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What's the most you've ever worked in one day/week ?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by schiezainc, May 7, 2008.

  1. jfs1000

    jfs1000 Member

    Most of ya'll are crazy and are getting taken advantage of. But, this is a great day IMO. Two coaches fired, day after xmas, by same company.

    Talk about year end books being better. LOL.

    Myself? Longest days are NCAA tournament. One time stuck in the bowels of Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh working on 3 or 4 stories got a call from a pro soccer team that signed a local player. Wrote 3 NCAA stories, wrote a story on the soccer player, and then did a darn radio interview.

    I woke up 7 a.m. that day, hit the arena at 8, didn't finish everything until sometime around 10:30 p.m. 14 hour day and I can tell you, it was non-stop. I may have written some more stuff, but I don't count that.

    Got a nasty email when I submitted expenses about getting a hamburger delivered to my room and two cokes. They asked why i didn't just go to the vending machine (do real Mariotts even have these?).

    Football season gets busy. Media day for the team is a 12 hour days because I have desk duty with preps.
     
  2. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    I had several 20-hour days while covering a Super Bowl or the Olympics.

    There's a reason why I hope I don't ever have to cover either ever again...
     
  3. Jones

    Jones Active Member

    Tour de France: 16 hour days, 23 days in a row, catching half-sleep in the back of a motorhome that smelled like toilet.

    Just as a side note, my flight home left the airport in Paris about twenty minutes before the Concorde crashed. Return to several voicemails, asking me if I could stay in France to file on it. I had to call work and tell them I was already in Montreal. They were really upset.
     
  4. SCEditor

    SCEditor Active Member

    Jones' story reminds me of my senior year in high school when I was working at a preps-only publication. I covered the state track meet (this after our three-person staff shrunk to one -- me! -- in late spring). I leave at 7, get to the meet at 8:30, work until 11 p.m. (rain delays!), drive back to the office and write from 1 a.m. until 7 p.m. the next day. All total I worked 36 straight hours, and as I'm leaving my boss says to me, "I sure wish you had interviewed (third-place) coach so-and-so." I threw a chair and quit.

    I actually went back to work there a few years later. I'm a moron.
     
  5. lmcmillan33

    lmcmillan33 Member

    I worked about 110 hours during last winter's state basketball tournament time, including about 28 straight minus a couple of breaks to eat and maybe a 20-minute nap. This isn't routine, but at one point, I was regularly working 60-70 hour weeks for several months in a row.
     
  6. bake1234

    bake1234 Member

    Week straight of 12- or 13-hour days in 100-degree heat was my worst.
     
  7. SportsDude

    SportsDude Active Member

    During state basketball, we had a boys team in regionals on one side of the state the same time one of our girls teams were in the middle for the finals. Did layout in the morning, previews, went home, drove to said locations, drove back, wrote story (a PM) and did it all again. Everyone ended up in the state final game. Spring preview days were the same week. Ended up clocking in around 90 hours. A couple 16 hour days thrown in there. Had my spring tab due the next week. Felt like a moron driving back three hours, then calling the coaches up at their hotel. Cheap bastards and hey, someone had to do layout.

    We had an inordinate amount of football teams make the playoffs one year, state teams at cross country and volleyball and I had just started doing layout. Worked every day from mid-October to mid-December - I had so much to do I came in Sundays just to get a head start on the week. Swear to God, I look down and eight hours would go by. November hit and we had basketball previews, beginning of girls season the late part of the month and boys start up in early December. Football ran all the way into December. I think I was overworked and ended up with a horrendous case of the flu and missed three days straight and I don't think I left the bed once.

    My alcoholic editor, who was soon after fired, came up to me and told me never to do that again and just call in a sick day if I needed a break. What's that? Gotta love one-man shows.
     
  8. Elliotte Friedman

    Elliotte Friedman Moderator Staff Member

    121 days in a row, as a sports radio volunteer.
     
  9. armageddon

    armageddon Active Member

    Longest stretch was a 24 hours and change during prep football playoffs...

    As a beat person...five-plus months before the first "off" day.
     
  10. chazp

    chazp Active Member

    I know a lot of folks can surpass this, but 83.5 hours in one week (51 weeks ago, I had two spring football games and then three days of the state softball tourney) and 21 hours in one day. The 21 hours was during football season, I had one coach resign to switch schools after his team was eliminated from the state playoffs. He called me at 5 a.m. to tell me, saying he was going to talk to his players at 8 a.m. I went to the school and took photos of him addressing his team. Then back to the office. I had two teams in the football playoffs, one at home the other, a long way off, because I was waiting for a call in on the game, the press room held my deadline to 2 a.m. that morning. I left the office for home past 2 a.m.
     
  11. jlee

    jlee Well-Known Member

    Most in a single day for me was 16 hours of copy editing. First day with the new Web site.

    There was a month in college where I recorded my sleep habits. I was running the school paper's sports copy desk, covering a minor beat and taking 18 credit-hours. Throw in a filthy drinking habit, and I came up with: 4.56 hours of sleep per day and 2.43 on the average weekday. I stopped being social the next month.
     
  12. -Scoop-

    -Scoop- Member

    I've felt like that way too many times. And I'm not a drinker.

    The most I've worked in one day, I believe, is 15 hours. 85 hour weeks are the norm for me, more or less. I often work six days per week, and have gone months working all seven, at least 10 hours per day.
     
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