Is it too early in the game to feel burnt out?

Good afternoon everyone!
Welp. At some point it may be pointless to keep mentioning the stats of how many COVID-19 cases, since this is going to be a thing for months, but I’m not quite at that stage yet. Not to mention I have these numbers memorized by the time I’m done reading them four times in a two-hour morning show.
So, here’s where we’re at:
The U.S.: over 200,00 confirmed cases (note, that’s up from 70,000 confirmed cases at this time last week).
Nebraska: over 200 cases.
Lincoln County: 12 cases, 7 recently discovered to be community spread.

Company’s going to start sending all stations cloth face masks. They’re getting more serious about interviews via Zoom (limiting in-person as much as possible) and disinfecting everything we touch. In fact, the company got me my own personal thermometer.

At least 30 states are issuing stay-at-home orders; our lovely governor is adamant he will not. My guess is he has to at some point — either when we have enough cases in the state, when enough people die, or when we run out of resources — just that’s anyone’s guess.

We are not passing Go. We are not collecting $200. We are just getting worse.

Now that’s obviously going to come up throughout this whole thing (the whole COVID-19 thing), but let’s go about this in order.

Friday, March 27
So last Friday (March 27), was the first time my meteorologist and I did a “social distancing” show. It was basically as a trial run where he and I are never next to each other. This is something we started doing on our own just as a means of keeping each other safe, just in case.
Now, the only times he and I are ever next to each other are at the start (when we say “Good Morning, I’m Erika Siebring. . .”) and when we do viewer birthdays, Question of the Day, and Must See Video. So for a “social distancing show,” those are the only elements that are different; instead I greet the viewers by myself at the start and then turn it over to weather, and then we do Boxes for the viewer birthdays and such.
Anyway, so that was the first day we did it, and it went really well. So that is our new normal show for the enforceable future.

This also means with this new show format, me taking my temperature everyday, taking vitamins everyday, drinking Emergen-C, and quarantining as best I can — I am going to be very annoyed if I get sick lol.

Oh! I also did some painting that day! It was on my Quarantine To Do List and I (obviously) had a ton of free time. Now, I didn’t have any canvas, so I painted this succulent and flowers on the back of a paper plate!

I also bought myself some new beauty products! I’ve been looking for new haircare products, so I’m trying function of beauty. It’s a website where you can customize your shampoo/conditioner based on what your hair is like (i.e. texture, length, etc.) and how you want to take care of your hair (i.e. anti-frizz, lengthen, hydrate, etc.).
And I love them so far! They smell so good, and I love how they make my hair feel. I approve.

This Week
Now, I wont lie. . .this has been a very long week. At work today I was so “meh,” I was running fumes, and I was so ready to go home. I know I still have to get though work tomorrow, though, and then I should have a free weekend.

Alrighty, so Monday — my boss warned me ahead of time I would most likely have to cover a commissioner’s meeting on Monday, and I did.
At first I figured it would be via Zoom (again, social distancing), but nope, it was in person. Which I suppose was fine, but it was still a bit frustrating.
I mean, I already worked my shift; then got a short about of time to scarf down breakfast before going back to the office; and carried a camera, tripod and microphone stand into the courthouse when our own company is saying to social distance as much as possible.
Seems counter-productive, right?
Well, may as well not dwell on it now. The meeting was fine, fairly straight-froward, got some good interviews, came back to the office to do a VOSOT. Turns out the Zoom audio of the meting was horrid anyway, so it was good I went in person. But that went well, I got about 4 hours of overtime, and I crashed when I got home.

Tuesday — Tuesday was okay. Nothing special, but nothing especially draining.

Wednesday — Oh boy, let me tell you about Wednesday (April Fools Day). Let. Me. Tell. You.
Okay, so to put in video for the shows, we download them, and then upload them to our editing software (called AVID). Then we lay it out, and “submit” it so it’s accessible for the show (called Airspeed 3). So naturally I download the video like normal, upload it like normal, and then go to layout the video around 3:15-3:30 a.m. like normal.
Welp, I layout the video for one story. I do another. I do another. And then I go to my rundown and see all the videos are not “submitted” (offline, basically, which means the video won’t play). So I go, “wait, what?” and try sending them again. Turns out there’s an error and it wont submit and be online.
So naturally I restart AVID again, restart the computer and AVID, and disconnect to the server and reconnect again.

Nothing works. It’s nearly 4 a.m., and there’s no video for my show.

So, I start to panic. I call our AVID technician and explain the situation, and he tells me there must be a problem with the Airspeed itself. So I gotta send my video off and have someone else take care of it for me.
So I’m still panicking, because now I’m really running behind. I call our Lincoln Production (our directors), and explain the situation to them. I call Lincoln News Desk and again explain the situation to them, and send the video over to them to take care of. Thankfully they could help me, but that meant the future of my entire show was out of my hands, which in itself is nerve-racking.

So again I’m really stressed, I’m running at least 30 minutes behind, this problem has never happened before, and if they don’t take care of the video in time my show will have next to no video at all.
Needless to say, that’s not good.
Now, in the end the video was taken care of in time (though it was really cutting it close), and I’m eternally grateful for our sister station in Lincoln. I really wish I could send them brownies in the mail becasue they saved my show.
The Airspeed problem was fixed and I know how to handle the situation if it comes up again, but for most of that morning I was very, very panicky.

Now, today; Thursday — today was also a very trying day. I was already feeling overwhelmed because a million things happened when I was asleep (press conference, community spread cases, another virus death, over 107 unread emails to sort through, a camera not working, etc.). So I wake up, look at my phone, and immediately am like “God Help Me.”
But I get my things, get ready, and head to work. I sort through the mass of emails and get myself situated. But I’m still feeling really “meh.”
Anyway, so I discover the main camera we use in the show is broken (Cam 19). This means we can’t use that camera, and instead use one in a different position that we use less often (Cam 18). Now this is fine, no biggie, but my muscle memory is programmed for Cam 19; so I had to readjust a bit.

Now, during the show — about 3/4ths of the way through the whole two hours — we hear about some maybe-fatal car crashes on the interstate (freezing drizzle made icy conditions). Now, I can’t do anything becasue I have to be on camera to do the show, so my meteorologist is listening to the scanner in between weather segments and making phone calls, getting someone else on those crashes. We heard about two on the scanner.
After the show I find that due to icy conditions we didn’t send a reporter out (to keep us safe) so I need to call about those accidents at around 8:30 a.m. So I’m taking care of my own stuff, trying to get myself in order, when some other stuff happens. I make some phone calls and basically get no immediate answers, I hear about another in-town maybe-accident on the scanner, I see an ambulance go by, I go warm up a car just in case, get locked out so my boss lets me in, and proceed to hear nothing else about the in-town accident.

I get all my own stuff done by 9 a.m., I’m getting ready to go home, when I get a phone call back from the state patrol about the interstate accidents. So I get all the information I can (while admittedly being quite frustrated and annoyed) and start writing a script/making graphics for the midday show. While I’m trying to get that together, I get another phone call from another NSP officer. It’s a return call on the same thing, so I get supplemental information and then carry on putting the story together.
Now to be fair, I was pretty proud of myself for remembering to get all the important info (what occurred, driver’s information, amount of damage to the car, any injuries, and if ice contributed to the accidents). Now naturally ice did contribute, but nobody was injured and both cars just lost control on the road and maneuvered into roadside ditches.
But it was nearly 10 a.m. before I could go home. And I was so ready to be home.

Now I just have to hope everything goes fine tomorrow.

Now, what have I cooked this week? Let’s see. . .
~ Breakfast Skillet: with hashbrowns (with peppers and onions), turkey bacon, egg and cheese.