It occurred to me that yesterday (Aug. 21) marks my six-month anniversary with my job here in South Bend. September 9th will mark my 5th month of producing on-air.
Where did the time go?!?!?
I popped onto my old station's website and realized I only know a handful of people working there now.. crazy. And by know, I mean remember. I doubt anyone there remembers me!
Summer 2007. It seems like just yesterday I was walking into WOAI for the first time.. hoping I'd be smart enough to land an internship with just one year of college under my belt. Heck, I think I'd only taken two journalism classes at TCU at that point. I somehow talked my way into it - and to this day, I'm still not quite sure how.
I remember skipping lunch on my first day, just so I could finish logging an interview for an investigative piece. The interviewee had a thick accent, which made the job that much more difficult - but I was so determined to prove that I was a hard worker who wasn't going to half-ass my job.
The producer I was assigned to work with kicked me out the door an hour early so I could eat - just in time to run into one of the anchors coming in for the day. I was a big fan, but again - determined to be professional - so I stopped her IN THE DOORWAY (yeah, so professional) and introduced myself.
Four years later and I'm still shaking my head. I was a dork.
I tried really hard that summer.. and had a blast, but remember the gut-wrenching feeling I got when I got back to school. I had started my sophomore/junior year already, but needed to finish my project binder to present for my internship credit. The binder had to feature samples of my work, an essay and a review from our internship coordinator - in this case, my producer.
She wrote on the review that I was great at research and always willing to help, but never did any on-camera work during my internship. (I should note here - that was the summer I decided I wanted to be a producer, not a reporter) On the question about whether or not she would hire me to work there.. she said that I would do best by starting in a smaller market.
Okay. Let's be honest here. I was two classes into my major, barely 19 years old and interning in market 37. Come on. But instead of being realistic and taking her opinion with a grain of salt, I took it pretty hard.
I completely respect and admire this producer to this day, but I just felt a bit underestimated. It hurt a lot, especially since I thought I had done really well. So I beat myself up for a few days.. then I decided to let her words fuel my determination to get into this business.
My whole life has been full of people who've thought I couldn't do this or couldn't do that.. and I've always worked to prove them wrong. I busted my backside to get through college in three years and out into the world - when many thought I couldn't.
When I finally graduated, I ran into dead ends everywhere. Seriously. The economy was crap (of course, see how much has changed since '09) and virtually no one was hiring. I didn't want to be unemployed beyond that summer.. and by sheer luck, I found myself at the newspaper right on time - September 2009.
Was it perfect? No. I was not exactly thrilled about moving to a tiny town and working in print.. but I was thankful for the work. And now, I'm thankful for the experience. I covered so many different topics.. it was pretty much ridiculous. I like to think that there was a reason I ended up in that job. Actually, quite a few reasons. I didn't know it then, but I do now.
It still blows me away when I think back to the day I was offered the job I have now. I remember sitting in my car and just wanting to cry because I was finally going to do what I set out to do. When I think about it, I still kind of feel like I have no business being here.. because there have to be people who are better qualified for this than I am.
I try to go into work every day with the idea that I am going to work as hard as I possibly can to prove that I deserve to be here. Because when things go wrong - and things have a tendency to do that if I'm producing, see power outage, Osama's death, major SWAT standoff - and I feel like I can't do this, I know it's my time to show everyone what I'm really made of.
My mother has always said that I'm my own worst critic. And I expect so much more of myself than anyone else does. She's right.. again.
Maybe it's the fact that I'm tired (just wrapped up a long week of fill-in producing), but even just sitting here thinking about all of this.. I have tears in my eyes. Yes, it's ridiculous. Yes, I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve. But even through all of the insanity, I really love what I do.
I just can't believe that four years after I decided this was it.. I'm finally here.
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