Are 20-30 Days of Mandatory Time Off from Work a Possibility?

On my first day at my first "real" job reporting, I sat through an online "webinar" orientation which informed me of my rights, responsibilities, and perks as an employee of a Time Warner Cable news operation. One of those perks, of course, was time off. And no matter how I excited I am to have gotten hired, to be working at my job, and to thoroughly enjoy it, vacation time was a huge concern for me. No matter where it is I'm working, I want to know I'll be able to take time off for a religious holiday or Thanksgiving. I am guilty of already thinking of time off from work before even starting it, and at first I felt guilty. But after watching this video, I realized I shouldn't have.

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(via @CBSNews)

It is only natural to want and even NEED time away from the office. I was unaware of the possible legislation that would mandate time off, but now that I am, I'm all for it! This is not because I'm a lazy Gen-Y'er who wants to party with my girlfriends on a beach or who expects a romantic getaway with my boyfriend every once in a while. This is because Americans are some of the hardest working people in the world. If the French, Germans, and Italians are on par with us in terms of success, productivity, and stability, we, too, should have 20-30 mandatory vacations days no matter what your job is.

What do you think?

When Stories Are In Sync With My Life...

In a journal entry dated 4-14-10:

I was hoping that today, as a Wednesday, would not be one of my typical Wednesdays interning at YNN. This is because usually Wednesdays tend to be filled with problems, failures in finding a successful story, and coverage mishaps. Luckily for Kat and I, today was different...in a good way!

Kat and I went to Le Moyne College to do a story on graduating seniors looking for jobs in the current economy. It was a pretty light, basic story to cover on a slower news day, and the package came out looking pretty good. For the first Wednesday ever, I was able to complete my entire package, but that probably had to do with the fact that we had already shot everything and returned to the station by 6:00ish.

That being said, we spoke to someone from their Career Service department and variety of Le Moyne seniors. What we learned is that the job market is still down 15% from where it was two years ago. But considering how bad it was for graduates last year, it has actually improved 5% from last year.

Students do seem worried about finding jobs in their field, and are therefore keeping their options as open as possible. Both the students and career counselor told us the best thing one can do is make their resumes stand out, either by completing as many internships as possible or being involved on-campus.

As someone graduating from school in May, this story was completely relevant for me and piqued my interest. Luckily, I was also hired Monday as a VJ (Video Journalist) at YNN in the bureau in Corning, NY. My job search has officially ended :)

One of the Best I've Ever Had

Let me start by saying yesterday was AWESOME. Now I will continue by saying that yesterday was one of those days during which I thought to myself, "This is why I'm in this business. This is why I love my job." Or future job I should say.

I got to the station, and it was a pretty slow news day because of Good Friday. Not much was going on except Easter preparation...until Joleene noticed "Greek Peak Skiing" written on our idea board. What is that about? Well we went there and found out!

Joleene and I, who were both coincidentally wearing skirts yesterday, headed to Greek Peak Ski Resort in Cortland to do a feature story on spring skiing. Now, on an 80 degree day, we didn't expect to see many skiers, and there weren't but there were enough to find out all about it. Here are some things we learned:

• Spring skiing is more popular than you would think.
• It generally lasts until mid-April in the CNY area.
• The snow is leftover natural and man-made snow from the season. There's less of it, and it's less compact, but it's still skiable.
• Only the season pass ticket holders and die-hard skiers ski regularly in the spring.

In order to get some good shots, Joleene and I went up in the ski lift...and needed to get ski socks and rent skis to do it. However, I've never actually been skiing before, so for me, this was amazing. Unfortunately, for insurance reasons, we couldn't ride the lift back down the mountain again, so some of the Greek Peak patrolmen drove snowmobiles to the top and drove us back down when we got there.

Amazingly, I didn't fall when I got off the lift! Though wrapping my legs around a patrolman driving me on a snowmobile -- in a skirt -- was a bit interesting.

We finally got back to the station by 2:00, at which point I had a job interview with my boss. I was still able to turn my SOT-based package by 5, and it was a GREAT day.

Here's Joleene's version of the story. PS: I shot her stand-up on the lift!

Feeling like a producer

This morning started off interestingly enough. I joined Karen Lee at a Syracuse Police Department press conference, where Sgt. Tom Connellan and Chief Frank Fowler updated the local media on two recent cases.

Update #1: Last night's shooting on Ellis St. on the West Side left one injured and one in critical condition today. Richardo Davis, 21, is on life support at University Hospital after receiving multiple gunshot wounds. The other victim, Tyrone Mulligan Jr., 18, was already treated and released for a single gunshot wound. The shooting was a drive by, and there was possibly a third party with Davis and Mulligan. No suspects or motives have been determined.

Update #2: Asa Holiday, 29, was arrested yesterday and arraigned this morning for sexually assaulting a 69-year-old woman in her home on March 8th. The assailant was invited into the victim's house after he posed as a construction worker in need of food and something to drink. Amazingly, the woman was able to fight off the 6'2" 190 lb. man with her bare hands.

Karen went live outside the Public Safety Building at noon, and we headed back to the station. I spend the rest of the day writing VOSOT versions of the stories we covered and VOSOTs and RDRs for air. I felt like a producer with all the scripts I was writing. It was fine, but it confirmed that producing is something I'm not interested in. I'm all for reporting.

I also was given a writing test by my boss, Steve, for a video journalist/reporter position I applied for. I had 90 minutes to write 5 RDRs/VOSOTs.

I'm looking forward to hearing from him about the stories, and seeing what comes of the job opening. I still have to get my reel to Steve, but told him I could have it in by next week or the week after.

Wish me luck!