And so I begin my third week of life in New York City. I am still using free time I have to explore, but most of my time is spent preparing for class, working at ABC, and recovering from work. In the media industry, people don't expect much from you until you prove yourself. My first two days were spent trying to figure out how to get around the three building, entire city block that ABC owns, observing how things are run, and battling to work myself into the daily grind. In the world of news coverage, everyone is busy, stressed, and frenzied all day, everyday. As a result, trying to find someone with time to get me up to speed was very difficult. After the first few days of work, I was coming home tired and frustrated.Then I decided to try to do something about it.
I gave up on trying to have things explained to me and started asking for more in-depth tasks, fumbling my way through them. I found that asking someone to help you with a specific task was much more effective. By the end of the week, I had figured out the system, people were relying on me more, and I was working on interesting projects. Things really got moving when I was asked to help with the final work on the Michael Jackson piece that aired on Primetime last Thursday. I was finally working on something over a longer span of time and making a real contribution. The most rewarding part was actually watching it on Thursday night and seeing the result of my work.
