Work update

Well, it's been a few weeks since my last posting, and a lot of things have happened since then. I've produced my first five weekend morning shows as well as handling assistant producing duties for the weekday morning show.

The weekend morning show is a little unpredictable right now. I'm still getting used to producing, which means things take a little longer for me to do at this point. And that's not good news in this business, because we're on a tight schedule of looming deadlines. This past weekend, the Saturday show didn't go so well, but the Sunday show went a lot better because I gave myself a little more time and set some better time goals to get everything in. Also, there was more craziness on Friday night/Saturday morning because there was a school shooting in our viewing area earlier in the day.

I'm also happy that the station has hired a new assistant producer to work Saturday through Tuesday. Right now, I've been feeling like this gig is a seven-day a week job because I have to set things up for the weekday morning show and the weekend. Also, I'm doing two separate duties, and I wish I had been given more time to prepare for each. It's not like I'm taking over a show whose format is already set... I'm creating an entirely new show, and right now I'm thinking a lot about the format when I should be doing other things. Granted, I am taking some things from the weekday morning show to put in the weekends, but there are still other parts that I worry about. I think having the new AP will take some pressure off, because she can help with some of the show's preparation and I can focus on some ideas I had for the show.

I guess the biggest problem was that I wish I had been given either more time to set up the weekend morning show or more time to train as a producer. Because it's a new show, there were a lot of elements that I didn't even think to ask about, and all the while I'm still learning the basics of producing. And my bosses really didn't have much time to sit and talk with me because they're busy doing other things. My show is basically the bottom of the totem pole in terms of importance and the resources I have access to.

Combine my limited experience, preparation and resources for the show, and that makes me look a little unprofessional in front of the people I work with, some of whom have been in the business much longer than I have. Unfortunately, the only thing I believe that can help me is more experience, which is a little frustrating early on. It's also unfair to the anchors, who I'm sure expected the show to be good from the outset. Plus, I only get two days per week to produce an entire show.

Things will get better, I know, and Sunday's show went well enough that I have more confidence in what I'm doing. And we're getting a new scripting system in a couple weeks that's much better than what we have now. That'll get rid of some of the nitpicky things that take a lot of time and I sometimes miss.