Today was election day (just in case you missed that memo)! I work for a NPR News affiliate, which means we air a whole lot of news, information and talk shows and not much else. Which is cool if you're a news junkie. Which I'm not really, but I digress. In the 8 years that I have worked there (more if you include the 2 during college), I have never worked an election night. Always managed to be busy somehow. This year, I finally made arrangements to have myself be available for the late shift. I am so glad I did!
I came into work around 4pm and did some of my usual paperwork and upkeep. Around 6, an unusually high number of people started wandering into the station. At 7, we all took our places and started getting geared up. Live coverage began at 8pm. I was the engineer in the production studio; we had 2 hosts and 2 guests live in the talk studio; 2 of our reporters were out in the field at various campaign headquarters; our other 2 reporters were at their desks, writing news stories and editing audio; we had a newscaster who read news every hour from the studio adjoining mine; there were about 6 people in our conference room, each with their own laptop, checking polls and numbers and races and such; there were 2 TVs, one in the front office, one in the talk studio; our Assistant Engineer wandered around checking in everywhere to make sure all the equipment was working properly at all times; and our fearless leader, the Program Director, walked around with his clipboard in hand making sure all the whos, whats, wheres and whens lined up the way they were suppose to. What an operation!
I was in charge of any- and everything that went on air. At times, I was using Google chat to talk with 2 people at once, while making sure our audio cuts had transferred into the right folder on the right computer, providing said audio cuts for our hosts or newscaster to air, connecting a third guest on the phone, and trying not to push the wrong button at the wrong time. This was more multitasking than I think I have ever done at once! It was a strange combination of frustrating, confusing, invigorating and exhilarating!
On most days, my job is not a taxing job. I do my very best not to complain about how my work drains me, because it doesn't. Really, I have a fairly easy job. Most days. However, tonight, I was whooped. We were live for 5 straight hours. When I walked out at 1:15am, I hadn't sat down since about 6pm. I don't mean to belittle myself or anyone else who works a radio job, but I concentrated harder tonight than I have in a very long time. We managed to get through the night with just a couple of flubs, but as we say, "That's live radio. These things happen." And those things did happen, but only a few and they were fairly minor. We could have seen trainwrecks much nastier. All in all, things went smoothly and no one wanted to ring anyone else's neck at the end of the night. Most everyone kept their cool. Ok, I flailed my arms around on more than one occasion when something didn't go exactly right, and cursing was not uncommon, and every now and then someone had to step into another room just for a "change of scenery," but really, everything flowed pretty well. And, as I've been told, "If you were perfect, no one would like you!"
For a night like this, perfection was not expected, I don't think. (We all like each other too much to be perfect!) However, near perfection we did, and did well. Sometimes I'm not crazy about my job (don't tell my boss, just in case he doesn't read this). Sometimes I love it. Tonight... well, last night at this point, I was high because of it. I felt accomplished. I had helped make something good happen. Things rolled the way they did, in part, because of me. And that is an incredibly awesome feeling. That is AHA at its finest. "I did that" is one of the greatest forms of AHA I can think of. That's was election night coverage was for me. I loved it, and you bet I'll do anything I can to be there again next time!
