sportsgirl

I realised several things this evening during my very first shift as a sports sub. First off, I know nothing about sports. Well, this wasn't much of a surprise, but it became so glaringly obvious and er.... a bit of a problem. Especially when it came to sexing up the copy and writing headlines. Which brings me to number two: I am shit at writing headlines. I kind of knew this too, from my student newspaper days, but I was somehow hoping something had changed in the meantime. Nope. I know it varies from day to day as well. Some days you've got it, some days you don't, and I reckon today was one of the latter days. My mind was completely vacant. And the fact that I was working for a tabloid didn't help. I was under so much pressure to prove myself as well... ack!

What have I gotten myself into?

So I got there early and was shown the ropes by some guy who appeared to be in charge, and whose role I probably should have clarified, but was too busy pretending to look like I knew what I was doing. He quickly signed me into the system and set up a few things - I'll be damned if I'll be able to replicate anything tomorrow - and left me to my own devices, waiting for my immediate superior to arrive. Eventually he did, and he was nice and young and chill... phew! And had a work experience student in tote. It was hard not to laugh because the young kid, all dressed up in a proper suit, probably had about as much a clue about what was going on as I did. In fact, if he knew anything about sports, he probably was a step ahead of me. But I was the one getting paid 92squid for the evening. Woo hoo!

Luckily, I was surrounded by other nice old men who showed me bits and bobs of what I was doing. This way I didn't have to ask the big boss and hopefully he was none the wiser regarding my ineptitude. In fact, I think he said a few times "But you know what you're doing anyway, right?" Er... yeah. Sure.

I was expecting to be trusted with little more than racing results or somesuch, but no... I was immediately rewriting agency copy, distilling long stories into punchy, tight briefs, with two word toppers. Oh dear.

I think I managed to wing it okay, though it's hard to tell because I didn't get any feedback. I had one old guy read over the first story I did to check it before I sent it along to... er... who knows where. He said it was fine - even my shitty headline - and made a few minor corrections. But other than that, nothing. It made me really nervous. Surely I wasn't the last line of defense before the copy went to print? Hopefully there was someone else assessing the shittiness of my headlines, ready to jazz them up if necessary? But who? Hmmm.

It was really slow going as well. I only actually edited four or five stories, in the 6 hours I was there! I felt a bit guilty taking ages to edit and title and caption a tiny brief, but then once I was done, I had feck all to do for the next half hour or more. I just read old editions of the paper, hoping for inspiration or education or something. Then, as is always the way, they sent me the most substantial story of the evening about 15 minutes before everyone else finished and was ready to head off, and they had to wait for me to be done. Ack! The pressure! I think I did an okay job editing the text, but my headline was shite ("Terry hopes to topple top spot" - does that even make sense?) and my caption was weak ("TERRY: Move over Beckham") and I really didn't care because people were eyeing me strangely, coats in hand.

I then walked all the way home. It was a long walk, but it was good to breathe and work off the tension built up in my belly.

And I get to do it all again tomorrow! Woo hoo! Hopefully I'll be better then, now that I have a bit more of an inkling as to what I'm actually doing. Hopefully. It should be interesting to see tomorrow's paper as well, to see if my headlines actually stayed the way I wrote them. I'm scared to find out.

The odd thing was, I actually ended up knowing someone there. My one contact in the world of freelance subbing ended up working two desks over. What are the chances? I hadn't realised she was at that paper, and on the sports desk as well. Crazy! Obviously we're not that close. In fact, I barely know her. She was in my postgraduate course, and happened to reply to a pathetic desperate mass email I sent out to the entire crew, with some advice on where to seek shifts. So it was a bit awkward when I ran into her on my way to the loo, as I excitedly made small talk and realised I know nothing about her and have little in common and.. yeah. Weird.

But there was another remote connection! My friend Lyndsey knew some guy named Jason on the sports desk and she texted him last night to tell him about me. He turned out to be a sub as well, one computer away, and was most helpful in showing me simple basic Quark commands without making me look stupid. Bless. Neither of us mentioned our connection, however, which was a bit strange. Maybe tomorrow. I made the mistake of hanging out with my former classmate during our "lunch" break, instead of sitting at a large table with the boys, which would have been the more fortuitous situation. Tomorrow I shall attempt to join them. Yes.