So long, night news shift

Last night I served my last official shift on the online producer schedule. Unfortunately it was a Saturday night, and who likes to work on a Saturday night? No one, that's who. But fortunately, it was indeed my last one.

Most people have no idea why I work weekends. I dread having to explain it because it's hard to describe. But I'll give it a try here in case you're wondering. A weekend night shift goes something like this:

Drag yourself kicking and screaming to work around 5 or 5:30. Check in with the dayside editor. Do whatever he needs you to do (post a story, change a photo, add a link) and catch up on e-mail. Reject comments that have been reported for abuse. That all takes about an hour.

Then start printing any sections that have gone to press already (Cue, Biz). Chat it up with a coworker or two while waiting for the slow, slow printer. Put on your headphones and zone out while you crank out your first section of the night. This involves moving the stories and photos over to our CMS, creating modules for photos, photo galleries, related links, videos, etc., cleaning up the stories for the web, adding appropriate kickers and headlines to each, placing on proper headline lists and reordering the headline lists appropriately.

Next up is dinner. Check e-mail and Google Reader while you munch. Then slug through the next section. By the time you've got that done, the local section is usually about ready to be produced. After that, the A section.

All the while, you're still keeping up with comment abuse reports, coordinating with the copy desk and editors and making sure the homepage is in tip top shape. When everything is produced, you consult with an editor to decide which stories will go up top. Then you rearrange the homepage, make it look nice and purty, do a few miscellaneous tasks to prepare the site for the next day, check your work and skedaddle out around 1 a.m. if all goes well (I've been there as late as 3:30 before though). You walk past paper deliverers picking up their stashes in the parking lot as you leave and that makes it feel even later.

So long, night news shift! It was nice knowing you. Here's to hoping I won't have to fill in for anyone anytime soon...