a lot to write so bare with me
I can't believe I haven't written since the end of May, wow....so the summer I worked, took a class, had an amazing trip to Boston, and my brother got married Labor Day weekend, that's about it with other things in between.
Now to the reason I'm writing, to express my feelings in written words because it's too hard to speak them...where do I begin...
I have worked at a total of 4 places in my life since coming to GVSU after high school. Only one of which was outside of GVSU after I graduated, WXMI Fox 17. My first day at Fox was Sunday, November 19, 2006, the reason I can remember the date was because Thursday was Thanksgiving (driving home and back in the same day cause I had to train at Fox), Pat and I broke up Friday night/Saturday morning, worked a cold GV playoff game at noon then drove to my sister's for my nephew's birthday. So I was training at fox on the nights and got little sleep cause I was also working 1st shifts at 7am for security the beginning of the week and I have no idea how I made it through. (yeah ok I know my memory is just that good lol)
Anyway, I first applied at Fox at the beginning of October but didn't get hired and a month later got a phone call from the HR person that Brian Golombek wanted to hire me. I was so happy and excited that I forgot how upset I had been when I called him and found out I didn't get the job a month earlier. That won't be the only time Brian would give me a second chance. So even though I was a complete mess emotionally I was forced to pull it together those couple of hours the nights I worked at Fox. Then for some strange reason a few months later in January I messed up like 2 or 3 nights in a row the weather zone zoom...BAD! Well needless to say Brian was not happy after that newscast..."Camera 1 meet me at my desk." SHIT. I was trying so hard not to cry. He could tell by looking at me how upset I was because all he said was "You have two weeks to fix that so you better practice before the show." It was like the fear of god seriously. A week later I was getting right again (its a weird thing to try to explain to people that have never worked a camera lol). During the spring and summer I had being do some sports shooting shadowing and when it came to starting to plan the football blitz, Brian and Karla decided that I could work for sports and not production. Something they didn't have to do, but they knew that it was something that I was trying to learn and further my experience and whatnot. So yeah ummm the next chance I can remember was when I was working on deko (ummm some of the graphics that get placed on the screen for those of you not knowing what that is). I think it was about a week or so after I was done training and I had a really really bad night on it, so bad I had put the last graphic up, the close ended and I ran out crying because I knew after the 3rd mistake how mad he was. I came back in the control room and all he had to do was look at me and say "You know how bad that was" and I just nodded and said "yeah i do" and then he said "ok then don't do it again." It was only a couple of months later I think that the part-time editor position opened up. When I met with Tim about the possibility of me moving to news from production of course he had talked to Brian about it and he told Tim he thought I could handle it. At first it was weird when I switched over to news, besides the fact that we where changing over to an entirely different system that everyone was learning and all the problems and everything it was just a different interaction with me and everyone in production, I don't really know how to explain it. I happened to be making the switch exactly a year after I had started working at Fox. So since it was about the end of the year it was evaluation time, I hadn't gotten one the year before because I had only been working a little over a month. So anyway I din't get one again because I had only been in news for like a month. That's right almost two years at Fox and I have never gotten a formal evaluation. But I didn't really think about it until now that Brian giving Tim that recommendation to move me to editing was better then a real evaluation.
Now it gets hard because the following are the recent memories....the Fridays the past month. It's Football Blitz and I spent most of them working on stuff right next to him and Karla. All the jokes and laughs and work stuff. It made me really miss production and all the jokes and witty remarks he would say during the newscast. When Tim told me he was gone one of the first things he said was how much Brian would keep after him about me and telling him that he should give me more to do, that I was someone to look at that could do more or something like that, it's hard to remember what exactly Tim said just then because it hit me what he had just told me, Brian was gone.
When I think back about those 4 jobs I've had and all the bosses and supervisors, there are only two that have made a huge impact on my life and pushed me to have a good work ethic, to do a good job, and most importantly that believed I could do more then even I knew I could, Brian would be one of those two.
I have been trying to understand, trying to get over the shock. There are no real words of comfort, no reason why. Just trying to remember him for who he was to us, to be there for each other, to respect each other, and I guess not take anything for granted. The week ahead is going to be hard. Fox means a lot to me because I will always remember how much it meant to me to have people I barely knew help me get through a really hard time in my life and I will always be grateful.
I just want you to know how much I respect you and do care about you even if we don't have the greatest of relationships or friendships anymore. Now that I'm in complete tears, it's late, and I've written a book, it's time to try to sleep.
Now to the reason I'm writing, to express my feelings in written words because it's too hard to speak them...where do I begin...
I have worked at a total of 4 places in my life since coming to GVSU after high school. Only one of which was outside of GVSU after I graduated, WXMI Fox 17. My first day at Fox was Sunday, November 19, 2006, the reason I can remember the date was because Thursday was Thanksgiving (driving home and back in the same day cause I had to train at Fox), Pat and I broke up Friday night/Saturday morning, worked a cold GV playoff game at noon then drove to my sister's for my nephew's birthday. So I was training at fox on the nights and got little sleep cause I was also working 1st shifts at 7am for security the beginning of the week and I have no idea how I made it through. (yeah ok I know my memory is just that good lol)
Anyway, I first applied at Fox at the beginning of October but didn't get hired and a month later got a phone call from the HR person that Brian Golombek wanted to hire me. I was so happy and excited that I forgot how upset I had been when I called him and found out I didn't get the job a month earlier. That won't be the only time Brian would give me a second chance. So even though I was a complete mess emotionally I was forced to pull it together those couple of hours the nights I worked at Fox. Then for some strange reason a few months later in January I messed up like 2 or 3 nights in a row the weather zone zoom...BAD! Well needless to say Brian was not happy after that newscast..."Camera 1 meet me at my desk." SHIT. I was trying so hard not to cry. He could tell by looking at me how upset I was because all he said was "You have two weeks to fix that so you better practice before the show." It was like the fear of god seriously. A week later I was getting right again (its a weird thing to try to explain to people that have never worked a camera lol). During the spring and summer I had being do some sports shooting shadowing and when it came to starting to plan the football blitz, Brian and Karla decided that I could work for sports and not production. Something they didn't have to do, but they knew that it was something that I was trying to learn and further my experience and whatnot. So yeah ummm the next chance I can remember was when I was working on deko (ummm some of the graphics that get placed on the screen for those of you not knowing what that is). I think it was about a week or so after I was done training and I had a really really bad night on it, so bad I had put the last graphic up, the close ended and I ran out crying because I knew after the 3rd mistake how mad he was. I came back in the control room and all he had to do was look at me and say "You know how bad that was" and I just nodded and said "yeah i do" and then he said "ok then don't do it again." It was only a couple of months later I think that the part-time editor position opened up. When I met with Tim about the possibility of me moving to news from production of course he had talked to Brian about it and he told Tim he thought I could handle it. At first it was weird when I switched over to news, besides the fact that we where changing over to an entirely different system that everyone was learning and all the problems and everything it was just a different interaction with me and everyone in production, I don't really know how to explain it. I happened to be making the switch exactly a year after I had started working at Fox. So since it was about the end of the year it was evaluation time, I hadn't gotten one the year before because I had only been working a little over a month. So anyway I din't get one again because I had only been in news for like a month. That's right almost two years at Fox and I have never gotten a formal evaluation. But I didn't really think about it until now that Brian giving Tim that recommendation to move me to editing was better then a real evaluation.
Now it gets hard because the following are the recent memories....the Fridays the past month. It's Football Blitz and I spent most of them working on stuff right next to him and Karla. All the jokes and laughs and work stuff. It made me really miss production and all the jokes and witty remarks he would say during the newscast. When Tim told me he was gone one of the first things he said was how much Brian would keep after him about me and telling him that he should give me more to do, that I was someone to look at that could do more or something like that, it's hard to remember what exactly Tim said just then because it hit me what he had just told me, Brian was gone.
When I think back about those 4 jobs I've had and all the bosses and supervisors, there are only two that have made a huge impact on my life and pushed me to have a good work ethic, to do a good job, and most importantly that believed I could do more then even I knew I could, Brian would be one of those two.
I have been trying to understand, trying to get over the shock. There are no real words of comfort, no reason why. Just trying to remember him for who he was to us, to be there for each other, to respect each other, and I guess not take anything for granted. The week ahead is going to be hard. Fox means a lot to me because I will always remember how much it meant to me to have people I barely knew help me get through a really hard time in my life and I will always be grateful.
I just want you to know how much I respect you and do care about you even if we don't have the greatest of relationships or friendships anymore. Now that I'm in complete tears, it's late, and I've written a book, it's time to try to sleep.