i need an intern! and other thoughts inspired by stress

I may have been a little mean to some people this morning as a result of being stressed out.



But then I figured out what would make all the stress go away.
The idea hit me this morning like a sparkly golden lightning bolt from heaven.

I need an intern.

This morning I was a little...mean...to my anchors. And I wasn't doing it on purpose, which is sometimes worse than just deliberately being mean because it means that I wasn't in control of my temper. And believe me, controlling my temper has been a life-long quest for me. That was the fruit of the spirit that I always had the most trouble with: self control.

It was a hectic morning. It started out with the printer doing its usual trick of pretending to have a paper jam when I tried to print the five copies of our 41-page morning show script that I needed. This happens literally every day -- either the printer jams, or it pretends to. Then a crazy called to tell me why we should cover a story about her ex-husband's brother being wrongfully sentenced to life in prison for dealing drugs. Then she called AGAIN to ask if someone was working on the story.

It's 4:00 in the morning, lady. What do you think we DO here at four in the morning?!!

Then came what felt to me like a long line of people with questions that I didn't have the answers to. And that's frusterating because I would have liked to have had the answers for them, but having to say "I don't know" isn't fun because I knew that answer wasn't helping anyone, and at the same time I was too busy to have time to find answers for them. So it just ends up feeling like a lot of time wasted on getting nothing done.

Then our interview guest was confused about the time and showed up late, so I had to figure out how to move things around in order to get them on the show in a later segment. Not usually a huge deal, but the phones were all ringing and schools started calling in delays and everyone kept asking me questions, and what I really needed was just TWO SECONDS to think. But in TV, you don't always get two seconds. And I ended up snapping at my anchors, which I shouldn't have done.

We were talking it out after the show, and that's when the idea came up. I don't remember who said it out loud, but we all agreed it was a great idea: an intern for me!

To be honest, I've often thought - no, fantasized - about having an intern and how great it would be to have someone to help me out in the mornings. But saying it out loud, it didn't sound like such a far-fetched idea. Everyone else has interns; our morning production crew constantly has interns coming in at 4:30 AM to do the morning show. Reporters and anchors have interns, weather has interns, and even the sales department has interns sometimes! So why couldn't I have one?

And the more I think about it, the more amazing it sounds. And hey, this would be one great internship experience...I mean, we don't pay interns here, but they get class credit. And my intern would get plenty of hands-on experience. The intern would show up at 4:00 AM, just as I was starting to print scripts. Then Intern would babysit the printer and put all of the scripts together, digging out the paper jams and refilling the paper trays, while I would be able to finish cutting videos and dealing with all of the answerless questions that I seem to encounter in the mornings.

Then Intern would distribute the scripts and prep the aircheck tapes in the control room record decks. Once the show started, Intern could sit back in the control room with me and watch, and when I needed to add pages, Intern could go get the copies and take them to the anchors in the studio. I'd even let Intern give weather time cues while I went to the door to let interview guests in to the studio, OR if I needed to stay in the control room, I'd let Intern go get the guests! Intern could answer the phones for me if I had my hands tied with something else. And when the show ended at 7:00, Intern could just go home and go back to bed! See, plenty of hands-on, task-oriented, constructive time mixed with plenty of observational opportunities!

So, note to self: ask for intern. Maybe I'll actually get one! I'll let you know.

Finally, I called my mom and dad, who were on their way to Columbus this morning for a veterinary conference. And I felt like a goober because Mom asked me how the show went this morning and I started dumping all the stressful details on her, and then she had to cut me off because they were getting into the downtown area and she needed to help my dad figure out where to go. So I felt bad because I'm sure when she asked, she wasn't expecting to get Chapters 44-47 in my book of Poor Me. And my mom is an amazing listener. Both of my parents are, and they've had a lot of practice with me because a lot of times when I start talking, I can't stop. They are very patient. But I just felt bad because I hadn't even meant to go into all of that stuff and I knew that she probably didn't have time to hear it, but I'd gotten into it anyway. And then, for no good reason, after we hung up I just started crying because I just felt like I'd been selfish about dumping my stress all over everyone else all morning and that made me feel like a terrible person! BLAGGH!

So...I guess thank goodness for blogs, right? The one place you can go to dump all this stuff and whether anyone else reads it or not, you know you got it out of your system and, in a way, cried on someone's shoulder so that you can move on with your day feeling a little better.

So I feel better now. And my light at the end of the tunnel is the long weekend I'm going to spend over Easter visiting my older sis in Florida! I would pack right now if I could!

(30 minutes later)

Mom called back and wanted to hear the whole story after all...so now I feel a LOT better! I love my mom! :)