Originally Posted By TALL Disney Guy Lately I've had some folks askin' what exactly I do at my full time job, so I thought I'd cover detail it here for anyone interested (my men's shoes job is my part-time job, this is my full-time one). I'm called a "News Monitor", and I watch newscasts from all over the country and some syndicated/entertainment shows. I summarize every segment, making sure to get keywords (products, public officials, organizations, celebrities, logos, etc.), and visuals (products, celebs, logos [VERY important in entertainment shows]). Clients search for who/whatever they represent and buy these segments up (why they'd wanna spend the $ for that I dunno, lol). I can watch the shows however fast I want to--usually I go about 2.4, where "1" is normal speed--so over twice as fast. And you can zip through commercials, thank goodness. There are no TVs here, we all watch and type on the same screen on our computers (smaller "boxes" on the screens for watching and typing). And they play at 1 frame per second, so they're all choppy. Here are most of the cities and shows I cover: Chicago -- [WGN, WLS] Dallas -- [TXCN, KTVT] Denver -- [KUSA] Detroit -- [WJBK] Baltimore -- [WJZ] L.A. -- [KABC] Total Request Live (TRL) -- [MTV] MTV News Sportscenter -- [ESPN] Best Damn Sports Show Period -- [FSN] Showbiz Tonight -- [CNN] Access Hollywood What Not to Wear -- [TLC] Life & Times -- [KCET in L.A.] C-SPAN Those are on my schedule during the week (it varies some day to day), but about every day we're given one or two extras that can be anywhere...San Diego, Tampa, CNBC, or daytime things like Martha, Ellen, and other magazine shows like E! News Live, Insider, etc., and I sometimes cover awards shows and specials (red carpet specials, etc.) I'm big on country music and got to monitor the CMA Awards last fall, and I *loved* that (I got me muh eye on the ACM Awards this spring). Unfortunately for this job I'm a sensitive guy, so seein' all the tragic, horrible, awful news stories day in and day out sure doesn't bode well with me. And unfortunately, about 75% of my work is news. Just imagine having to watch segments on murders, rapes, deadly home invastions, arson, shootings, drunk driving deaths, child molestation, abductions, and animal cruelty from various cities. Then on the other hand, now and then I'll get a story on a heroic person, someone saving an animal's life, an animal saving a person, a child saving a parent, a compassionate person with money helping out someone in dire need they saw on the news...sadly though that's a small percentage of the stories. So with all these different stories and watchin' 'em so fast, it's like an emotional roller coaster ride here. I go from angry to scared to disgusted to worried to appalled and happy and touched all at warp speed. The happy ones I'm fine with, I just wish I could eliminate all the bad stuff. That's why I love my entertainment shows, there's no inhumanity there (well, I guess that's debatable when you have a star saying spilling a drink on her dress is a "tragedy!", lol [that actually happened]), but it's nice to not be affected by *actual* tragedies and the other awful stuff in those shows. So I'm thankful for those Hollywood-type shows that "give me a break". And I'm also thankful I can post here from work, because honestly, I need the distraction and to get my mind on something else for a minute or two. It really does help to have something great to hop over to and not let my mind be buried and bogged down by the tragic stories and horrible images I'm exposed to over and over. So if you ever watch news or some other entertainment/sports shows...I just may be watchin' with ya if the locale and show matches up. Just be careful what you wish for...I always thought it would be great to watch TV for a livin', and I am, but these ain't no sitcoms. Yes, I'm grateful for the casual atmosphere and the fact it pays alright, but I tell you what I sure do enjoy sellin' men's shoes a lot more than watchin' the news!
Originally Posted By chickendumpling Uhhh. Wait. Full stop. I have to re-read this. Is Tall getting in touch with his feminine side? Aaahhhh, LIGHTEN UP FRANCIS! LOL. Love ya mean it <--- runs for cover
Originally Posted By chickendumpling *peeking back in from safe, undisclosed location* Okay. I take it alllll back. I re-read it. That's pretty decent of you Tall. You aiiiight. (I did think this was a *personals* ad at first though.) And how am I supposed to get my work done if you put this kinda stuff out as fodder for me??? You are sooo inconsiderate.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad Bah, I still don't get it. LOL just kiddin.... Tall you are alright with me man!
Originally Posted By chickendumpling I already officially apologized. I think Tall is the "niftiest" and everybody knows it.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad Byron, actually your job is really facinating to me. I would love to be able to keep up so throughly on world events and also on things that happen around the US. I think its pretty awesome to be so well informed. In fact I never even realized that there were such jobs as that. It's very interesting.
Originally Posted By Labuda What happened to your original posts #2 & 3, chickieD? Did you ha e them removed?
Originally Posted By gadzuux For about three years (back in the `70s) I was a projectionist - an "audio/visual tech" - at an advertising agency - actually two - mccann erickson and darcy macmanus. So my job was largely to watch commercials all day long. About half were commercials done by our agency. The other half were the professional "reels" of production companies and freelancers. I quickly learned that nobody cared what I thought about this or that particular commercial - just rack it up and show it. It was an odd job, but at the time I thought I wanted to work in broadcast production. Turns out that "glamour professions" like broadcasting and advertising are wildly unstable and don't pay well. But it had it's upsides. I was an integral part of new business presentations, and had a birdseye view into the conference room for many of the high powered executive meetings.
Originally Posted By chickendumpling <<What happened to your original posts #2 & 3, chickieD? Did you ha e them removed?>> Yes. I was just joshin' with Tall but it "sounded" mean in print and I would never do or say anything mean to Byron ever. I think he is a really neat guy and I admire the way he just kinda put that all out there and I feel horrible for teasing him even a little. I do that way too much with too many people here and I am very, very sorry. Byron ~ I have royally screwed up yet another thread of yours and I'm sorry. I hope you can forgive me. Let's all pretend this never happened and get back on topic. Pretty please?
Originally Posted By TALL Disney Guy (no worries, cd) DVC_dad since you find this so fascinating I sure wish you could come do it for me, lol...I've done this for 25 months now and I have had MORE than enough. The search fer greener pastures picks up again purty soon. gadzuux, we have some folks here called "Commercial Identifiers" (there are several different depts.), though I've never seen what one does. PLJ, we just use normal computers and keyboards---nothin' special about 'em.
Originally Posted By chickendumpling <<(no worries, cd)>> (Okay. good. then disregard those msgs where I am falling all over myself apologizing to you. k.)
Originally Posted By Liberty Belle It sounds like an interesting job to me, Tall! At least you'd have a lot to talk about at dinner parties. I know what you mean about it getting depressing though - when I was a kid, I refused to watch the news because it was all so miserable.
Originally Posted By Kala Wow TDG I never knew! Very interesting and I agree with Liberty Belle you would be a wealth of knowledge at dinner parties! Impressive.
Originally Posted By TALL Disney Guy Oh Liberty, if only I had dinner parties to go to---but with 2 jobs and a gym, I'm lucky to go by McDonald's for a gourmet meal! lol Yeah, I get "interesting" a lot when I tell people what I do, but unfortunately ya can't really get a sense of how mentally miserable it is unless ya do it...:-\...some things I hate the most are when the anchors try to emotionally blackmail you ("Officer Jett was only 30 years old, and leaves behind a pregnant wife and 3 daughters"--I DON'T WANT TO KNOW THAT!! SHUT UP!!), when I hear about innocent people getting out of jail after DNA evidence clears them after 20 or 30 years (I know it's a good thing but it TICKS ME OFF that innocent people's lives can be RUINED like that!!), and anything on animal cruelty. Those are just 3 examples of the top o' my just-woke-up head.
Originally Posted By beamerdog Fascinating job, TDG. What's the average tenure of someone doing this? How many people are doing the same in your company? I can see how this could be wearing on a caring person like you. I worked for a guy who contracted with a news clipping service to send articles from all over the country about himself. I thought it was pretty narcisistic as he never used the information for anything useful. Of course it was part of my job to get him in the papers, lol.
Originally Posted By TALL Disney Guy beamer, they have a pretty high turnover rate. But if you like somethin' like this you have job security cause there's always news! (unfortunately, lol) I'd say the average is about a year or so. Some of us have been there 2+ years, some are there for a few monhts. There are probably about 200 or so people that do what I do in this city location (there are some other big city sites too). That's just a guess---there are two 1st shifts, two 2nd shifts, and two 3rd shifts. I used to be first 2nd shift which was 6 p.m. - 2:30 a.m. W-Sun., but now I'm the second 2nd shift which is 7 p.m. - 3:30 a.m. M-F. That's an interesting job working for a Narcissus you had there, lol. I'm surprised no one's chimed in yet to say they watch any shows I see...for the L.A. area folks here I monitor KABC on Friday nights at 6 p.m. with Marc Brown, Suze What's-her-name, and Josh Rubenstein's weather. I used to do KGO in the Bay Area on weekends with Carolyn Tyler, Tui Vu (sp), and Sandyha Patel weather...and then there's the local cultural "Life & Times" on Friday nights for me on KCET in L.A. that I *really* enjoy doing---I'll never forget, the 1st night I did there was a segment which was an interview with Maureen O'Hara---the mom herself from Disney's "The Parent Trap"! I knew right then I would love that show, lol. If vbdad55 comes in here, I'm curious to see if he ever watches WGN in Chicago at 9 p.m. or WLS at 5 and 6 p.m. (if he sees this). The WGN file always runs 2 hours long, so after the news I skip "Sex and the City" afterward and speed through "Everybody Loves Raymond" and watch it in 10 or 15 minutes and then the first few moments of "Will & Grace" until the file runs out, for a little break, heehee. Mon. and Tues. I have the same shows and they're kinda drudgy (only fun thing is TRL), Wed. and Thurs. are the same but a bit better (I get TRL *and* "Showbiz Tonight"), but I really enjoy my Fridays. My Fri. night lineup of fun shows is: --TRL --Showbiz Tonight --Best Damn Sports Show Period --Access Hollywood --What Not To Wear --Life & Times That's 5 hours worth of work right there, and we're supposed to average out to 6.5. So I do KABC 6 p.m. in L.A., and I have a C-Span which counts for 2 hours but you can do in 5-15 minutes, for a grand total of 7.5 hours worth of work. If I'm in a *really* good mood I'll try to do one of the 2 Detroits on my sheet, but they're usually violent and icky so I try to leave 'em for leftovers, lol. I can't believe I'm talkin' this much about work when I ain't at work, lol.
