stella6.com

things have been a little … crazy … at work lately. all the stress got me thinking that, while the long hours, drama and excess requirements are wearing on my last nerve - mentally, physically, emotionally - any one of these intese days is totally different from what i would consider my worst day at a job.

it happened at my last job, when i was producing a two hour morning show all by myself. All BY *MYSELF.* just me, my computer, the scanners, and some weird guys back in master control, from around midnight till 3 a.m., when the photogs, talent, and crew came in. anyway, this particular day was a culmination of several weeks of annoying phone calls from this guy that wanted to be on the show. i worked in a medium-sized market (obviously - what kind of larger market would force an entire two hour show on one producer?), so people rarely ever searched ME out, wanting to be on the show. i mean, it was no Good Morning America. i spent hours researching local activities, keeping on top of city even calendars, staying in touch with my “contacts,” having my sleep interrupted, to get good, interesting info and guests on my show. true, it WASN’T GMA, but why should that stop me from making in the best it could be?

so when this guy called me, i was initially intrigued. he WANTED to be on my show!! the more he talked, the more he started to be pushy, and REALLY annoying about trying to get on the show. i could only imagine what someone like that would be like when he was actually on TV. he was a singer from some old school band that had been popular in the 70’s. to get off the phone, i told him i’d think about it, and talk to my crew. of course i didn’t have to do that, and rarely did, since the talent pretty much trusted my judgement. basically, i’d already decided i didn’t want him on the show, and was trying to give him the brush-off - nicely.

a couple days later, he called again. this time i told him my decision - that i didn’t think it would work out. in all honesty, we WERE booked. although i didnt have people begging for time slots, because of my diligence, i usually managed to fill the show’s guest slots, almost fully, about three or four weeks out. so that’s what i told him. well, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. as he continued to (pathetically) joke, and try to sell himself, i became more convinced i’d made the right decision. after a few mintues i had to cut him off - i was a one-man-producing show, and i had work to do.

i wish i could say that was it, i was a little curt, and it was over. but this post is titled “the worst day ever,” so you know that’s not true. he KEPT calling, which is like the worst PR ever. if someone doesn’t want you on their show, the way to change their mind is NOT to call and badger them, especially when you already know they are completely SLAMMED from 10 pm till 3 am. he called a few times in the next week or so … and i just got sick of dealing with him b/c he had actually turned beligerent. so i told my boss the whole situation, he told me to pass the guy off on him, and i did.

i’m assuming my boss told him exactly what i had - this is our call, we’re booked, please don’t hassle us any more. case closed, i forgot about it.

then maybe a week later, i was in the booth, about 15 minutes from the end of my show when some random guy showed up. IN THE BOOTH. it was HIM. now, a TV station is usually totally locked down, so another issue was, how the hell did this guy even get in here?? an issue i resolved when i discovered who the offender was. but anyway, i now had mr. beligerent essentially in my office, uninvited. he gave me the whole schpiel about why he should go on, he was this historic music icon, he’d played w/michael jackson, etc, etc. all the while i’m TRYING to effing PRODUCE A SHOW. i have anchors talking to me in my headset, photogs asking questions, my Technical Director and crew are dont’ know what’s going on, plus, we’d just opened our phone lines for a contest and of course it was my job to answer them.

let me re-explain how NOT to convince a producer to let you on their show. do not call and be annoying. do not be rude. do not force them to turn you over to their bosses (who, by the way, if they’re good bosses and the producer is a good employee, will always side wiith the employee). and for fuck’s sake DO NOT violate what the boss told you, what the producer told you, and what the security system should have told you, and show up IN THE PRODUCER BOOTH. with 15 minutes left in the show. even if you were Jesus Himself, how in His name am i supposed to fit you in, when i now have ten minutes left??!!

so i argued with the guy (in between talking to the anchors, answering phones, giving weather cues, and so forth) for a few minutes and finally told him - i am doing a show here. this is rude. i don’t know how you got it, but you can go wait in the green room. then he had the nerve to argue with me, until he eventually gave in and hauled his annoying ass to the green room.

after the show, i went back to the newsroom and met up with my anchors and crew, and told them who had decided to come in anyway. (they knew the whole story up to this point, as they’d been getting daily updates since the beginning.) i was SO PISSED OFF, that my entire anchor team - who totally had my back - volunteered to go talk to him and at least ask him to leave until normal business hours, when our boss came in, since at this point it was only 7 a.m.

if i remember correctly, the guy left, and i called my boss, hysterically angry, explaining to him what had happened. he said he would come in right then. by the time my boss got in, crazy musician had returned to the green room (if he ever left), and my boss headed in to talk with him. i followed, of course, feeling the need to defend myself. i listened to the guy go on a tirade about how all the other stations in town had given him air time (probably b/c their producers weren’t as strong as i was!), how he was this great musician, had been in this band, performed with these people, and of course this young, underqualified producer wouldn’t put him on the air b/c she didn’t know who he was. she was uneducated and incompetent.

that’s where i lost it. i returned with a tirade of my own: not only is that not true, it has nothing to do with knowing who you are or not. you called me incessently, didn’t listen, then CAME INTO MY BOOTH. why would you expect me to put you on air when you would do something like that?

he started back in with the incompetent, uninformed, young producer bit again, and i walked away - leaving my boss to handle it. i stormed into the bathroom, and for the first and only time in my life while at work, bust into tears. How DARE someone act SO rudely, so unprofessionally, then question MY skills. the fact alone that i saw through him and refused to have him on the show proved to me that in that area, i WAS skilled. i didn’t regreat my decision one bit. it might have been easier to give in after the first couple phone calls, but i wasn’t just being stubborn because he was annoying, i was refusing to let him get away with tormenting me into giving him his way. anyone who would act like that didn’t deserve any air time.

my anchor came into the bathroom a few minutes later, and told me my boss was totally standing up for me, and not letting the Crazy Man get away with treating us that way. which made me happy, but not as happy as what one of the photogs told me a few days later. he said he’d been watching some of the other stations, and had seen Crazy McSinger on every other morning show. in a normal situation, i would have been panicking, if we were the only station to miss out on covering something and it happened on my watch. but in this case, i knew i’d done the right thing. plus, my photog told me Crazy had totally dominated the segments he’d been on, talking about himself, and not letting the anchors get a word in edgewise. in a weird way, i had my revenge. i’d held my show up to my personal standard i’d set for it, and i was really happy about it.

people always comment on how weird it is that i’m married - because i’m so commitment-phobic. it’s true. i hate deciding to wear a hat, because i hate the thought that once i put it on, my hair will be messed up, and i’ll be committed to wearing that hat all day. it’s also true that i’m a little crazy. but my fear of commitment spans beyond my choice of head-wear.

one of my greatest fears is that i’ll get comfortable somewhere - in a job, a city, a lifestyle - and wake up one day, 20 years later, not having done all the things i wanted to do. so i have a HARD time commiting to a job, or a place i’m living, even if i REALLY love everything about my life circumstances. this is the case now. we’ve been here for almost a year and i’m already thinking about where i want to go next - not because i’m not happy here (i AM!!), but because i want there to be a “next.” i don’t plan on staying here forever. as far as my job goes, i’m six months in and it’s the first job where i haven’t actively been seeking out something else within the first few months.

i blame this, largely, on my military upbringing. i’ve never lived anywhere longer than three years, and that’s on the high end. the average was more like two years. i can’t imagine what it’s like to have grown up in the same place with the same friends and the same schools. sometimes, i start looking around (to move, switch jobs, careers, whatever) because i think there’s something better out there. but usually, it’s just because i know there’s something *else* out there. this can be good, because i’m always pushing myself to find that next step and to continue to grow. it can also be bad. i don’t want to live a life where i’m never content, not fully able to enjoy what i’ve been given. somehow, i have to find a balance between the two.

the combination of being a military brat and a commitment-phobe has meant something else, too. i don’t really have roots, i definitely don’t have a place i call home, and i only have a few “childhood” friends - and even they are technically from highschool and not “childhood.” surprisingly, this doesn’t bother me. i used to freak out at the thought that there would come a day when i’ll have to decide where i want to live FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. then i realized, my parents are in their 50’s and they still haven’t “settled down” - there’s nothing that says i have to. and right now i’m not planning to. of course there might be that perfect circumstance where something clicks and i change my mind. but the way i look at it now, there’s no way i can see and do everything i want, live everywhere i want, accomplish everything i want, if one day i have to “settle down.”

so when people comment on the irony that i have such a problem with commitment and yet am married, i tell them i used up all my commitment-making ability on that one decision, and now i’m out. probably for the rest of my life.

i recently got a t-mobile dash.

it’s beautiful - and as i’m usually not one to jump on the gadget bandwagon (since i can usually barely operate the 1.0 version, let alone the 6.0 version), i convinced myself i NEEDED a PDA phone. i’d been holding out that my work would get me one, but no dice, so i finally just got my own. i don’t really have to have it for my job (although it does come in handy sometimes), but it kinda makes me feel more professional and legit. of course, i’m probably only using it to, like, half its capacity since i’m not a 6.0 person.

the one thing i noticed right away - i used to be able to leave my old phone (a RAZR) on for a week without charging it, but not so with the dash. the second day i had it, it died at work. at first i thought, well, it’s getting more data, i have it hooked up to my work email, so it just works harder, and the battery runs down faster. i’ve had it for about 2 weeks now, and thoses first two days were the longest it’s gone without dying. so i started plugging it in EVERY night, instead of one night per week. i did that last night. then this morning by noon, the battery had already died. the battery was SO spent it actually shut off and wouldn’t turn back on.

WTF? i just paid nearly 300 bucks for a phone that’s claim to fame is it’s a PDA phone - y’know who uses them?? busy professionals. neurotic people who like to be able to work while they’re not ACTUALLY at work. people that need to rely on the fact that the phone’s battery will last longer than FOUR HOURS!!!

so tonight i’m going to be trudging into the t-mobile store and asking for a new phone. i hope i don’t lose all my settings i’ve become comfortable with. it’d seem a shame for such a smart phone not to save the preferences to the SIM - but what do i know, i have a 1.0 brain.

(Feb 1, 2007)

I’ve always said one of the reasons I need to be on a coast is because I love the water and can’t stand being land locked. Then people point out – you don’t live on the beach, you can’t see it from where you are, and you don’t go all that often. All that is true – but for me that never really mattered. Knowing it was there was always good enough for me.

But now, another one of the randomly wonderful aspects of my work is, it’s on the Embarcadero, right across from the water. I ride the train right under the Bay Bridge and along the marina every morning. I take this for granted. I know that because I’d been doing this routine for about 5 months before it really dawned on me just how perfect this situation was. This was my ideal. Boiled down, this was one of the reasons why I moved back to California (although I knew I should never have left!), and into San Francisco. To be in such a perfect city.

So I’ve been trying to really focus on how lucky I am every morning, when my cross-city commute takes me through some of the most beautiful (non-vacation) landscape ever. I see a picturesque downtown as I walk to the metro every morning – the highrises, the amazing architecture, even the americorp building. Then when my train pops up from underground on the Embarcadero I go right by one of my coolest sculptures ever – a crazy huge bow and arrow made to look like it’s crashing into the ground. Then there’s the bridge, the mini-park, the boats parked in the marina, the palm trees.

Today as I thought about it all, I actually got a little teary-eyed. I am SO lucky. And sometimes I don’t live in the moment enough to really taste that. I have the most amazing job, at the most unbelievably cool company - which I randomly fell into before I could even realize what an opportunity it was. I live somewhere that I’m actually excited about and proud of (if you can be proud of a place you live). It’s been a long time since I felt that way.

I think some people just have places written on their hearts. Since I didn’t like Colorado, it was really hard for me to understand how people could be so in love with it. But I can’t judge them if that’s where they feel drawn to be. All I knew was I just didn’t have “that feeling” about it. (my anchors – who had been gone from CO for a while – once said that they just couldn’t stay away. I remember thinking, “are you kidding me? Whenever I go visit somewhere else, I cry when I have to get on the plane to come back here!” And I really did cry.)

Now I have the “feeling” again – and I don’t expect it to be the last time I do. There are a lot of cities out there with a lot to offer, and I plan to live in a lot of them. For now though. I’m going to do something that’s tough for me – try and focus on tasting the moment I’m living in now.