting interrupted during my sleep in the daytime.

Beyond that, the work is going okay. The people who work on the morning show are really nice and have been really helpful, though there are a lot less people I have to deal with during my normal workday.

My first reaction to the new digs is that there's a lot more to the job than I first imagined. The assistant producing job involves helping out with scripts, handling contestss, putting info from the show on the Web, handling guests, and the big task after the show is arranging the live cut-ins. They are the "and now a word from your local news" bits that happen during the Today show.

I think right now it's a little daunting, just because I have to learn and remember a lot of details. There are so many little things that go into each script, mostly cues for the director, that I'm not used to doing while writing. I think once I become more comfortable with the system, get a certain rhythm going for each script, and set a good timetable for each task, these things will come much easier to me.

I trained most of the week, and on Friday did the whole Assistant Producing gig by myself, as the normal AP took the day off. It all went pretty well, though there were a couple times I had to do things close to the last second.

The most stressful part of the day came when I had to produce the "15 'til noon" Webcast. I still had very little idea about that show, and wasn't shown all the details either. The assistant news director was supposed to help me, and he did, but I had to wait until the morning meeting was over. I had very little idea what to do up to that point, and by the time the meeting was done we were in a rush to get the show together. Thankfully, the other producers stepped in to help me and we got the show together, albeit a little later than we wanted to. The severe weather didn't help things either. I just felt I wasn't prepared to handle that show yet, because I hadn't trained in everything a producer does. I was supposed to save that for this upcoming week. Oh well.

I'm still excited about the new weekend show, because I've been basically given a blank slate (a "tabula rasa," if you will) for how I want to put the show together. I finally talked to the assistant news director about the show, and he really gave me the go-ahead to start pursuing some ideas.


For those of you in the Madison area, you should definitely watch the show, which begins September 16. It runs on Saturdays from 5-7 am and Sundays from 7-9 am. If you can't wake up that early, you can also tape that. I think that still counts in the Nielsen ratings :-P

Where was I?

I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted. Quite a few things have happened:

First, I just finished moving into a new place that's a lot closer to work. I'm excited because the room's nice and big and I can bike easily to work, but it's a little ways away from campus and all my friends still going to school. Plus, I no longer live with any of my friends, but in a house with a bunch of strangers. Another upshot is that there's a shared computer, and I have easy access to the back porch.

Second, I will soon be the NEW weekend morning show producer (yay!). This means that I will produce 4 hours work of programming on Saturday from 5-7 and Sunday from 7-9. The best part is that it's an all new show, so I have a big say into what the format can be. On my other three days I will be Assistant Producer of the weekday morning show, which involves setting up guests and other preparatory stuff.

The downside for this new job is obviously the hours - I basically will be working overnight 5 days a week, which cuts into my personal life. No more late night weekend drinking with the crew - although it might be a blessing in disguise, as it'll force me to "grow up." Plus I can still have on Sunday and Monday nights (and who doesn't?), and can make it to every Badger game. The next step is to actually find tickets.

I'll also miss a lot of the people I work with now. I've had a lot of fun working with the nightside crew and getting to know a lot about them. As one former coworker who recently left said, I've never worked with so many enjoyable people in one place. The good thing about this new job, though, is there's a little more independence, and I get to work with an entirely new group of people, with one exception being a current nightside reporter/producer who will now be a live reporter for the show. We get along real well, and I think we'll have a lot of good ideas for the show.

So that's what's been happening in my life lately. I hope I haven't lost a whole lot of viewers because I've been MIA lately. I promise to post more in the recent future, as I will soon have a shared computer at the new place.

Until then, au revoir.