I’m already one third through with my time here. That seems impossible. Everyone else in my program is staying here through the end of the school year- roughly twice as long as I am- so I try to double their anxiety over clobbering their New York bucket lists. My main focus and majority of my time is spent at work from sunrise to sunset, but instead of kicking back with my Netflix and cat as I do at home, as soon as I push through the door at work, my stress revolves out and my plans for the night replace them.
The catch is that I always have to leave for work again in eleven hours, so there’s a lot of pressure on making sure I choose the very most fun thing to do that night. This leads to a significant amount of multi-tasking. For example, right now I’m writing this as I watch the Super Bowl (pausing for commercial breaks, of course).
Work is offering me a lot more responsibility than I anticipated. I work 45 hours a week, which I just realized is the longest time I’ve spent anywhere in the context of work. So far, I must say that it beats the heck out of waitressing. Less tips, more humanity.
The manager at the station told me that organizing the staff is near impossible because it’s an office filled with anarchists and everyone refuses to conform to traditional workplace norms. There’s a poster I’m fond of by the coffee machine that says, “Pacifists need a clean kitchen just like everyone else.” This element of the station carves out demand for the type of intern who compulsively cleans offices because she can’t stand staring at the coffee sloshed over the walls and three year old review copies of CDs with no cover art.
Other than writing and recording several promos that I hear broadcast daily in the station, the most exciting thing I’ve done was write a press release for Al Jazeera’s partnership with the station. The Egypt and Tunisia uprisings have drawn more attention to the under-broadcast news network, which my station serendipitously began streaming back in December.
As I google it now, the press release was picked up by seven news blogs in the last two days. It’s a powerful feeling to see your own words copied, pasted, and distributed without anyone confirming the details. It emphasizes the importance of triple checking your facts; a low grade seems so trivial compared to the curdling realization of a gaff in print.
As my housemate said, as far as she can tell, a lot of professional jobs in the media are amalgams of thousands of little tasks, and your success is based on your track record. So far so good, although I did accidentally post my boss’ cell phone number to one of the press releases and now he thinks he’ll have to change his number.
There are moments of frantic improvisation in the office, but the final product always streams from the transmitter smooth as glass. I wonder if all news outlets are so manic within. I’d like to see Terry Gross uprooting her desk over the sound quality on her John Waters interview.
Friday night is always a cathartic end to the workweek. My (short) friend Molly and I decided go to an Irish pub after work called Molly Wee. (That’s how big this city is; I’m still looking for a bar called Elaine Directionless.) Everyone at the Wee was from Ireland, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself by ordering some Merkin drink, so Molly texted her Irish bartender friend for a suggestion. He responded with an “Irish Kiss” which not only embarrassed me, when the barkeep got the wrong idea, but also landed me with an eight dollar green and syrupy concoction and a syrupy recollection of the rest of the night. Next time, I’ll stick to a Shirley Temple.
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