Too Late??

It's around this time every year that the sports networks reach out to me and the local help to see if we can work Vikings Games for the upcoming season.  Things have become so routine -- I expect an e-mail, I get the e-mail, I reply that I can do all the Games, they say cool -- that I can reliably forget it comes until it does, and once it does I can check all the boxes and send it back knowing I have just reserved as many Sundays for work at U. S. Bank Stadium as I could, and I could forget about that until Vikings season begins.

This season, of course, is different.  What I forgot, actually, is the season itself.  I am still highly doubtful that the National Football League is going to get their season off -- not just in time, but at all.  There is just too much uncertainty -- not just with fans in attendance, which the league is crazily thinking could actually watch in sizable numbers -- but with players; college football is shutting down (though there are a few stragglers) because there have been reports that players who caught COVID-19 developed the condition of myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart.  They can't play.  My conference announced their postponing the football season into the New Year, but that's still too soon.  They can't fucking play.

Anyway ... what else has changed is the person who e-mails me the annual availability.  I didn't notice that it was sent until, uh, a day after I received it in my inbox ... ?  I've had, like, four people from this one network do this job, the fourth of which is this new person I did not recognize.  That's why I didn't immediately zip, "Yes, I can do all of the games!" back to her ... partly.

That was on the 1st.  She replied that what I usually do probably will be shut down for the season because of distancing fears, which I understood.  However, there is always a need for at least one person to run around giving the crew stuff, so I made sure that if my skills are needed anywhere else in production, I would certainly love to do that.  And then I forgot about it.

Fast-forward to me coming home from work and teleconferencing my shrink.  I receive a text from, I realize, this crewer from the network.  "You didn't reply yet to my e-mail asking if you were still available to work all Vikings games," she said, "But I want to ask if you are available to be a Runner for this date?"  Hell yes, I am!  And then I wondered, "So ... she replied back to me?"

She did.  I checked my e-mail, which I had let run to over 100 messages unread.  Inbetween I finally found her name and her e-mail she sent Wednesday in which she said, essentially, "Sorry I didn't get back to you till now.  Are you still available for game days?  We might have something for you!  Respond ASAP, please!"

Shit.  So if I got the timeline right: Something came up whereby there was a need for people for a Game or Games; she e-mailed me; I did not reply; she then resorted to texting me about work for a specific date; I replied via text and that e-mail; she responded, "Thank you!" to the text, but, "You're locked in for this one date, and if anything crops up for the others, I'll let you know.  Please confirm, thanks!"; I confirmed.

OK.  First of all, I don't understand why she had to ask me if I was available for all Vikings Games because I said in my last e-mail before she asked a second time that, and I quote, "I will probably be available!"  With that being said, my ... uh, procrastination/oversight caused a gap of time between the time my inbox received this new e-mail and me replying to communication offering work of more than a day.  If I take "Are you still available for game days?" as saying, "Are you still available for all game days," did not seeing that e-mail for more than a day cost me gigs for four other Vikings Games?  If so, I will hate myself till the end of time.

Why and how did it happen?  Well ... (sigh).  I receive a lot of e-mails.  I know, I know, everybody does.  But I am getting more than I usually do because I currently am inundated with political e-mails from Democrats hitting me up for money.  It was totally easy for me to miss it.  Also, I had that stressful Zoom with my college on Tuesday and I just wanted to unplug, and for more than a day.  That's why I let 100 messages pile up in my inbox.  Plus my parents are harshing my buzz because I have been eating this sugary Chinese swill shit they're making me eat and drink the past several days.  Excuses, sure, but that's why I wasn't more attentive in checking.

I'm worried that I was first to be contacted, and because I didn't reply for over a day, she went on to the other, less-tenured people on the list, and they sucked up all the other Games.  And since she's new, she is now thinking that these other people are reliable and I am not, and so once everything gets back to normal, she'll go to those people first for the plum jobs for Vikings Games -- namely my job.  And I'll be stuck working only one goddamn Game a year.

So now, beyond predicting, I am now hoping that the NFL season is canceled, or is at least postponed.  That way the slate probably will be wiped clean, she'll have to ask everybody again, and this time I'll totally jump on the e-mail as soon as I see it (it should be less cluttered since such an e-mail would probably be sent after Election Day) and take up all the Games!

Yeah.  Probably not.  Too fuckin' late for me.  Goddammit.