Sunday 4 September 2011

End of Part 1

Friday was essentially the last day for me in my old job, which as I've alluded to in the past on here has been moved to Leeds (where there is a sister dept already).  I've spent nearly two months handing over our duties to the new team, and although the half of the department that takes the schedules to the point they go to press is still in the process of being transferred, Friday was quite symbolic as it was the last day that we will send the final schedules from London (at least on a regular basis) so in a way was the end of an era.  Although there have been many, many changes along the way in how we do the role at the core it's still the job I got six years ago and moved down to London for.
The final London team of schedulers

In a twist that you could never plan, the person who is effectively taking on my old job is my brother-in-law-to-be Lee.  Talk about keeping it in the family!  I spent nearly two weeks at Kirkstall Road in July training the new team.  YTV has undergone something of a renaissance since I was last there around the time network production was being wound down - Emmerdale has moved into the main building, Shiver is doing pretty well, the Northern Transmission Centre has had a re-fit AND they've got free Starbucks-style coffee on tap, the lucky gits.  They're also a great team who were lovely to me while I was staying up there and I'm very jealous they get to do that job AND live in a cool city like Leeds.
At the end of my two weeks in Leeds.  Corporate-signage-tastic

Thankfully all of us in the old team in London have been offered new roles which we've all been gradually moving into over the past month.  I'm going to be managing a new "advance scheduling" mini-department aiming to prepare for the more complicated schedules much further out than we do currently.  Certainly it will be a very different pace, as one of the old team put it "getting off the hamster wheel".  I won't miss having to deliver a plan for twenty-four hours of TV at the end of every day, the stressful Fridays where everyone else is down the pub and you're still stuck in the office for hours trying to get the weekend's schedules done, and most of all Christmas and New Year where you're busier than ever  (especially when you try and incorporate trips home to see family) while everyone else is at home eating chocolate.  Although we worked office hours it was a curious elongated version of them that meant you just had to stick around until everything was all done, and could never really plan much for Friday nights (although more recently we have had some quite generous "time-back" initiatives).  And that's before you even consider everything else that has been thrown at us in the last few years so it's a credit to the team that that the show has been kept on the road.  But at the end of the day I've always found it very rewarding to have had such a close hand in what's gone out.
Half-arsed celebrations

So although there's still much to transfer oop north, I was keen to mark Friday because, just to be a little melodramatic for a moment, there has been an equivalent of our deparment in London (in many, many guises over the years) since the launch of our channel 56 years ago.  And what better way to celebrate than with Krispy Kremes and not-quite-champagne in plastic glasses?  Thanks to the final scheduling team - we couldn't have had a better one and it's been a pleasure working with them - and good luck to the new guys.  Now Kate and I are off to the Scottish highlands for a few days.  See you after the break.

The end

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