CNN

CNN this morning was interesting. As it's New York headquarters are in the same building as the Time Warner corporate office, I had to go up to Columbus Circle on the subway (which took me 45 minutes to get to, a ride which I spent reading Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse Five [Thanks Mom!]). Another thing I love about this city: Just about every job I've worked so far, I get to walk by some New York landmark which makes just my walk to work seem famous. Columbus Circle, in case you haven't been there before, is on the southwest corner of Central Park so naturally, the CNN studios on the 5th and 4th floors of the building overlook Central Park and the circle below, with it's giant obelisk and statue of Christopher Columbus, and the famous steel globe outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower.

I took my time walking into work to sort of gaze around at my new place of employment. It was pretty awesome. When I searched out the Time Warner building and entered the lobby, I could see right away that it was pretty high security. I had to have my bag scanned and check in at the front desk and get a badge. The lobby was huge and spartan with four sets of wide turnstiles at the far end(I guess you could call them that) and beyond that elevator banks. I felt like I was in some scene in the Matrix, only I didn't have duffel bags full of ammunition. When I approached and showed my badge to the next security person, he points a remote at the turnstiles and they retracted with a whir and I was in.

The fifth floor was my destination and at this point, I realized that I was early, essentially my main goal when starting any new job. The media manager didn't come to get me until 10 sharp anyway and we immediately went down to the fourth floor where the media department is. In the elevator, he said he wanted to just sit down and chat about what I'm doing, a little about me, etc. and then he'd pass me off to the person who would be training me. Breezing by edit bays and cubicles we sat down in his office and literally talked for about half a minute (the shortest interview I've ever had) about me and then he took me over to media ops, or MOPS as they call it (and subsequently the people that work in it).

I sat with my new coworkers and got given the gist (rather quickly) and was wrapping my brain around their operation within minutes, only mildly distracted by the view from the adjacent window, of Central Park. I think I'm going to enjoy this job. The job is essentially what I'm doing at NY 1, ingesting video and sending video to other stations, but with a much smoother work flow. Also there's a few major differences, like, we have so many outgoing lines at CNN and are sending so much video to other stations that there's another separate position that people trade off working, who's main function is to keep track of what lines are routed where and to take care of scheduled recordings.

The pace is a little different than NY 1 and the system is vastly different (but in a good way, thank God). I'm being given three or four training days and we'll see how many hours I get after that. I saw my manager a total of four times throughout the day and still haven't finished all of my paperwork or been given a badge yet but soon. Tomorrow, after I finish at NY 1, I take in the stuff I didn't have ready for them yesterday, forms of ID, direct deposit info and whatnot, and next Tuesday, I go in for my next day of training.

But for now, the beat goes on and I must sleep before work at 8am tomorrow, NY 1 this time.