Wind and/or wuthering
Man, the wind blew last night. Right out of the north too, which means “right into the window of Evan’s room, which leaks air like it’s barely there.” I tacked up a blanket across the window, so the cold air didn’t reach him (his crib is by the door, and more importantly, by the central heat/air vent over the door, which was keeping him nice and toasty), but the bed I’ve been sleeping in there during my “overnight baby shift” is right under the window, so…yeah, I got a bit cold. Even my cats didn’t stick around. Draft dodgers!
After reading Flack’s tale of attrition by pizza, I was instantly reminded of my first TV job, and the fact that I had only part of one night’s training. Bearing in mind that I had been working in radio for about 4 years at that point, I think it was probably a big help that I had basic theory of timing out commercial breaks, etc., down…but still, it came as a surprise to me when, about four hours into my shift, she announced that it looked like I had it all figured out, and that she was going to leave and go hang out with her boyfriend. She also made it clear that she wasn’t going to come back to check on my work, or for that matter come back at all. She was quitting on the spot.
I finished out that shift to the best of my ability, without any major issues. Needless to say, the next Saturday night, I was working that shift instead of her.
The funny thing is, several years later at another local gig, I ran into someone who shall remain nameless who was apparently the person with whom she went to hang out after leaving me to my fate. We had a little laugh about that and said that the last time he saw her, she’d said the same thing – which came as a bit of a surprise, since he thought he was her boyfriend. My only reply to that was “Well, I guess she’d finished training you.”
It’s strange how well that joke didn’t go over at the time, but I still think it was funny.… Read more
