Week Twelve: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Monday I walked in to work for my afternoon shift at 3p.m. and Susan, one of the head bookers, sent me an email asking, “Are you working the evening shift today?” I told her I was. She responded, “Great, I really need your help. I’ll come by and fill you in around 5.” A few hours later Susan came by my desk and asked me to follow her to the break room. We walked in, preparing our separate cups of coffee, and I felt less like an intern and very much like a colleague as she told me that today I would be in charge of welcoming, ‘mic’ing, and assigning the guests to their posts; basically, I was supposed to take over Susan’s job once she got the guests booked. This was a huge deal considering interns are very rarely trusted enough to do this! Since she had guests taping up to the show at various locations across the nation, she needed someone to take over her role here for the night.

Needless to say, I was excited, yet more than a little nervous. One mistake here could truly mess up the order of the show and the availability of the guests for future shows. Susan made sure I understood this and felt the weight that any little mistake could cost. I went back to my desk and made a list of facts I needed to know about both the guests. I also made sure I knew where I would need to meet at security, walked the path to make-up and mikes, introduced myself to the make-up room as well as the technical aids, and contacted front desk to give them my desk’s phone number; this way they could contact me directly when the guests where here and Susan would not have to be disturbed. I pulled it off, somehow, without any major mistakes. I got a little nervous speaking to the guests and almost forgot to offer them tea and coffee, but everything flowed pretty well. Susan was very pleased! She thanked me in front of the entire team the next morning at the staff meeting. I was very excited. Yet, amidst all these positives, a step backward was inevitable when it came.

While at work I was finishing my class presentation, reviewing some final details, and somehow lost the entire thing! I rebuilt five slides by 5:30 pm when I would usually leave for class. At the same time, my boss came to me and said I would get to time out the show for the day, as a reward for my work yesterday. I was ecstatic, nervous, and anxious all at the same time. I had not paid much attention to the run-down since 4pm when I had lost my presentation. This was also the day I was supposed to present. I sent an email, pretty last minute and got excused from the presentation for the day, of course with penalty. Then I spent the next hour quickly learning the entire run-down, but even then I felt as if I wasn’t fully comfortable with it. My boss said it wouldn’t be too bad; I would have a PA with me. So, I timed out the show, somehow not completely screwing up, though I almost added a minute extra twice had not the PA been there to correct me. It was a hectic day with a hectic ending and the upcoming week had yet more challenges.

Week Eleven: Revisiting an Ordinary Week

Not much happened this week, or so it seemed as compared to the newness of the weeks’ prior. I had gotten the routine of the days down and was comfortable in my environment. It seemed as though New York life had made a place for me. Especially at work, I was in my comfort zone. I walked in every morning or afternoon, depending on the day, logged into the server and sent out an email asking the team what, if anything, they needed my help on. Sometimes emails came back right away saying, “glad you’re here, can you help me with…” other times I sat there, for what seemed like hours, reading and catching up on any news I had missed, just in case I got asked to help with something. I didn’t want to be unaware of what was going on.

Monday slowly crept by. Others seemed to be busy but there was very little extra work to do. I ran a couple of errands, did a few web rolls, and answered a few phone calls. Nothing to exciting. Come Tuesday, I thought things have to speed up today based on the velocity of work I had done yesterday. Yet, nothing seemed to come my way until mid-day. We had heard last week, right before I headed out to Dallas, that Christiane was leaving CNN. She had taken on an offer with ABC to anchor the evening news there. It was a hard transition for many at CNN, considering Amanpour has been with the network for 27 years. Yet, the transition seemed necessary for her personal life to which she had devoted very little time over the last few decades.

The drastic changes at the Amanpour show, that come with the elimination of an entire show and its team, eventually had a direct impact on the Campbell Brown show. Our executive producer who makes the final decisions on hiring and whom we had been getting to know over the last few months, was leaving the show to be replaced by the producer of the Amanpour show. Our EP was actually getting promoted to Director of evening programming to be based out of Atlanta. However, this was bitter news for us, the interns. All the work we had done and everything she had seen happen were gone with her. We now had to start all over with a new Executive Producer.

I didn’t realize this at the time, but it ended up being a positive for me. Katherine O’Hearn, the EP for the Amanpour show who was now taking over the Campbell Brown show, actually remembered me! I had initially wanted to intern on that show and got an offer, one day after Campbell Brown made me an offer. According to protocol, they could not then take me away from the Campbell Brown show; however, I could work on the Amanpour show the days I wasn’t at CB. However, those fell few and far between. But Katherine remembered me from those few times. The first day she was on the CB show, I was asked to help her organize her office. When she came back about 45 minutes later, I had all her files organized alphabetically; I had organized her drawers according to the framework she left, and had uncluttered all the associated mess. She was very happy with me and said, “I remember your application for the Amanpour show. Wish you had been part of our permanent team there. I like your attitude even when you’re given tasks which I’m sure aren’t the reason you took the internship.” As a sort of reward, she sent me down to watch the final taping of the Amanpour show, saying she needed a few of her things as she winked at me from the corner of her eye. A wide smile spread across my face. When I went downstairs and met Christiane, I felt elated to be in the presence of my life-long, professional role model.

The rest of the week went by without too much to do, however, it was exciting to know that the EP knew my name and appreciated my attitude. I hope to keep it up!