here's a nifty little jingle to usher you to your untimely death

Did anyone else ever have trouble falling asleep the night before the first day of the new school year?  I would lay awake in my bed and worry about what my classes would be like and who I’d see and what I needed to remember to do.  And then the next day at school, I would be bored out of my mind and trying not to fall asleep because I had tossed & turned until 2a.m the previous night.  Classroom rules, syllabus, and pass out textbooks—that’s all that happens on the first day of school.  But my first day as an intern at the BSO made up for all the mundane first day's in my life. 

The Tuesday after Labor Day, I woke up 2 hours before my departure time. Put on my favorite outfit—gray trousers, lightweight purple blouse, and 3 ½ inch black wedges—and straightened every inch of my long brown hair (oh vanity!).  I grabbed my AP Style book and strutted over to the Meyerhoff.  It’s a 20 minute walk from my house, and it was pouring down rain.  Even though I had an umbrella, I got soaked.  And when I finally arrived (with a frizz-ball hairdo, soaked pants and soggy shoes), I couldn’t even get through the front door.  It was locked.  Thankfully another employee moseyed on over, and he let me in.  I gave him my thanks and climbed the stairs to the 2^nd floor.  Only, the door to the 2^nd floor was locked as well.  Once again, I waited until another staff member of the BSO could help me get to my office.

When I stepped into the PR suite and exchanged greetings with the PR & publications Coordinator, the fire alarm went off.  There were flashing lights and then a voice comes over the intercom, “We have been alerted of an emergency in the building. Please exit immediately.”  And then starts playing a pleasant little orchestral interlude.  So while the flames ravenously eat away at your flesh and you can hear bloodcurdling screams coming from your neighboring cubicle, here’s a little ditty from the BSO’s greatest hits to usher you to your untimely death.  Honestly, I like idea—of a fire alarm that doubles as Performance Today; I’m not so fond of being consumed alive in a violent inferno.  Anyway, the fire alarm was on the fritz and it went off about 20 more times that day.

I spent the first 3 hours organizing press clippings.  It wouldn’t have taken me so long, but the March 2010 through June 2010 book is really messed up.  And that’s when I got my first assignment from the Public Relations Manager: Pitch the James Lee concert to the Baltimore Times.    

!!!!!!

PR people pitch stories to journalists, in hopes that journalists will write articles about the organization that the PR people represent.  When I was interviewing for this internship, I was warned that pitching was going to be a big part of this internship; and sure enough I was assigned a pitch on the first day.  And yeah, I was pretty nervous.  I typed out a little script for myself.  I played it through in my head several times. Then I picked up the phone and dialed the number for the editor of the Baltimore Times:

Busy Signal.

I dialed again.

Busy.

Again.

Busy.

Wrote a Press Release for BSO’s OrchKids.

Dialed again.

Busy.

Transferred schedules from Word to Excel.

Dialed again.

Busy.

Again and again.

Busy.

Finally I sulk over to the PR manager’s office and tell her that I can’t get my call through.  She dials, and gets through on the first try. Yeah sure.  She pitches the story as natural as can be, like their best friends and they’re meeting up for coffee on Wednesday.  My script can’t do that!

So there. My first exciting first day: I looked like a wreck, I got locked out in the rain, I got locked out in a stairwell, the fire alarm went off 3 to 4 times an hour, and my supervisor doubts my ability to operate a telephone.

BSO Fire Alarm