I love my job
Going to classes and having a "normal" sleep schedule Sunday through Thursday while flipping that to work overnights on the weekends is tough. There are tougher jobs in the world, yeah. But this is tough.
In October I took a job at a local news station as a writer. The position happened to be overnight. I figured it would just be a stepping stone as I continued to cultivate a print career.
Then I fell in love with it.
I should have seen it coming- in the first and second grade, my neighbor and I would pretend to host a Today Show-esque program. My first job was at KMHI. I quickly found success and love in competitive Broadcast Journalism (back in my my speech and debate days, we called that radio).
Despite the wonky hours (yes, I am a writer and the best adjective I could come up with is 'wonky'. It is five a.m. and I have been up since 11 a.m. yesterday), I find so much satisfaction in this job.
News writer is just one hat I wear when I step into the newsroom. For a good 5 hours of my graveyard shift, I also serve as the overnight producer/assignment editor, a really cool way of saying I listen to police scanners and field phone calls, waiting for breaking news.
Sometimes, I feel like I hold an unnecessary position. On slow news nights, I browse the internet, work on homework, or read books to keep myself awake as the scanners report the mundane crimes around OKC.
Most of the time, though, I feel like a vital cog in this newsroom. For example, this morning we had two bits of overnight news. I pulled together those stories, and as I let the producer know we had great sound for one of them, I felt an immense sense of pride. But the pride was different from the pride of doing something alone. I felt proud of myself for writing the story and finding the bites so quickly. But I also felt proud of the assignment editor who sent our photographer out the shift before mine. And I felt proud of the photographer for getting such great sound, and such great video.
I know when I pull my headphones off when we wrap this mornings broadcast, I will feel an immense sense of pride knowing that I make a vital contribution to this newsroom.
I feel capable in this job, and confident that when I can move up in my career, I will be capable. I've got a great background of wonderful people who have taught me and inspired me, from the great folks at KMHI, to Mr. Petti (who happens to be quite the broadcast journalist!), to the broadcast professor who pushed me to send in my resume and the next one, who taught me to write awesome packages and to be vocal about where I want to be in the newsroom. My support system has always been there for me and challenged me when I needed it. My wonderful parents, my sweet siblings, my awesome boyfriend, my similarly-ambitious friends, and even the other bloggers and commentators on these blogs have inspired me, supported me, and frustrated the heck out of me, and I know it's because of all of you that I am where I am today.
I'm so blessed to be where I'm at. Thank you all for everything.
- -- Posted by Podkaine on Sat, May 4, 2013, at 11:19 AM
- -- Posted by jessiemiller on Sat, May 4, 2013, at 8:22 PM
- -- Posted by lilmissmelmo on Sat, May 4, 2013, at 10:17 PM
- -- Posted by MsMarylin on Sat, May 4, 2013, at 10:46 PM
- -- Posted by KH Gal on Mon, May 6, 2013, at 11:34 AM
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