I towel off a string of drool from my cheek with my shirt, where an overenthusiastic Bullmastiff donated her greetings in the form of a muddy imprint of her baseball-size paw. A Pit Bull and Lab chase each other across the yard and body slam into my legs. I inventory the damage from the past week. Embossed scratches streak my forearms. Tender blue and green splotches spatter my shins. I sigh and look up in time to notice the corprophagous Vizsla whiffing his unscheduled mid-day snack.
“No, Rojo! Leave it!” I plead.
I scuttle across the yard with a pooper scooper packed to the brim. A Doodle bolts in front of me, knocks into the scooper and splatters the poop onto my shoes. I’m not phased.
“Leave it!”
Too late.
“Drop it, Rojo! Drop it!” I hop-scotch over dogs as they dance around me and nip my fingers.
By the time I reach the crime scene, there’s only a brown smudge on the floor. I admit a sigh of defeat and lower my head. A dog licks my hand, a response akin to a person resting a hand on your shoulder when you’re distressed. It’s a sign of comfort. It’s an offer of condolence. I turn to see who it is.
It’s Rojo.
I’m a supervisor and kennel attendant for a dog daycare. A coworker likes to embellish our profession. He refers to us as “pack trainers” and “pack behaviorists.” But he’s just polishing a turd. It’s still a turd. An appetizing munchie for Rojo. Let’s just call it what it is, shall we?
Dog-sitter.
“Pack-sitter,” to be more precise. There’s never a singular dog chaperoned at a doggy daycare. It’s always a plethora. Anywhere from ten to seventy dogs romp in a single play area at a time. Some days are blessedly simple. The dogs are calm, sleepy and playing nice. It’s what I imagine babysitting sloths must be like. On the other hand, there are occasions when the pack descends into anarchy. It’s like I’m the “pack riot police” and I’ve time traveled to the streets of L.A. circa 1992. If I listen closely, I can hear them barking “Rodney King! Rodney King!” I’ve had to pull dogs off each other like a bouncer in a bar fight and temporarily incarcerate them for picking the gate locks and busting everyone out. I swear, if canines had opposable thumbs, they’d steal my Zippo and light the rafters on fire.
At no point in my life had I foreseen a career in shepherding Shepherds. How did I even get here?
Long before I ended my work days with ringing slobber from my shirts, I received an Associate of Applied Science degree in Electronic Media Production and worked for a Missouri TV news station. For the better part of a decade, I was a production assistant and computer graphics operator. I handled studio cameras, interacted with the on-air talent as a floor director, and built and aired graphics for live news broadcasts. I was there for tornado coverage, election coverage, and went on-location for MDA charity events. I aired the results of the 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections. I witnessed the live manhunt for the Boston bombers. I was good at my job. I cared about pristine results. I loved the rush of live news (assuming we were covering actual news-worthy events, as opposed to cat fashion shows and tabulating how many Tonka trucks were donated to Toys for Tots).
When I moved to Seattle, all of that changed.
You see, my plan was to enter the larger markets from the bottom rung and work my way back up. That meant returning to a part-time production assistant position, performing duties like collecting scripts and rundowns, dusting the studio set, dumping promos and commercials into the video server, and teleprompting newscasts. Basically, being the production department’s indentured servant. In the meantime, I would learn everything I could about the station, its various positions, the equipment, and the people working there. I would become a pro and prove my worth. Eventually, I’d graduate to touching the cameras, the computer graphics generator, and – fingers crossed – the director’s video switcher. Essentially, I would infiltrate the system disguised as a non-threatening underling until I usurped dominion over the station.
That was my ingenious scheme. It was going to work, too. That is, until I discovered first-hand just how disposable human beings are in today’s age. Dozens of production positions were nullified by burgeoning technology. The flesh-and-blood crew were chucked overboard as robots hijacked news stations across the country.
You heard me right. Robots. It’s not the illegal aliens, or “I.A.’s,” that are taking our jobs. It’s the A.I.’s. (If you think the production department is the only one affected and that the newsroom is safe from the robot invasion, think again. The Big Ten Network is already substituting sportswriters with an automated narrative generator. Soon enough, Fembots will be the new Katie Couric’s and T-1000’s the new Walter Cronkite’s.)
The positions spared in the invasion were the hobbled and hollow versions of their former selves. The directors working there for 20 years snagged those gigs. Not that they were too thrilled about it. They were basically glorified babysitters for robotic cameras and automated switchers. They went from operating a video switch board like a pianist performing a Beethoven sonata to operating an automated switcher like a dipping bird toy.
Everything I knew was suddenly antiquated. Everything that I learned, experienced and mastered was invalidated. I was abandoned.
The worst thing about it? Not only was my experience and knowledge not applicable in higher, more modern, markets, but they also weren’t applicable in any other existing job. Other than, perhaps, acquiring an unusual tolerance to high stress levels, television news broadcasting skills are utterly useless. It’s a lot like reentering civilization ten years after studying and successfully integrating into the Mashco-Piro clan in the Peruvian jungles. Or earning a degree in Philosophy.
So much for a career. Now I just needed a job. I tried almost anything. Book stores, thrift stores, pie shops, dog daycares. The only place that wanted to hire me was the daycare. That’s how I fell in with “pack-riot-policing.”
But it’s not all bad, I suppose. Despite the slobber confetti, mutinous dogs, and sustaining injuries akin to an amateur hockey goalie, I don’t mind it. I genuinely enjoy the company of dogs. In more ways than I can count, they’re so much better than people. They live in the moment, they’re straight-forward and they can’t light buildings on fire.
In retrospect, I’m kind of glad Bender booted me from my TV career. It can’t be healthy working in a place that constantly airs stories about rape, murder, and Kim Kardashian. Strolling into work and being immediately bombarded by human-generated atrocities was exhausting.
The worst day was December 14, 2012. When I entered PCR (production control room), I noticed every monitor was on and airing the same footage. This was odd. It had to be a national news cut-in. Displayed was an aerial shot of a school building. Police cars surrounded it. The anchors chattered in the background with an over-the-phone interviewee. Something about a suspect or two with guns. But at this point in my career, I watched the news only the way a computer graphics operator can. I tuned out the blathering talent and focused on the video and graphics. The “lower third” said everything I needed to know.
“Breaking News: Shooting at Connecticut Elem. School – Source: 18-20 Children Dead.”
This story constituted the bulk of our news coverage that evening, punctuated by peppy weather reports and the latest football scores.
That did it for me. I hid in the bathroom and cried at least three times that day. Which never happens to me. I’m not that kind of person. I’m the girl who rages about news stories, like when “pro-life” Christians stalk and murder doctors. I’m the girl who obsesses with details and strives for the perfect show. I’m the girl who cracks jokes about the Sarah Palin rally held in the Bass Pro parking lot.
Not that day, though. I became a different person. My passion and joy struggled to breathe in the dense smoke of senseless hatred and the evil rationalized as God’s will. The robots – no matter how much they dehumanize our professions – were my aid as much as they were my destruction. Sure, they took my job. But they also opened up a window and let in some fresh air.