So I'm at home, and I know that I could be helping out the crew get stuff today. The reason I say this is because this same crew was here for the last Vikings game, and during the workweek I received a call from the production company. I didn't take it because I was at my workstation; when I tried calling back, I just left a message. I know that that call was to see if I would be able to work for them both days, and not just the day of the game. I'm guessing the guy didn't get back to me because, in the, oh, hour between calling me and me calling him back, another local answered his call and agreed to work with him for the whole weekend.
Sucks that's how it happened. On the one hand I could have just answered his call. But on the other hand, 1) I was at my desk, and answering personal calls is frowned upon (at least I think), and 2) all the other people who have asked me to come in on Saturdays at least left me a message. Maybe that second point is moot if I'm right that someone else answered immediately. But, you know, still.
I'm not pining away at this. I've got stuff to do -- this particular post, paying my parents' bills, taking a nap, going to watch the volleyball title game at Hooters (go Big Red!). And I had stuff to do that Saturday when I could have come in. But I'm always looking for a paycheck, and that blown call probably cost me, oh, $150 in extra money. And I could always use extra money.
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But that's not what I want to really talk about. What I really want to talk about is how my job with these production companies has changed, or even devolved, since I started with them over a decade ago.
I hooked onto this position with the help of my friend and my boss at the student radio station. I remember my first-ever job for this game was to get on the party line and either field calls from their headquarters in Los Angeles or ask them really obscure statistics in case something memorable or weird happened in the Vikings game.
From then on I was mainly used to compile stats that aren't automatically compiled by the production's computers. It was mainly a counting job, but I still felt like I was using my broadcast journalism degree. I was part of the production; the numbers I put together may show up on a graphic during the game. And this may sound dumb, but whenever I see one of my stats show up on the Program monitor, which is what we show to the entire country and world, I feel like I had a hand in that, and I get a rush from it, still.
When I grabbed onto the other prod company, I was just a runner -- get this, get that, drive here, buy food for us, etc. That's OK; I am glad there was positive word of mouth on me, and I was happy for the paycheck. But since then, and since that very weird day where this one crew suddenly turned nasty towards me, I have been hired on less as a stat man and more as a runner. I'll admit that I have been asked more often these days to be a two-day runner, and I have said yes, so it may be the case that more people on these crews know me less as a statistician. But there many times where I work the day of the Vikings game, but sit around once the game starts because other people are compiling the stats. Oftentimes all I'm doing is telling the techs where breakfast is and making sure they all leave as soon as the game's over.
That's not bad; again, I'm ultimately grateful for the paycheck. But any chump can be a runner. There have been a lot of locals who have breezed through these trucks in the intervening decade. Many of them have journalism degrees or work in broadcasting, but I know that many don't. And it only recently occurred to me that, although there are a lot of people who like me (and thank goodness for that, otherwise I wouldn't be hired on as a stat man or a runner), they may not care what degree I have, or that I have a degree at all.
Well, it matters to me. If someone there could understand the plight I'm in, they would know that this is my only, albeit tenuous, use of my journalism degree. And maybe then they would know that I could be better used as a statistician. But, well, it might be too late now. To them I'm just Good Ol' Unforgivable Wetness, always there, always ready and willing to do a job that has no connection to what he went to school for.
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