A Week in the Life of a Satellite Radio Intern

Three non-consecutive days, really.

So, here's how I've been spending my time at work this week, rather than actually working.  The week started off pretty well, with me learning new things, and feeling good about myself.  I ripped some songs into the music scheduler, did some research for show material, built a show in the schedule for later, and got to do some audio editing, which always makes me happy, because it's what I feel to be the most useful skill of the many they've attempted to teach the interns.  Those other things might apply to other radio stations, and they might now.  But audio editing will be useful everywhere, outside of radio as well.  Anyway, that was Wednesday.

Cue Friday.  Friday's my early day, so by the time I got into work, I was already exhausted.  I did some data entry, but it was in a form I had never done before, so I was able to pretend it was interesting.  That was a mistake.  After I showed that I could enter some things into a database without immediately killing myself or the nearest happy person to me, I was given an (effectively) endless list of things to enter into the database.  Ten things, that was fine.  "Cool, thanks guys, I'm glad I know how to do that now!"  Hundreds?  "Fuck off."  I spent an hour on that, I think, until someone pulled me off to do something else.  I guess the boiling rage building up within me had materialized itself in some sort of psychic powers, and I gave someone an aneurism or something, and they figured it was best to put me somewhere else.

So, I was asked to rip a prerecorded show into the music database.  It was about an hour and twenty minutes, so the slow computer I was using took a while.  I found a book on the desk at which I was sitting, and started reading.  After about 60 pages, the rip finished, and I did the couple small edits required of the task, and hit save.  And the program crashed.  Now, had I been in better spirits, I would have just realized this to be an opportunity for more reading, and not really such a bad thing.  But, as it was, I was pissed off.  But I did continue reading.  Highlight phrases of the book, which was simply a compilation of suggestions received from citizens of New York: "Always spank your kids," "People should be more willing to have monkeys as pets," and "Bunny ears for everyone!"  Once the program crashed again, I figured I'd call the job done.

Next, I loaded some DJ's voice tracks into the scheduler.  Here's a sample of the wit of this DJ.  When talking about some C-level female celebrity, here was his funny comment: "I did 'er."  Nice one!  Not only was your vocal break completely devoid of content, but you could have inserted anyone's name in there, and it would work exactly the same, but, with a few choice picks, would almost always be better!  Rather than some celebrity nobody has heard of, why not pick Rosanne Arnold? Gene Shallit?  The skeletal corpse of Princess Di(ed)?  Any of those would have been instantly hilarious people with which to have claimed coitus, but you picked a nobody.  Fuck you.

After that, I had to rip another show in.  And guess what?  It took forever again, and crashed again!  And after that, I found out that I'd loaded in that DJ's tracks incorrectly, so I got to do them all again too!  Fuck me.

The day was almost over.  I mean, I ripped another show in, and it crashed again, but at that point, the blood washing over my eyes made things difficult to remember, as it clouded my vision, and was coming from my brain.

So you can bet I was really excited to come in on Saturday.  Saturday is usually the busiest day, as well.  It often starts with about an hour and a half of pretty much nothing, with me waiting for people to arrive, followed by four hours of me running around, getting things for people, answering phones, filling out forms, ordering food, picking up and paying for food, taking requests, checking emails, handling contest calls, and, if you weren't noticing this trend, generally being everyone's bitch.

Except this Saturday, I didn't even seem to half the hour and a half of nothing.  I started off loading some voice tracks, which I don't mind, and was happy to have something to do, frankly, but then, rather than just sitting around waiting for something else, I was told to do music library stuff.  Now, I know I sounded like I didn't like the stuff that I was doing on Friday, but I would much rather be doing that than barcoding CD's, entering them into the database, and filing them in the way-too-tightly-packed library.  The library to which I am required to go, but to which I have no card access, meaning I have to ask someone to lend me theirs.  To do something I don't even want to do.  So I started downing can after can of rancid Mountain Dew to find the energy to do this boring, mind-numbing shit.

And then the show started, and I was free.  It was amazing; I did absolutely nothing, nobody asked me to do a thing, and I was free.  I ate a sandwich, continued drinking Mountain Dew, now probably out of addiction, rather than a need for quick energy, and I watched movies on the internet.  I watched that Will Ferrell as the devil SNL sketch a few times, and went to the bathroom (Mountain Dew).  I started singing "WEEKends, I live for the WEEKends," and then noticed someone was sitting on the toilet.  I shut up, and fought back laughter at my own goofiness, and then at the muffled sounds of his pooping, and returned to watch more videos.  I watched Charlie Manson's Whoop about a hundred times, and then I just spaced out for about an hour, thinking about different dreams of mine.  "I wish I could go back in time to 1999 and become a stand-up comedian.  It would be amazing.  All you had to do at that time was just add '.com' to ANYTHING and it became an hilarious joke!  Someone heckles you?  Just say 'www.SHUT UP.com' and you've won the audience!  And to go the alternative or avant-garde comic route, just substitute '.org' or '.net' and BOOM, instant street cred."  I had it all figured out.

So, aside from that one time when we had cookie cake, that was maybe my best day at work, ever.  I also found a free DVD.

And now, rather than writing my daily recaps for my supervisors (which I do weekly--take that, corporate scum!), or my internship journal for my school (which I just don't really do--take that, my own education!), I'm writing this blog.  And that, if you were wondering, is what a week in the life of a satellite radio intern is like.