Why Do Reporters Always Interview People with No Teeth?

    The office was dull and dark and bore an early1970s look.  The wood paneling that adorned its walls made the room feel much smaller than it actually was.  The inside of the building told far more about its age than the outside did. 
    
     It was a gorgeous spring Friday morning in 2004 and I was a bit uneasy as I sat in front of the desk, facing a rather robust woman with what, to me, was clearly a bottle-blond color job.  She was nice enough but the clock is always working against reporters and I knew I needed to get to work and start chasing  my story for the day.  I had stopped here on my way to work - with my bosses permission - to change my auto insurance policy. 

     The bottle blond was somewhat attentive to my presence but was focused on the task at hand.  She asked all the standard questions:  "Name?  Address? Make and Model of your car?" 

     She rattled them off in rapid-fire succession, faster than I could fire back.  I could tell she knew the insurance industry backward, forward and sideways.  "But she's not much of a conversationalist," I thought to myself. 

     That changed when I responed to her next question. 

     "Who's your employer?"

     "ABC 33/40," I quipped. 

     ABC 33/40 is a highly acclaimed television station in Birmingham, Alabama and I was proud for people to know I worked there.

     "Oh really! What do you do there?" 

     I sensed she was impressed and immediately my ego kicked into overdrive.

     "I'm a reporer," I said.

     "Really?  Did you cover that tornado that touched down in the White Plains community a couple of weeks ago?"  

     White Plains is a tiny town about an hour east of Birmingham.

     "Yes mam, I sure did."  I was beaming.

      I suppose now would be a good time to tell you that there are certain questions people always ask reporters when they meet them.  The most popular is... well, you'll see in a moment.

      "Can I just ask you one question?" 

     I was sure I knew where this was going.  The tornado story was still fresh in my mind and I remembered the rough looking woman I had interviewed whose mobile home had been destroyed.

     "Let me guess," I interrupted her. "You want to know why we always interview women with no teeth after a tornado."  I was prepared to answer that question.  I was not prepared for her reply.

     "Actually, that was my sister," she explained, a bit embarrassed now.  "I was just wandering how we could get a copy of y'all's story."

     "Oh shit!"  I blurted out before I could stop myself.. 

     I wanted to laugh but felt closer to crying.  I had been asked the question about people with no teeth so many times.  "Floor,open up and swallow me," I quickly and quiety wished.

     I had imbedded my foot so deeply in my mouth I thought I would choke on toe jam. To her credit, the bottle blond was gracious about it.   I apologized.  She accepted.  I left her office a little humbled that day.

     Of course that only lasted until I got to work.  Boy did I have one hell of a story to tell!

A Meeting Over Coffee

     “Damnit!” snapped the lady in blue.

     “Miss, can you help me here?” called a male voice, the body from which I came I could not determine.

     On and on it went as I stood in the grocery store’s self check-out line with my two items.  “These scanners are not that hard to operate," I considered shouting aloud but smartly, didn't.

     There were four self check-outs at this particular store and someone was using each of them.  A long line was starting to form and I was about sixth or seventh deep in it.  In front of me, one woman had a full – no, a very full – shopping cart.   Clearly my mad dash to the store to get coffee and creamer–  essentials to starting my day – wasn’t going to be quick.  In fact, my day was now getting off to an annoying start without a drop of caffeine in my system to calm me. 

     I first looked about the area for any sign that might limit the number of items one should bring through the self check-out and was prepared to point it out to that woman with the shopping cart.  “Damn,” I mumbled to myself when I didn’t see one.    I then scanned the front of the store in search of a shorter, cashier check-out line.   The two that were open also had long lines.   But what really stood out to me was that out of what looked like 8 or 10 of those regular check-outs, ONLY two were staffed with a cashier.  That sure enough chaffed my yet-to-be-caffeinated ass.

    “Aw shit!” bellowed a deep voice from behind me.  I turned to see a well dressed man just as he rounded the corner and I assumed that groan of frustration had come from him.  He also had coffee in hand – Maxwell House French Roast – and a big bottle of Hazelnut creamer.  Yep,  he and I were on the same morning  hunt  and were both now snared in the same trap.  He spotted me and we immediately started a conversation. 

     “What the hell’s going on here,” he asked.

     “Hardly any check outs open.”

     “Have you noticed how bad customer service has gotten, everywhere?

     No, I really hadn’t.  It was early 2010 and the economy had been souring for a while.  But as I quickly surveyed my mind for a response to his question I realized… “Yes!”  I blurted out.  “Customer service sucks, these days.”

     “You should do a story about it,” he suggested.  “This store is saving a lot of money by operating with a skeleton crew and yet the price of groceries is going up.  You don’t see them sharing those savings with us.”

     I knew he was right.  I began to think of other inconveniences I had endured in recent months;  About how there’s nothing fast about fast food anymore; how even service at a nice restaurant is seldom what it used to be;  how when managers minimally staff their businesses, especially busy ones like grocery stores and restaurants, it puts more pressure on their poorly paid workers.  Those workers get stressed and customers who feel inconvenienced often take their frustrations out on them, making them cranky toward all customers.  I suddenly felt sorry for them.

     I turned to the man with whom I’d been chatting.  “You know what I think?”

     “What’s that?”

     “I think this store doesn’t deserve my business.  Not today, anyway.”

     He agreed.

     “There’s a coffee shop right up the street and I really need a quick fix.  Wanna join me?”

     “Absolutely.”

     We both sat our coffee and creamer atop the display at the front of the store and walked out.  I would estimate our combined purchases wouldn’t have netted more than $7 for the store’s coffers.   That small shortage certainly wouldn’t put them of business.

     But on that cold February morning it felt like a victory; like two ordinary people took on a giant corporation and won. 

     Looking back, we DIDN’T make any difference in how companies treat their customers.   But one year ago today, we DID each make a new friend. 

     Thanks Mike!

Real, Raw, Human Emotion - The Sweetest Thing on Earth

    To me, there is nothing more beautiful that real, raw human emotion.  When we strip off all the layers of self righteousness and image-concious crap we adorn ourselves with - all the garbage that hides who we really are - we find we're really all the same.  We all cry; worry; fear; hurt; bleed...  That's humanity in it simplest form.  I'm ashamed to admit that I once forgot what it meant to share that human connection.

    But a few years ago, I fell on hard times for a while.  Things got bad enough I thought I might need some government assistance to survive.  As it turned out, I didn't even qualify for assistance.  What I did qualify for was a change of heart.  And unknowingly, some other people who had also fallen on hard times, gave me one.

    I deal with things by writing about them.  Seldom does it come out as poetry.  This time it did.  Here's a rare glimpse of me raw; real; human.

The Least of These

(A Lesson from the Welfare Line)

By: Chris Tatum

I stood in line with my lay-off letter

In my Calvin Kleins and a J-Crew sweater

And made up my mind that I was better than the best of these.

Then I saw a man:

He hadn’t combed his hair in a day or two

And his breath clung to him like a case of brew.

Masking tape and a paper sack, it

Covered the holes in his leather jacket.

As he walked away in his tattered clothes

I held my breath and pinched my nose

Thinking he’s exactly what I thought I’d find

Waiting here in the welfare line.

Then I saw a mom:

In a pink sweat suit, a Hispanic lady

Hummed a lullaby to her brown-skinned baby.

I stared at her  - hoped she wouldn’t notice.

Her  smile said ‘hi’ but her eyes said hopeless.

It  wasn’t  long til my imagination

Started sizing up her situation.

The father must have been a one night stand.

Her poor baby doesn’t stand a chance.

All around that room where no curtains hung,

People talked of better times to come;

About the President’s economic plan

I was sure none of them could understand.

No wonder, I figured, these folks are in need.

Most prob’ly never got their GED

These loser men and their loser wives

No, I can’t relate to their loser lives.

Then in a lonely corner I saw a lonely man

A phone to his ear, a letter in hand

Trying hard to look like he didn’t belong,

Like his life was perfect, like nothing was wrong.

As I looked a little closer I could clearly see

That lonely man was a lonely me

In a room full of angels sent from above;

God’s messengers of mercy to show me His love.

And as I stood in line with my lay-off letter

In my Calvin Kleins and a J-Crew Sweater

I realized that I’m NO better than the least of these…

For I am the least of these.

The Legend of Lea Morningwood (An Intern Tail)

      The first time I laid eyes on her, I heard voices… well really just one voice.  It was strong and authoritative with a soft, soothing undertone.  It told me to steer clear of her.

     I was a reporter at a Birmingham, Alabama television station.  She was a college student who had joined our team for a few weeks as an intern.  To this day I can’t concretely say why I didn’t like her.  I suppose it could be that she rubbed me the wrong way by rubbing against everybody but me. But looking  back, I think I would rather have made love to a sheet of sandpaper than to have felt any friction from her.  Whatever the reason for my dislike of her, it was genuine.

     Sure she was pretty.  And it was obvious to me she thought her good looks would swing wide the very doors it had taken me years of hard work to barely crack.  She seemed smart until she batted her eyelashes at me.  She batted them at every male reporter at the station and a few of them quickly took a likening to her.  Perhaps you can now see why this story is more An Intern Tail, than a tale.

     I had seen her type before.  She thought the concepts of hard work and “paying dues” applied to everyone else.  Success would come easy to her.  She would ascend to a big time TV reporter gig on the backs of all who taught her the ropes. 

      I can only recall one time when I saw her display any skill remotely related to reporting.  I overheard her recounting details to her fellow female interns about some quality time she had spent with another reporter outside of work.

     “Oh my gosh,” she giggled to them.  “It’s like we connected spiritually.”

     I took that to mean they laid hands on each other and spoke in tongues. 

     You should know that when TV reporters look for jobs, in addition to our resume we also send demonstration tapes of work we’ve done.  Potential bosses don’t want to just read about where we’ve worked and what we’ve done.  That tape lets them see how well we do it.  The purpose of an internship is to give college students an up close look at our business and to provide them an opportunity to put their first resume tape together to help them land that first job.  I sensed this intern planned to convince – no, connive -  someone to help with her tape.  Sure she planned to pay them… with nature’s credit card.

    I managed to avoid directly working with her for nearly her entire internship.  Then one day she cornered me for conversation.  “Oh shit!” I thought as I plastered on a plastic smile and prepared to fake enthusiasm.

     “Chris, I heard a rumor (that’s never a good way to start a conversation) that Tatum is not your real last name… that you changed your name for TV.”

   

     “Was this a question or a statement?” I wondered, determined not to confirm or deny anything from the rumor mill.

     “So I was wondering if you think I should change my name.”

     “Uh-oh!” I thought, as my mind scanned millions of megabytes of memory trying to remember her name.  “Well, um… what is your name?” I finally had to ask.

     “Lea Wood.”

     At that moment, face to face and eye to eye with her I again heard voices.  The first one was kind and familiar.  I recognized it as the same voice that had warned me to steer clear of her when we’d first met. 

     “Don’t do it!” the voice cautioned, almost to the point of alarm.

     But the other voice was much deeper; much darker; much more sinister.  It had a devilishly delicious tone to it.  Before I could stop myself I had fallen under its spell.

     “Lea Wood,” I repeated back to her, then sounded it out slowly.  “Lea Wooood.” 

     I could tell she felt a bit cocky that she had broken my ability to avoid her any longer.   I was still under the spell of that sinister voice.

     “I think Lea Wood is a great base name,” I told her, already laughing on the inside at what I was about to do.  “No, you shouldn’t change it.  Just enhance it a bit.”

     “What do you mean?

      “I don’t know,” I said,  acting like I was in serious thought.   “You want to make it  memorable.  You know… something like… Lea Morningwood.”  

     Surely she could see through such a thinly veiled reference to a hard dick.

     “Lea Mornngwood.  Lea.  Morning.  Wood.”   She kept sounding it aloud.  “I like it!”

     In my defense, I figured she would  eventually tell the other interns about her new TV name  and I was counting one of them to explain the meaning of “Morningwood.”  I didn’t think about it again until I was leaving work one evening and my boss stopped me.   

     “Mr. Tatum, let’s talk for a minute,” he called down the hall.

     I stepped into his office and sat down in the chair that faced his desk.   I had endured many an ass chewing in this chair over the years and now couldn’t help but notice how comfortably it cradled the contour of my ass.

    

     My boss handed me a VHS tape and I gasped as I read the name emblazoned in red, capital letters across its spine:  LEA MORNINGWOOD. 

     I won’t bore you with details of that particular ass-chewing although I must say that as ass-chewings go, it was monumental.   I admit I felt a little bad when my boss told me this poor girl had sent tapes bearing the name Lea Morningwood  to TV stations all over the country and that there was even a TV industry chat room that had been abuzz about her nasty name. 

      The fact remains that Lea Wood had set out to make a name for herself in TV news.  I like to think that with my help she sort of did:  Lea Morningwood.

     As fate would ultimately have it, Lea Wood married money and now lives the kind of life most reporters can only dream of.  She never worked a day in TV news.

     But the legendary story of the rise and fall of Lea Morningwood lives on at that Birmingham TV station.  And always will, knock wood.

Making "Deadline" (My Acting Debut Review)

      They say art imitates life.  A couple of days ago I got to put that old adage to the test when I visited the set of – and made my acting debut  in -  a movie called Deadline.  As the title hints, it’s main characters are reporters.

       Not long after stepping onto the set – without much fanfare I might add -  I spotted a handsome, 30ish gentleman a few yards away whose presence was creating a bit of a stir. 

     “Who’s that?” I asked someone associated with the production company.  

     “That’s Steve Talley,” she replied.  “He’s the star of this movie.”

     “Reality check 1,” I mentally noted.  “While the mention of my name may stir a slight ripple in this small pond called Middle Tennessee, by Hollywood standards, I’m one of those little fish you throw back."

      “You mean I’m not the star?” I asked aloud, kind of joking but not really.  That question went unanswered.

     “Reality check 2:  BEING a reporter and PLAYING a reporter are apparently not equal by Hollywood standards.”

      There were hundreds of “extras” standing around, hoping to get their chance to appear in a scene.  Since most of them knew me from the news, I tried to play up my small part in the movie.  I claimed to have a dressing room and had already picked out a tree I could hide behind if I really needed one.   Of course Steve Talley and his co-star Eric Roberts had real dressing rooms.    I suppose in that case, art does imitate life.  I’ve never worked for a TV station that gave me a dressing room, either.  I’ve often had to cake my make-up on using our news truck’s headlights to illuminate the tiny compact mirror. 

     And there are other similarities between making the movie, Deadline and making deadline each day with a news story.  Like those “extras,” real reporters sometimes spend hours waiting for something to happen only to have it all break at the last minute when they have to fight the clock to make it matter.  And just like the actors, TV reporters seldom get it right in one take.  We do the same thing over and over and over again until we’re satisfied with the way it looks and sounds.

     The day on the set wore on and I was still awaiting the big moment to tape my short scene.  Alas it came.  And here’s how it went: 

Picture it.  Amos, Alabama, a fictional town  staged in rural Tennessee.  As a group of protesters march along a street in downtown Amos, they walk past me, a TV news reporter as I'm conducting a live interview with one of the protesters.  As the man I'm interviewing steps away to join the march, I turn to face the camera (not the one shooting this scene, but the pretend one on somebody’s  shoulder  so that my role looks real) and continue my report, gesturing and acting like I know what I’m talking about.  It sounds like what you’d expect of a real TV news reporter, right?  WRONG! 

     The real star of that scene wasn’t me at all.  It was – you guessed it – Steve Talley.  The microphone was near him.  That important report I was delivering WAS MIMED!  Not a sound was coming out of my mouth.    Steve Talley and Eric Roberts play the reporters with voices... newspaper reporters... with voices.  Hooray for Hollywood!

                            Eric Roberts;  Me;  Steve Talley chillin' on the set of Deadline

     Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not bitter.  We all have to start somewhere.  And Steve Talley and Eric Roberts are great guys who treated me as an equal.  I’m a forever fan of both them.

     I suppose the title of this movie is where art most imitates my life:  Deadline.  

     Every real reporter can relate to those.

    On a serious note, The folks at Filmhouse - the production company - were also gracious to me.  I hope you will go see Deadline when it hits theaters next spring.  Click here to learn more about Deadline.

Scholars and Scents (A College Introduction to Aroma Therapy)

     614 West Street was by no means the ugliest house along that short, stumpy stretch of pavement in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.  But for two of the three college students who called it home, it might damn well may have been the smelliest.  It was rank enough to make me grateful for a typical Middle Tennessee Allergy Season that would seal my sinuses shut for a couple of days.

     To the best of my recollection, the stench never drifted beyond the dull, grey siding on the outside walls (well, there was that one “oh shit” event when sewage backed up in our front yard but that's another story) except when its source left the house and carried some of it with him in the form of body odor.  Yes, somebody at that address could’ve benefitted from a box of 20 Mule Team Borax although I suspect even those barnyard beasts would've fought to stay downwind. 

     Talking; shouting; begging; cursing; even threatening had failed.  Little did I know I was about to learn a powerful new technique of  bullshitting I now call the “Fall On The Sword” method… a method that finally made the difference.    

     Tracey and I had become good friends and shared that three bedroom, off-campus rental house with a third roommate named Steve.  Tracey and I were older - what are usually called non-traditional students.  We liked order and insisted on keeping a clean house.  Steve, on the other hand,  was a typical twenty-two year old who - while he might miss the occasional morning class - wasn't willing to miss a party.  Make no mistake; Steve was intelligent.  But for every inch of intellect he possessed, you could subtract two inches of common sense. 

     Our problem didn’t fully reveal itself until several months after Steve moved in.  Sure we noticed his room was a wreck and neither of us could recall seeing him do his laundry… and yes, there always seemed to be a stack of his dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.  But the problem – I mean the real, aromatic problem – just kind of grew quietly until one day, out of the blue it unmasked itself in the form of indescribable stink.

     Tracey and I could no longer ignore it.  But if Steve didn’t respect himself enough to wash his body then how in hell might we convince him to respect us enough to wash a dirty dish?  At his boiling point, Tracey called a “house meeting” one evening when we all got home from work.

     I had picked up Steve’s scent from the far end of the house when I got home that night so I straddled my narrow ass on the arm of a chair as far away from him as I could park it.  I wanted to rip him a new one but that would’ve required me to get too close to the one he already had.  Besides, Tracey called this meeting and as hard as it might be to believe, he could sometimes be more temperamental than me.  Yes, really.

     Tracey came and sat in the chair whose arm I occupied and I braced myself for the blistering tirade he was about to unleash on Steve.

     “Steve,”  Tracey began politely.
    “Ah, he’s just buttering him up,” I assured myself.  “He’ll go for the jugular in a moment.”

     “Chris,” he then said.
     “Oh shit, he’s chickening out and wants me to do it,”

     “I owe both of you guys an apology.”
      “What did he say?”

     “Guys, this house freakin’ stinks and it’s my fault,” he continued.  “I’ve been so busy with school I haven’t been keeping up with my household duties.  I’m the reason you guys can barely stomach walking in here every day.”
“What? I’ve watched you wash your dishes,” I thought to myself.   “And you’re waaaayyy too metrosexual to wear dirty clothes.” 
 
     Tracey hung his head as if he was ashamed.

     “That is such bullshit!” I snapped.

     “Shut up, Chris!” Tracey snapped back.  He then flashed me a quick wink that Steve didn’t see.
     “What the hell is going on here?”

     “Guys, I’m staying home this weekend and I’m cleaning this house top to bottom… I mean everything.”

     “Tracey, you don’t have to...”

     “Shut! Up! Chris!”

      Still not taking his cue to keep quiet, I retorted “this stinking-ass house is not your fault.  If you’re wasting your weekend cleaning it, so am I.”

      “Me, too,” Steve politely chimed in.
      “Okay, what just happened?”  I wondered, not yet knowing the maginitude of this moment where Tracey's and my sanity was concerned.
      Tracey got up from his chair and walked to the kitchen.  He emptied the sink full of dirty, some of them sour-smelling dishes, then turned the hot and cold knobs to set the temperature for dishwater.  As the suds rose, he began scrubbing those nasty dishes.  He knew he didn’t dirty them.  We both knew Steve had.  And we both knew those dirty dishes were not the only source of stink that haunted our house. 

     But somehow Tracey had figured out something I hadn’t.  He knew by washing those dishes, Steve would feel embarrassed for not upholding his end of household responsibilities.  And he knew if we all cleaned the house from top to bottom and it still stank, the source of the smell would be easy to trace.  Steve knew it, too.

     That night, while Tracey washed those dishes, Steve took a long-overdue shower.  I can’t say that he, soap and water became best friends but at least from that evening on they were acquainted. 

     True to our word, the following weekend we all cleaned house.  Steve even stripped his bed and washed his sheets.  And I cannot recall another day that he didn’t clean up after himself.  He may not have wanted to but he knew he had to.  Tracey shamed him into it by falling on the sword. 

     And the moral of the story is:  If it smells too good to be you, it probably is!

BS 2: How to Treat Acute Dumbass (An Intern Tale)

     There’s an old adage I’ve seen proven countless times:  “Nothing brings people together like a common enemy.”

     We all like to relate to others; to find common ground with them.  It makes us feel less ordinary, enhances our self esteem and brings forth a greater level of confidence in us.  In the business of BS,  I call this the “Common Ground” method.

     While working at WSMV TV from 2006 – 2008, I bore the bold title, Problem Solver.  Viewers called me, e-mailed me or sent me long letters explaining how they had been ripped off by a business or how, despite their numerous complaints, a government agency had turned a blind eye to their problem.  It was my job to verify the validity of the problem and once verified, go confront the business or agency – camera rolling – and persuade (a nice word for strong-arm) it to fix the problem.   Ultimately all this would play out on TV and I would take all the credit as the hero who saved the day.

     You can imagine the hundreds of calls, emails and letters I received each week.  I took that kind of response to mean my Problem Solver segment was successful and decided to use it as leverage to ask my boss for some help.  It did, after all, take a lot of time to shuffle through the massive pile of  requests for my services.  I wanted – no, I NEEDED – an assistant. One day  I  bounced into my boss’ office to say so.  That conversation went something like this:

Tatum:   I’m overwhelmed with the number of people who need my help.

Boss:     That’s good.  You should be proud.  It shows people like what you’re doing.

(Yes, he is a master Bull shitter, too)

Tatum:   Aha! You just admitted my segment is successful.  That means it’s making money for the station.  (notice I tried to hang him with his own words).  I’ll bet it would become even more successful - generate even more money - if you’d hire me some help… an assistant…  even just part time.

Boss:      No!

Tatum:   I would think you’d want my segment to become more successful.  (Two    professional bull shitters going head to head.)  Please, at least think about it.

Boss:  I don’t need to.  I will assign an intern to help you.  We’ll pick one for you and they’ll start tomorrow. 

    

     An intern? That was the best solution he could come up with?  Oh well, at least he offered a solution.  I really had no further argument at this point.  (Actually I did but my gut (and his body language) told me now was not the time.  For once I listened.)

     “Fine!” I snapped, and stomped out of his office wondering how anyone so cheap could run a newsroom.  Rest assured, if that conversation didn’t prove he was a tight wad, my salary did.

     The next day a blond-haired girl approached me at my desk and informed me she would work alongside me for the rest of the semester.  I quickly sized her up.  Young, pretty, wants to be an anchor, probably a sorority girl who thinks she’ll build a brilliant TV career with her looks.

     “The biggest responsibility you’ll have each day is to log my Problem Solver phone line,” I explained as I jotted down the password to access it.

     “Okaaaaaay,” she replied, stretching six or seven syllables out of a word that needed only two.

     I showed her how to log the phone line, where to type the extensive notes I’d need and she leapt right into her new assignment. 

    “Hmmm, this might actually work,” I thought to myself as I began tapping on my keyboard, the script for my story that would air that day.

     I arrived at work an hour early the next morning, eager to sift through the notes she’d taken, to choose which problems I would tackle the following week.  I logged on and clicked the icon that would take me to a file titled “Tips.”

     “What the hell?” my mind screamed before my vocal cords could muster a mumble.  The intern had logged the callers’ names and summed up their problems in short blurbs.  She didn’t even put them in complete sentences. 

         “Sally Jones… Paid cable bill - disconnected.

         Steve Thompson… Moving truck damaged house.”

     I needed more information than that to even consider tackling someone’s problem.  This intern left out phone numbers and didn’t mention any documents that callers might have had to support their claims against these companies.  Even worse, as she logged each call she had deleted it.   Unless those people called back, I would have no way of helping them.  “An intern, huh?” I wanted to scream at my boss.

     I sat at my desk and stewed in my self-righteousness for a couple of hours.  I tried to convince myself that this buxom blond might be dyslexic or have ADHD but I couldn’t get past my initial diagnosis of her problem:  Acute Dumbass.

   Eventually my frustration – alright, anger – began to subside and I started to realize – REALLY REALIZE - I had to make this work.  After all, I did need help.

     When the intern arrived at work - perky, pleasant and ready to perform, I had simmered down.  I asked her to pull up a chair next to me. 

     “I must say, you’ve impressed me with the way you logged these notes,” I told her.  You summed them up into very succinct statements.”  You know, in TV we write very tight.  We have to say a lot with very few words,” I explained.  “You are way ahead of most interns who come through here.  Heck, you’re ahead of where I was when I was an intern.”

     Her blue eyes now beamed as she brushed her blond bangs out of her face.

     “You’ve got a bright future ahead of you in TV.

     I could have made the mistake of telling her what a lousy job she’d done.  But by reminding her that I, too, was once an intern,  I no longer seemed like such a domineering force for her to reckon with.   She was by no means the brightest intern at the station that semester.  But once I made her feel like we were on common ground, we connected differently.  Suddenly the door was opened for me to politely explain why the information she had omitted  in her notes was critical for me to assess people’s problems and how gathering even the most menial details would one day make her a sharper, more focused reporter and anchor.

     From that day forward, I always had the details I needed to do my job.  And that intern has since graduated and gone on to become a TV news reporter with a bright future.

     Turns out, my boss was right.  That intern made my job much easier… So much easier, I hated to see her go at the end of the semester.

     FOOT NOTE:  Acute dumbass is now a cute anchor in another city, making far more money than me.