I used to have a boss, Shelley Ross, who’d tell the managers who worked for her, “Don’t bring me a dead kitten.”
Shelley Ross, second from left, circa 1999. Left to right, Federico Quadrani, Tom Touchet and Melissa Dunst
Shelley’s advice has stayed with me--and I’ve passed it along to countless others who have worked for (and with) me. A “dead kitten” conjures up a terrible image--especially now in the face of hundreds of thousands of Americans as potential coronavirus virus--but, long before corona, that was the point. Back then (as now), if you’re having a problem, don’t wait to get help until it’s too late. The results can be catastrophic--a dead kitten or a pandemic with refrigerator trucks outside hospitals, serving as temporary morgues.
In TV news (where I have worked for nearly 40 years), it’s all about time. TV news shows start at a fixed time. The morning TV news shows all start at 7:00:00. No matter what has happened in the last 24 hours, the last 30 minutes before air--and even the last 30 seconds--you have to be ready to go on at 7:00:00--because, ready or not, that’s when things start.
Likewise, in TV news, every show ends at a fixed time. If you’re producing a local newscast, you know that your show needs to end at 6:28:25, time for three :30 commercials, one :05 station ID and then you’re at 6:30:00--the start of the network evening news for everyone in your time zone. The evening news starts on time so you need to finish in time.
Any newscast producer knows about backtiming. If you need to end at 6:28:25 and your allot :30 for your final kicker story and a goodbye, 2:30 for your weathercast, 2:00 for your final commercial,:15 to tease weather and the kicker, 3:00 for sports and 2:00 for your middle break, then you know that you need to hit that middle break at 6:17:10. If you look up at 6:18:30 and you haven’t hit that middle break, you’ve got a dead kitten (and a pissed off weathercaster who knows his/her time is about to get squeezed--again).
This awareness of time permeates my being. I am obsessed with being on time--and being aware that IF I know I am going to be late for something before I actually am late drives me up a wall. If a meeting is called “The 2:30 Meeting,” then it should start at 2:30. Indeed, one of the things that has surprised me about coronavirus is that virtual meetings, unlike regularly scheduled in-person meetings at work (remember those?), tend to start exactly on-time. Is that because the built-in clocks of computers and mobile devices that we need to participate in virtual meetings somehow reinforce the notion of being and starting on time? Is it that we somehow value time precisely because we’re working from home? Was time somehow less precious when we worked at the office?
The deadlines of TV news can be oppressive. And yet, for me, they’re mostly liberating and highly motivating. A friend who worked with me in TV news said that it’s an industry that brings together all those people who waited until the last minute to get their papers written. Guilty as charged. I need deadlines. Without them, I’d obsess and never let things go. (Imagine that.)
In my career, I’ve also spent more than a decade working overnights in morning TV. It’s an odd shift where you get a show ready for air--but then walk out the door 2 hours before it goes on the air. You start your work day in the evening after the morning team has jumped off the treadmill and, hopefully, is getting some sleep. On the overnights, there are still deadlines, but it’s more about getting ready and understanding what’s going to be ahead. (On the overnights, I used to tell people, “Tomorrow, ‘today’ will be yesterday.”) When you’re working on a story the night before it airs, you need to look ahead to how it will play tomorrow. Will the story you write at 7PM feel right at 7AM?
If you don’t look ahead, if you don’t plan, if you don’t ask for help in time, you get a dead kitten. Sadly, very sadly, we’re all learning that lesson with the coronavirus--and it’s horrible.
It’s horrible to watch it unfold--especially if you’ve tried to plan, if you’ve tried to anticipate what will happen next and if you tried to understand the built-in time lag of this virus The deaths we’re seeing today started with infections that happened 3 weeks ago from exposures to people who were perhaps themselves exposed 2 weeks before that. It’s hard to see where it all started. It’s harder to see where it’s all headed.
The good news is that at some point, social distancing will kick in to slow the spread. Listening to the experts, it will come seemingly unexpected, a distant ripple and echo in time from steps taken weeks before. With different people (and governors) catching up to social distancing at their own pace (if at all), the good--and bad--news will also come in waves.
Three weeks ago on March 13th, I wrote my first coronavirus quiz about Stella, our dog, #1, Stella and Social Distancing. At the time, she was 6 weeks into what the vet had told us would be an 8-week recovery from January knee surgery. To make sure she stayed inactive, we needed to isolate Stella from our other dogs by gating her in the kitchen. The vet told us she might get a little stir crazy. Instead, she reveled in social isolation, almost an assertion of her dominance over the other dogs including our dog Happy and Betsy’s dogs, Fred and Brownie. (When the local school where Betsy teaches fourth grade was still open, Betsy would drop off Fred and Brownie at our house everyday for doggie daycare. Since the school closed, Betsy’s been teaching from home, self-quarantined in her Hoboken apartment with a few socially distant visits. We miss them and know Fred and Brownie miss our backyard.)
This past Monday, March 30th, Sara and I took our first trip out of the house to a place of business since our Friday, March 13th trip to the grocery store. It was time for Stella’s 8-week x-ray and the veterinary hospital was set up for social distancing. We called them when we arrived and they sent a nurse with a mask out to the parking lot. Switching leashes, Sara handed Stella off, came back to the minivan and cleaned her hands with wipes. 15 minuteS later, the vet called us with the results as we sat in the parking lot. Stella was healing nicely. No more sling to get her up and down the stairs to the back yard, but we need to still keep her on a leash back there to keep her from running around with the other dogs. Over the next 8 weeks, we were to build up her knee with longer and longer walks. 15 minutes a day to start, twice a day, until we were going 30 minutes each, walking at a full clip. Finding that time before might have seemed impossible before. Now, not so much. In 8 weeks, the vet told us Stella will be ready to run free with our other dogs in the back yard and around the house.
For now, I will be doing my dog walks with some kind of face covering, something the CDC recommended yesterday, Friday April 3rd. The idea is to stop the spread from people who may have the coronavirus but not know it. It’s not about protecting yourself. It’s about protecting others so you don’t unwittingly give it to them. Sara’s weekend project is to make cloth masks for the family. For the first time today, Saturday, April 4th, I used a winter face mask on my dog walks with Happy and Stella. I know I was an incredible sight. One more frightening scene in this global nightmare.
And yet, the longer (and faster) walks will do Stella--and me--good. Self-quarantined for almost a month now, I need to exercise. It also feels good--and bad--to try to look 8 weeks ahead. Stella will be running. That’s great. It will be Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer. That should be good--and yet, it’s impossible to imagine this being anything like a typical summer. A walk on the boardwalk? A baseball game? A backyard barbeque with friends?
I don’t know what’s next and for someone obsessed with time and planning ahead, that’s deeply upsetting--and as a great writer I know recently suggested to me--”I suspect I am not alone in this.”
That writer is Nathan Hill, author of my favorite novel, “The Nix.”
NOTE WELL: Shelley and Nathan approved my use of their names and stories in this quiz.
What did NOT happen?
A. When I write our family holiday newsletter as a 3-page, single-space quiz, I include references to things I’ve read and TV shows I’ve watched during the year. In 2016, I recommended “The Nix.” I sent Hill a copy of the holiday quiz, somehow he got it, read it and replied via email. His mother wanted a tour of the TODAY Show and I arranged it;
B. When I mentioned “The Nix” in an early coronavirus quiz, I emailed Hill a copy of the quiz;
C. This week, Hill sent me an email, telling me about his progress on a second novel. He asked if I’d read any good books lately. I told him about “The Dutch House” by Ann Patchett and “The Last Romantics” by Tara Conklin;
D. When I told Annie about this, she chastised me for failing to mention that she had recommended those books to me. She wanted to know what books Hill had recommended. I had not asked that question;
E. Hill closed his email “All best, Nathan.” I always thought it was “all the best.” Less is more.
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Here’s the next quiz in the series: Quiz #20. Curbing My Enthusiasm.
Here’s the previous quiz in the series: Quiz #18. Look Up.
Here’s the first quiz in the series: Quiz #1. Stella and Social Distancing, March 13, 2020
The quiz is explained here: Steve’s Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz.
Here is an archive of all the quizzes.
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