Today is The Day, The Day that glows around the edges and gives me free time to have a House season 4 marathon, The Day that screams no schedule! and wake up as late as you can!. And of course, the day to blog. Yep, we are talking about Saturday. The beginning of a work-free weekend. (Though actually I did bring some work home.)
Anyway, as usual, allow me to drone on the highlights of this week, the most recent and best being my brand spanking new Levi's, gifted by Levi's Asia's President after an incredibly satisfactory interview and chat with him during the Flagship store launch at The Gardens. And he gave me and my 3 other crew each a pair before he even had any to drink! You know what, I am starting to really like this part of my job, the constant thought of being able to covet items by sucking up to the one white guy (the big guys are usually the ones with accents) at any store launches. Or rather, having them suck up to me by giving gifts, as lo and behold, thou shalt not get good media coverage if thou did naught to impress me.
I know, before I continue I might pull a muscle or scratch out an eyeball by accident for so brazenly flexing my bragging rights, but ah, since I work almost 14 hours some days, I figure the gods or the cosmos will see past this.
Unrelated, I found that of late my posts have been increasingly wrapped around work and more work. Indeed, that is the current state of my life thus far. How much more personal life can you squeeze in if you spend about 95% of your day at work? It's been almost three weeks since I have been living alone after my family left for India, so axe out the family aspect in my day to day routines, there's really pretty much just work left. I also know, the next golden question you'd ask is probably along the lines of but do you like your job? or is it worth it?, but I gotta say, as much as I love sleeping till midday and indulging in TV marathons all day all week, this job I've got here is challenging every day, and from it I have and will obtain countless lessons unobtainable elsewhere. It is this job that grants some bit of satisfaction after a long day of work with little time left for anything else. It is also this job that shakes me up more than a little and forces me to confront my inadequacies and complacencies, because being just good is never good enough.
Within the first week, I have learnt that being so new and so uneducated in the broadcasting field by no means reduces any slack I am given. Being clueless and not in charged will cause respect for you to slide, fast. Shy on the first shooting assignment? No one's gona help you get that interview but yourself. It's a constant internal struggle to put yourself out there and to suppress that fear of messing up. No one will give motivational pep talks or pat you on your back for that small feat that you thought was such a monumental milestone. I am not saying the working environment generally sucks this much, but that is certainly the norm within my department, and I would say quite usual in the broadcasting everyone-wants-to-climb-on-top-of-everyone-industry.
Last night, at an event I calmly breezed through an impromptu interview with someone important, and though calm I was, I had thought it was far from perfect. But a few casual commendations from my camera crew threw me off guard - those were your own questions? There were good. You were really steady. etc etc - and caused an oddly disproportionate amount of satisfaction to swell in my heart. It was officially the first departure from the usual 'how to be a better journalist 101's or 'no you are not doing it right' or 'ah you are still new you have lots to learn' comments.
So, though it was small, I savoured that sliver of encouragement and praise from these people, who have probably seen torrents of events and shot even more interviews. So you see, these are precisely the satisfactions and happiness I mean when I say I like my job, even though I will never stop bitching about the hours or the mental stress or the lack of time for other stuff et cetera. After all, if obtained without a struggle, there wouldn't be much pride in it, is there?
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On a different note, happy 21st, big brother.
Posted at 11:03 am by Vivacia
