I was walking back from work one day up the high street with the usual bombardment of flyers being flung into my face. It was always hard work fending off these people, trying to pass on their crappy advertisements about restaurants or 30% off shoes or a car wash or whatever. I managed to brush past all of them on the narrow sidewalk & make my way to my front door.
As I fished my keys out, I noticed something in my back pocket. It was one of those darn flyers. One of the sneaky buggers must have slipped it in there as I went past.
This one was different to most, & looked quite premium. The card was thick, matt black, & had clean & simple white writing in the middle'.
'OPP INC. Amateur news presenters needed for a day. No experience required. Instant cash earnings only for first 50 to enquire.'
It had a phone number on it too.
Amateur news presenter? Interesting. Not sure what that even meant.
It turns out I had needed something on the side to earn more money. My crappy sales job wasnt going to cut it if I was to fulfil my goal of taking a year off to go travelling around Europe. This was probably a complete waste of time, but I thought what the hell. Cant hurt to try right?
So I called the number & setup an interview the following day. I mustve been one of the first 50 I guess, as I got the interview.
The next day I turned up to the office in the city for the interview. A small unassuming kinda place, but not unlike any other office really. The words OPP INC read above the doorway. I walked in.
I was immediately greeted by a well dressed man who sat down with me promptly & took me through all the specifics. Well, he wasnt that specific really. What I got out of it was that I would only need to do a few hours of work which entailed presenting the news live on air read from a teleprompter. Seemed easy enough.
The interesting thing is that they said it was presenting the news but with a twist.
They couldn't go into details but simply said that no matter what happened, I had to keep reading the news. No matter what. Money wise, they were paying big. Like, more than I needed really, but they made it pretty clear that I would get nothing if I stopped reading out the news at any point.
They explained there would be a setup of lights I would see, like some sort of traffic light system.
A green light showing at all times meant I was doing well & on track.
An orange light was a warning I'd get if I stopped at any time.
A flashing orange light meant it was imminent id be disqualified & a red light meant that was it. No money.
A contract was put in front of me, with pages and pages of fineprint I barely read. I didn't have anything to lose really, so why not? My pen hovered over where I was supposed to sign, and I paused for a second, before signing it.
I was all setup to go. The big day was booked in for an evening next week. All they said I needed to do was come in a suit & look respectable.
The week flew by, and before I knew it, I was in my new suit on the train into the city towards the studio they had setup there.
They had security out front who let me in straight away when I mentioned my name, and as I walked in noticed it was indeed exactly like a news room. Well, it WAS a news room. There were lights & screens, big boom microphones & cameras setup everywhere, & there was a stage with a chair behind a big desk. Where I'd be sitting presumably.
On either side of the chair were small steps too, which was strange, but I didn't think much of it at the time.
Everything seemed to happen quite fast after that, without much being said. Someone who looked like they were coordinating things rushed over, telling me I was late & looking rather annoyed.
I wasnt that late. Only 10 minutes, which is pretty good for me actually.
The coordinator told me to lift my shirt, and they clipped a device to my belt & ran the cord underneath my shirt & clipped it to my collar. Ah, the microphone.
They then rushed me to the desk & instructed me to sit down, stare straight ahead at the main camera & just read from the teleprompter when it started.
I could see people rushing about getting organised. Cameras being setup, at least 4 or 5 of them at different angles pointed right at me, with a big one in the middle & the teleprompter right next to it.
The room seemed to get darker, or the lights seemed to get brighter, or both.
I couldn't see anyone around anymore, just the bright lights shining on me from every direction. I gulped, and started to feel really nervous all of a sudden, knowing that there were many eyes staring right at me. Possibly thousands really, as they said this was being broadcasted live.
The teleprompter had a countdown on it, which slowly started ticking down from 10.
Here we go, I thought. 9,8,7... what had I got myself into?....4,3,2,1, Action.
