Consider this a journal entry and skip it if this isn’t your thing.

Once upon a time the Canadian division of a US Christian TV network was looking for a Canadian writer-researcher.
I applied and went in for the interview with the producer.
I learned there were three positions in the production end, producer, writer-researcher and editor.
The rest of the staff was support, handling the counselling centre, office work and budget.
The three production staff provided the Canadian content for the US network that was required to fulfil our laws.

The producer was very up front from the get go.

“I don’t want a news person,” he said.
“I don’t like news people, and here is why.”

I admit, by the time I’d heard his story, I didn’t like news people much either.

He’d been the director of a national newscast, which was a job sub-contracted through an affiliate because of union rules.
To put it bluntly, he’d had a hell of a time.
At the best of times, it’s an unbelievably stressful job, and he faced disgrundled union workers, contempt, sabatoge, and all the political garbage that comes with it.

And to add insult to the injury I’d worked for that network, and knew a few of the people he’d worked with.

I sat through the barrage, realizing I probably wasn’t going to get this job.

“Why don’t I write a test script for you?” I suggested.

“Yeah, alright,” he responded. “We’re way behind. Here is a story idea, bring it back tomorrow morning, and we’ll see.”

I did. He picked it apart, and hired me, grudgingly.
I got quite the extensive list of personal and company rules that day.

I was introduced to others, shown a desk with a pile of unfinished scripts and story ideas piled on it.
The parting shot as he dashed off was, “I had a secretary apply that had some promise as writer. If I’d had time to train her, she’d have had this job. I need two scripts by the end of the week.”

Ok.

Support staff worked normal hours. They were a pleasant bunch, quite clueless about the three of us and what we really did.
We three didn’t work normal. We pulled all-nighters. I did a lot of writing and thinking in the Tim Horton’s down the street. The support staff didn’t have that freedom, but they also didn’t have the deadline stress and a boss that didn’t like news people, or a very meager budget to cover a very big country.

I tried to show up for the occasional devotional time in the morning. I tried to adapt to the ‘christian’ language everyone used. It’s not unlike being in a foreign country sometimes, even though we held a common belief.

The editor and I hit it off right away.
I kept my head down and learned very quickly I was working for a very gifted man.
To this day, I freely admit he was the best producer I have ever worked with.
He was also the most difficult. Picky. Obsessive. Detailed. Moody. Volitile. Talented. Brilliant. Angry.

But, let me tell you, stress or not, we did great work. The US was happy. The Canadian support staff were happy.

I had something to prove. Not all news people are creeps, not all of us are out to make people’s life stressful and painful. Only in hindsight did I realize that was definitely not part of my job description.

All of a sudden there was a large budget cut, and the offices had to move, and quickly. At the same time, a natural disaster in Canada had caught the attention of the US exec producer, while we were busy preparing for a telethon.

My boss grabbed a free lance crew, and shot the disaster footage while I worked with the editor to put a telethon set together and line up some guests.

The US needed the disaster piece right away. It had to have a voice-over by a Canadian. My boss didn’t have time, and tossed the tapes on my desk.

“Do it!” he said.
“Script it, voice it. Get it down there. But don’t think this is going to be the norm.”

The editor and I got it to the US by deadline.
Neither one of us was prepared for the fallout.

Continued tomorrow.