Flashes of Panic

I realized, as they described my job for this year’s Boston Marathon, that this was pretty close to the perfect job for me.

Previously, I’ve been the one talking to the bike spotters. I’ve had to maintain, essentially, eight separate conversations—or, more accurately, two conversations with distinct groups of four people each.

This year, we’ve got one volunteer talking to each spotter. We’ve told the spotters to use their own intuition about what’s interesting, and feed the volunteers. I’m talking to the volunteers, and handing the data on to the press room announcer and the TV producers.

When I was in the press room as a reporter, watching the TV feed, I was endlessly frustrated by what I couldn’t see: what was happening in the women’s race while the men were on screen, and vice versa. I always worried that the camera wouldn’t be on the big move. Now, in this position, I’ve essentially been given the power to know what’s going on in the race that’s not on camera. My job is to tell the TV producer if I think something’s happening that they should know about. If it works, it not only makes the TV broadcast slightly better, but it also helps the coverage of every reporter in the press room.

Not only have I been given the power to scratch the itch I had as a reporter, I get to scratch it for everyone.

Though perhaps I should rephrase that: I’m the one who tries to scratch everyone’s itch. Something tells me I won’t get them all.

Still, I have a good feeling about it. It means that not only have they liked how I’ve done in the past, but they trust me to know what’s important when it happens. Or, actually, before it happens.