I'm a News Monitor. I watch newscasts and syndicated/entertainment programs all across the US, and type up summaries of each segment.
The good:
- I can sleep till 4 or 5 p.m., get home at 2:30 or 3 a.m.
- No traffic on the way home at all
- No crowds in Wal-Mart when I do my bi-weekly shoppin' at 3 a.m.
- I can wear whatever I want (casual to the max)
- The Co. is very relaxes and flexibile on vacation time, day swaps, etc.
- I get my birthday off, and 2 "floating holidays" ("freebie days")
- I get paid to watch MTV's "Total Request Live", "SportsCenter", "Oprah After the Show", "Arizona Midday", "Life and Times Tonight", "What Not To Wear", "Weekends at the D.L.", "Access Hollywood", "Jimmy Kimmel Live", "CMT Insider", and "Speed News" weekly, and sometimes other entertainment shows that I pick up that are leftover on the table
- With the awful news I have to watch, I can speed up the speed so I don't have to suffer through the bad news in "real time"
- I have Mondays and Tuesdays off, so I can do things that most M-F people can't on their days off (oil changes, doctor's appointments, etc.)
- I can go to places like the zoo, parks, malls, on my days off and there aren't crowds of people or little unruly children everywhere
- I can work as much overtime as I want for more $, and I put in 10 1/2 to 11 hours in on Fridays since that's my day with my highest number of "fun shows" to do
The bad:
- My hands and wrists sometimes really hurt from all the typing
- Body cramps and "blah-ness" from sitting sedentary all day
- Working nights has gotten old, social life-wise
- I have to watch news in San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix, Detroit, Denver, Indianapolis, Northwest Cable News, Studio B (world news), and I don't get paid nearly enough for the horrors, tragedies, and inhumanity I see day in and day out
- On my days off it's tough to get up before 3 p.m. to do anything out in the world
- My parents paid for my college and I'm barely usin' my degree
- I don't really get to be creative
- I love to work on my writing at home, but it's hard a lotta the time cause I type so dang much at work
- I don't play piano nearly as much as I used to due to my non-stop typing at work
- I'm stuck with headphones on my ears every minute I'm workin' cause that's how we hear the shows through the computer (while we watch 'em onscreen)---so it's very isolated and you can't talk or joke around much due to the nature of the job
- I hate it on the weekends when other people grab the "funnest" shows before I get a chance---especially if I get stuck with more crappy news
- I feel like a cog in a factory wheel---about 60 people do what I do on my shift alone, not to mention the other shifts; and what I do doesn't really make a difference to anybody
- When I get down and depressed, I unfortunately remember the brief 3 months after college when I was a Technical Writer and got paid nearly $17 an hour and got paid to read, surf the 'net, and talk with other people since the people there barely had any work for me to do (which is why I was laid-off...there were budget cuts and they realized they didn't need a Techincal Writer)...man, was I spoiled...*sigh*...
But the bad outweighs the good simply for the fact of all the newscasts I have to watch (and some multiple...I do 2 Chicagos Wed. and Thurs., 2 Detroits on Fri., 2 San Franciscos on Sunday, etc.)
I am so ready for a job change...more than a job change, I'm ready for a
career (besides writing, which takes time). As a matter of fact, I had a 3 1/2 hour meeting with a P.I. in a restaurant last night (always been interested in private investigating) and he gave me a
LOT to think about...certainly an option...