Our Headquarters

It’s been almost a year since I started working for our great news channel. I have used this time to patiently observe the staff so I get some characters to write abut. And oh, the happenings at our office get awesome and weirder with every passing day! I always refer to our channel as Our Great News Channel (OGNC) because sometimes I think we’re like the Soviets- we make not have the quality but we have the pride!

But then, by nature and by work, we’re like the British.

Just like the famous 'Six', we have our office on the banks of a river. It is located in a huge (by Goan standards) 7 storey tower behind a public toilet in a corner of Panaji bus stand. The passageways are filled with smell of fresh cake from ‘Great Bakes’ shop on the building’s ground floor. If you come at the correct time, the elevator smells of ladies perfume, thanks to someone from Cosme office on the fifth floor.

Our floor of course bears the most sacred number-007.

Our similarity with the SIS doesn’t end here. Despite all efforts from our ‘brighter’ and ‘smarter’ staff, the ‘Americans’ that is ‘our competitors’ end up getting the better part of sensitive information.

Now that I am here, things have begun to change. :)

The eyes and ears of OGNC are of course, the reporters. I call them ‘the blood sucking ninjas’. They make money giving publicity to people’s problems. The ninjas dance to the tune of the assistant news editor. Due to her rank and her job, I call her ‘Lady Eliza.’ She decides what and what not to cover. The honorable baroness, battles crap all day, buried behind her computer and screaming on her phone, surrounded by invitations to various press conferences. If you are in good relations with the lady, she might send you to cover a conference at the Taj Vivanta or a fashion show by Wendell Rodricks. If not, you find yourself roaming on streets, asking pedestrians what they think about rising inflation.

The man with the magic wand however, is the editor, fondly called Lord Nelson because of his liberal style of leadership. In times of desperation, he uses his old boy network to fish out information to make some good news.

The most interesting of all is the sub editing staff. The people manning sub editing section of our great news channel have only two moods. They’re either angry or enraged. I however, am the most sane, pleasant and cool character in the whole sub editing department because I handle very sensitive stories like ‘milk price increased by Rs. 3’ or ‘stray cat enters police headquarters’ etc.

If I give you details about the rest of the crew manning the section, they will sue me.

The video editors (read Qs) are like cunning foxes. Their greed for better visuals is unending. They get the fastest, coolest computers that run without ever getting stuck! They have soft music playing and they get to draw cool graphic pictures all day. Compared to the sub-editing section where comps almost always crash, there’s no music (it disrupts concentration needed for writing), the video editing section is heaven! Despite all these facilities, the video editors are innovative enough to find issues to complain about. See? We have a really smart staff!

Now, the kinds who are in-charge of feeding the visual-hungry video editing division are the cameramen. These people are mostly out in the field and I don’t get to spend much time with them. Almost all the cameramen are burly, muscular guys. So I am not going to say a word wrong about them. I love my life

So that’s it. I am still a junior at the office. The security guard thinks I am office boy and office boy thinks I am a sub-editor. The cameramen think I am a reporter. I do video editing on Sundays and sub-editing on weekdays. So both sub-editors and video editors think I belong to the other section.

Officially, I am a librarian.