A Becky Press Conference

Sorry I haven't blogged this week yet but it's been a weird week. First of all, I know everyone is concerned about how I survived Election Day. So thanks for your concerns but I had the easiest Election Day ever! I'm covering a man that no one wants to campaign with so POTUS had been under the radar since late last week. I was scheduled for the morning shift on Tuesday and there was absolutely nothing going on. I watched Saturday Night Live episodes online. There wasn't even a WH briefing. I had already voted several weeks before so I couldn't even share horror voting stories. At one point, I was so bored that I actually vacuumed the entire WH basement floor. I am not sure when the last time that place had been vacuumed but suffice it to say I would NOT have taken a nap on that floor. But now you can sleep like a baby there. Except that as of Wednesday morning, things got considerably busier in my little world. I thought I would take a few moments to answer some popular questions in a pretend press conference with myself.

Q: Did you survive Election Night, Becky?
A: Since I worked the early shift in the WH booth, I got to leave early in the afternoon and went home and took a long nap. Then I went to an election-results-viewing party at a friend of a friend's house. It was the first Presidential Election Night that I have not worked since 1992 when I was in high school. In 2004, I was working for the White House Unit and worked all night. In 2000, I worked for the political show Inside Politics and was also working all night long. in 1996, I was interning at a local affiliate TV station in the 'Noke and worked that night. It was a strange thing to not be working, especially when I was fairly involved in covering the campaign for a while. I'm not going to lie, it was a bit anti-climatic but I figure I will be working enough in the next six months to more than make up for the easy night. I did, however, enjoy hanging out and actually eating and not having to work. It was quite nice to be watching like a regular American (who had a blackberry with behind-the-scenes information coming through all night.)

Q: What will happen to your job now, Becky? Will you still have a job?
A: I am fine. I don't actually work for the Bush administration. I cover it for my network. So my job is safe. Well at least I think it is. My network generally doesn't make sweeping changes at a transition unless there is real reason to (ex. complete fatigue or burnout) and it doesn't appear that is the case right now. Usually they leave it up to us to say when to move on. You never know with my network but I'm assuming that I will be covering an Obama administration.

Q: How does this affect you, Becky?
A: Well, the short answer (no personal pun intended) for me is that I will most likely be busier. Of course compared to the last couple of months of covering a lame duck president, anything will be busier. For the next 77 days, we will be covering both POTUS and POTUS-E (elect). So I expect to be spending a bit of quality time in Chicago. Hopefully not over either holiday but it is what it is. Anyway, as you will recall, I'm the network pool chair until the end of the year so now I will be coordinating the travel and all the pools of both POTUS and POTUS-E. The slight problem I'm already having is that the POTUS-E side of things is still not organized and really has no plan. Hopefully all of that will be resolved soon. So I have a few things on my plate but it's all good and I fully expect to be able to handle it all without going completely crazy. Let's see, another way my life has been impacted is the sheer volume of e-mail I'm now getting. Before Tuesday, I was averaging about 400 e-mails a day. Today alone I'm over 1000 and it's not even 4pm yet. And I think it's only going to get worse. I needed a break from deleting e-mails so I decided to blog. So if you e-mail me and I don't get right back to you, it's likely that it's caught up in the 2 bazillion e-mails I'm getting on a daily basis. I apologize.

Q: How long have you been caffeine-free?
A: Ok, I realize that this question is a bit out of place but I thought you would be interested to know (and I'm interested in throwing this out there) that I am celebrating my 13th anniversary of giving up caffeine. That's right. THIRTEEN YEARS without it. I gave it up on a dare in college, had horrendous withdrawal headaches and have not gone back since. Yes, I do eat chocolate from time to time but there's really not a lot of caffeine in small doses of chocolate. I did have caffeine one time by accident when a friend from work brought me some green tea. I assumed since it wasn't a dark tea that it didn't have caffeine. But boy, was I wrong! I had a horrible migraine and learned my lesson. I am not counting that in my caffeine-free streak because a) the tea was a nice gesture from a colleague and b) I didn't know. Please don't count it against me!! I am happy to say that I am never even tempted to have caffeine anymore. Not even cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper. And I am even prouder to say that I have pulled many all-nighters and too many crazy work hours without much sleep (most especially in the last three years), and I have been perfectly awake without the help of drugs.

Q: When will we get to see you or when will you be able to take some time off?
A: You may or may not be asking this but I wanted to proactively apologize if I have been or will be a bad friend in the next six months or so. I have been pretty blessed in the past to have figured out a way to keep things fairly balanced and still work as much as I need to but keep the extra-curricular activities going strong. I am hoping to do the same this time around but realize that this is a bigger assignment than I've ever had before. And I'm literally on a team of 6 who will be bearing the burden for my network for the next six months. So while I have a huge list of people I want to come visit (and many of you are on that list) , it seems more likely that I won't be able to go anywhere until next summer.

Q: How do you feel about covering President Obama?
A: I'm not discussing partisan politics here but I will say that no matter what your political slant is, I think we all realize that this is a historic time in the life of our country. I feel extremely blessed to be where I am right now. I will literally be on the front-row to history and face to face with the first black President. I'm guessing in time, I'll get a low-wave from him too! :) But I'm excited to be covering such a historic time. I also know it's going to be a lot of hard work and that I will be stretched and challenged. POTUS-E will definitely keep us on our toes and there will be unbelievable interest in absolutely everything he does so it will definitely be a challenging time. I am looking forward to the return of the press charter (I am sooo over commercial airlines!) and being in a press corps where more than 10 people travel with the leader of the free world. On a serious note, like I said earlier, I feel completely blessed to be doing what I'm doing and know that I'm here only because it's where God wants me. And if He has a different plan for me, He'll let me know and I'll gladly move on. But in the meantime, I'm going to soak in every moment and appreciate the unique place where I am. I'm looking forward to getting to know a lot of people in the new administration and helping them figure out how to run the country! :) And I'm hopefully going to have a lot of fun along the way experiencing exciting times.

Ok, this press conference is over. If there are any other questions you'd like me to answer, leave them in the comments section and maybe at a future virtual Becky press conference, your question will be answered.