Starting work at CNN

Starting your first day at somewhere like CNN with a hangover is never a good idea. I'd woken up feeling rough as fuck and decided to have a Bloody Mary for breakfast to try and make things better.

So I probably turned up smelling of booze. Not great.

I got there and my producer showed me to a desk that was not really anywhere near hers. She said 'use this desk and find out all you can about which companies are flying out of which airports once the Open Skies Agreements take place in March'. Then she left me to it.

Did I know the log on password to turn the computer on? No.
Did I know where to start looking for the information she wanted? No.
Did I know where the kitchen, the toilets or anything of use was? No.
Did I feel capable of anything? No.

I eventually got her to tell me what the log on was and what exactly she wanted. That was pretty much the last contact I had with her all day.

I said hello to the girl sitting across from me. She replied "Er, yeah hi" and turned her chair away to face the other direction.

Basically the whole day was horrible. It's a really fast paced news room with no natural lighting, recycled air and lots of loud American people shouting over the room at each other. Nobody spoke to me. When I passed people in the office nobody even looked at me. Everyone was too wrapped up in their own things to notice I was even there.

It got to about 7.30pm and I was starting to wonder how long I was meant to stay for. My producer was still typing away and didn't seem to want to be disturbed. I eventually asked her when I could go and she asked me to show her what I'd done. I did and she said she wanted it in a table that could be easily read rather than the way I did it. There is so much information about the Open Skies Agreement that it was all a bit daunting to be honest.

I got out of there and called Clive. He was down at Green Carnation waiting for Robbie. I said I'd go to meet him for a drink. On the way I called Nicola. She was lovely and talked me through the day. She said that News Rooms aren't chatty places but things will get better when I've been there a bit longer.

I met up with Clive and Robbie and had a few drinks. That made me feel a bit better and I went home and had some food before bed. Spirit was looking a lot better today and the lump on his neck had gone right down so I felt relieved.

God I hope tomorrow is a better day.