The sunday night started with a phone call... no, I'm not writing the story of One Night at a Call Centre... it's a knock out night in a news room...
It was around 8:39 in the evening when I got a call from Namy... sorry, forgot to introduce you with the protagonists of the story... KY, my collegue ; Namy, my senior and myself. Probably the first time Namy called me... Felt a bit nervous and scared to see her name flashing on my supercool touch screen phone... I murmured in my mind saying twice, "it must be a goof-up..it must be a goof-up for sure"... Picked up the call and a sweet, polite voice asked me, "are you busy?"... her avid and composed voice gave me a hint that it's something opposite to "err"... it was time for the next question, and there she goes, "can you manage to call someone to come to office tonight, there's only two people working for the night shift?"... I cool-ly agreed to come and immediately called up KY to join me... we reached office near around 9:47... lights were dim, bays were dark, people were invisible, dustbins were dirt-free, chairs were carelessly kept anywhere and everywhere and sitting on one such chair was Namy...
Greeting her brought me a lot of work immediately... there were literally a dozen stories to be done before the six'o clock bulletin... in the news room language, it was a busy day... Namy explained me and KY, the stories to be done and we soon started to play... yes, its play... usually the first two hours we play games (not the seniors though) and then we pull it off till late... by morning you feel fresh in spite of being devoid of sleep, still satisfied to finish work before half-a-second time of the bulletin...
It was around 8:39 in the evening when I got a call from Namy... sorry, forgot to introduce you with the protagonists of the story... KY, my collegue ; Namy, my senior and myself. Probably the first time Namy called me... Felt a bit nervous and scared to see her name flashing on my supercool touch screen phone... I murmured in my mind saying twice, "it must be a goof-up..it must be a goof-up for sure"... Picked up the call and a sweet, polite voice asked me, "are you busy?"... her avid and composed voice gave me a hint that it's something opposite to "err"... it was time for the next question, and there she goes, "can you manage to call someone to come to office tonight, there's only two people working for the night shift?"... I cool-ly agreed to come and immediately called up KY to join me... we reached office near around 9:47... lights were dim, bays were dark, people were invisible, dustbins were dirt-free, chairs were carelessly kept anywhere and everywhere and sitting on one such chair was Namy...
Greeting her brought me a lot of work immediately... there were literally a dozen stories to be done before the six'o clock bulletin... in the news room language, it was a busy day... Namy explained me and KY, the stories to be done and we soon started to play... yes, its play... usually the first two hours we play games (not the seniors though) and then we pull it off till late... by morning you feel fresh in spite of being devoid of sleep, still satisfied to finish work before half-a-second time of the bulletin...
Back to the flashback mode of the not-so-nice night... after completing the computer games with absolute failure, we started our work... slowly, gradually and peacefully we drew a close to our stories for the first show for the morning...
Then came the next chapter... five tapes in and out, the story was not available... News does not wait for time, but broadcast wait for visuals... it's the only option and weapon for them... and the visuals were invisible as the people in the night shift...
The visuals should ideally be ready by 4'o clock for the 6'o clock but none of the footages came... the dreadful journey to search and file new stories begins now (we said to eachother)... quite fast we got stories at least for the first few bulletins and then went to ingest (upload) visuals for the immediate show... it was 5:37 and we knew it will be done in 3 minutes untill we inserted the priceless tape (it was then, for the most urgent moment) and it got stuck... i repeat, STUCK... in the machine... our saviour, Mr. Machineman from the Systems came after a wait of a whole long 600 seconds (to be precise, 10 minutes)... he came, he checked and he took the machine with him... no problem, let him take the machine but hello, the tape was stuck inside... the package could not go for the 6'o clock bulletin... Though I knew the package can't walk (that it'll go) - we had to send it ; though I knew it was NOT our fault because it was technical glitch (that must have happened with the same machine for the 998th time) ; though I knew what has to happen will happen, but none of these reasons can change the fact that the package was not shown in the bulletin...
I did not want to go home in the morning after an unsuccessful night with a broken heart, so I stayed on... I stayed on till late and filed other stories that can go on air, stories that have visuals... Finally at around 10:36 am, I left the office with a tummy-full breakfast and a happy heart...
What an exciting night it was....one of panic for u no doubt after u played games to your hearts content. I'm sorry i called u on such short notice. Hope the jinx with tapes is over!
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