Oldie but goodie

In honor of starting a new job once again, I thought I'd post something I wrote after my first day of work out in North Carolina:

"This summer, I had an internship at a newspaper out on the East Coast. This was my crazy first day of work...

8:15 AM: I arrive at the employee’s entrance. I need my ID to get in. I don’t have it yet, so I wait until another employee shows up, and I walk in right behind them.

8:17: I’m in the newsroom, but no reporters have arrived. I talk to the secretary, who tells me she will introduce me to my editor when he shows up.

8:32: Secretary: “Oops, I forgot about you. Steve showed up 10 minutes ago.”

8:40: After a brief chat, I take a tour of the entire Publishing Company. It's kind of like that show "How Stuff Works" without the hip music or creepy narrator.

9:20: I meet the last of the 40 or so reporters. I don’t talk to some of them for the rest of my internship.

9:26: I find the restroom. Coffee wasn’t a good idea. Wait, I’m getting paid to be in here? I might as well eat my breakfast in here, too.

9:31: The funny thing about working for a newspaper is that you find copies of your own newspaper in there. I had the classifieds in my stall.

9:48: After 15 minutes of struggling with my voicemail on my desk phone, I get my first email. It’s from the reporter right next to me.

It read:

“Hi Jarel,
Does your email work? I’m sitting right next to you.”

10:11: My editor stands up, and begins walking across the newsroom. It’s obvious that he’s coming for me. The scene in Office Space where Peter sees Lumbergh approaching him to ask him to work over the weekend? Yeah. My life instantly became a living replica of the movie.

10:17: I get my first assignment, a travel story about Memorial Day weekend. It didn’t take long to get established as the reporter doing the holiday story…

10:21: They give me what is called a “dummy camera” in the industry. It’s known to everyone else as a point-and-shoot digital camera. I have to take pictures of the people that I interview at the nearest rest stop, 20 minutes away.

10:48: I arrive at the rest stop, and find a nice elderly couple to interview. I ask if I can take their picture, and they say it’s fine. I turn on the camera, and receive the blue screen of death. No memory card! I call my editor, who tells me to return to the newsroom, so they can give me a card.

10:51: I’m approached by a man claiming that he is out of money, and needs gas. He proves this to me by showing me his license. I tell him I have no money. He gets a few bucks from another man, then gets in his truck and drives off.

11:15: I return to the newsroom, dripping in sweat. It was about 95 out, and the air conditioning in the car I was driving at the time didn’t work. On top of that, my power windows decided to stop working. They were stuck in the closed position.

11:48: With my new memory card, I am ready to do more interviews. I do a couple, and then the man that had asked me for money earlier drove up again. He was back for another scam. Knowing he had been busted, he changes his story.

“Man, I lost my wallet when I was showing people my ID. Have you seen it?”

12:06 PM: I interview my final couple, but when I turn on the camera to take their picture, the batteries died. Back to the newsroom, again.

12:53: I arrive at my next destination--gas stations right off of the highway! How creative.

1:09: I’m desperately trying to finish. I need to get back to work to write my story, I’m extremely dehydrated, and I haven’t had lunch.

2:02: This gas station is a lot less busy than I thought it’d be. However, I only need to find a black person to have equal representation in the mug shots that we’re printing.

2:10: Jackpot! There’s a black man in a shady van sitting in the corner of the parking lot. I take my chances and head over there.

2:11: I approach and realize that he’s obviously high. He rolls down the window, and a large puff of smoke hits me. He’s eating an ice cream cone from McDonald’s, and listening to Bob Marley.

2:17: I’m done with my interviews! I take a picture of him, as he flashes the peace sign. He yells, “Peace, bro!” and peels out of the lot. He was on his way to Florida. For some reason, I doubt he ever made it.

2:25: I went to the Burger King. I parked in the lot and quickly ate my value meal, because I was so pressed for time that I couldn’t stop. I drank my entire drink in one continuous chug, because I was incredibly thirsty. I opened the lid so I could eat the ice and found…

2:26.03: …ants. Lots of them. Inside of my drink that I had just finished. How many had I drank? I saw at least 50 in my cup. Some were dead, others were alive and crawling around.

2:26.04: I begin throwing up. Some landed on my tie, but I didn’t care because I had to go back to work.

3:09: I arrive at the newsroom, with strange splotches on my tie. I frantically tried to write. I was so rusty--I hadn't written in months...

4:53: I finally finished all of my work. My editor told me to go home after I told him what happened. I went home, exhausted from my crazy first day…"