Who Wants to be on TV?

One of my responsibilities for my job is that I am the company spokesperson. Typically, this doesn't mean a whole much because reporters would rather speak to the boss instead of the PR person, so I do the occasional phone interview with the newspaper, but for the most part, it means that I coordinate interviews between the president and who ever is wanting the official word as said by the good ol' UW of Utah County and then just prep my boss and make sure he knows what he is talking about.

A few days ago, the local Fox morning news called and said they wanted to do a morning segment at the Giving Tree (adopt an ornament with a child who needs help to receive Christmas) and wanted to have two interviews with UW people. My boss said he would do the first one (at 6 a.m.) but he teaches a class at BYU that was at the same time as the second, meaning the duty was passed on to me.

I showed up at the mall at a few minutes before 6 (another part of the job, always be at all interviews as moral support) and listened to everything my boss said, hoping it would shed some light on what I would be asked, so I could start preparing in my mind. After he was done, the boss wished me luck and left. I then sat at the mall until 8:40 when my interview was, watching and listening to all of the other segments on things like the Top 10 gifts for this year, all while continuously going through the type of questions that could be asked and what I could say without looking like a complete idiot, and memorizing all the statistics and things about the program.

One interesting moment was when during the "Gift Ideas" segment, they said they needed models to wear the coats they were showing. They pointed to me and another girl, and the next thing you know, people were at my side putting on a coat and herding me over to where I needed to stand. I was soon on camera spinning around and doing whatever possible to show the coat as they talked about why everyone needs to go and buy this coat for someone special in their life.

My time finally rolled around, and Buddah (yes, that is the name of the reporter) came to ask me a few preliminary questions. The next thing I know, we were on air, with me staring and smiling awkwardly as he bantered with the show's anchors (all of which, only he can hear). He then started asking me questions. One and a half minutes later, it was over.

I went back to the office and was greeted by the sounds of several nice things from my coworkers. The next morning, I had a meeting with my boss, he started out by saying, "I just want to let you know that I watched your interview online. Very good job!" I thought, "oh that is very nice of him..." And then he continued, "It was actually unbelievably good, in fact, you definitely exceeded expectations. I think we're going to have you do all of the interviews from now on."

Now I'm sure he meant all those things as a compliment, but you have to wonder about the "unbelievably well" and the "you exceeded expectations." Oh well, I guess that's better than having him say I didn't meet expectations.