CBS 12 Anchor, Suzanne Boyd

I really thought I understood everyone’s job in the newsroom. The director directs, the producers produce, and the reporters report. But I should have known better, considering most people think my only job is reading off a teleprompter.

Last week, our web producer was out sick and we had no one to update the CBS 12 website, so our managing editor asked if I could make sure the top stories got added to the site. I was excited. No. I was giddy. I’ve told you before, I’m a bit of a control freak, so the thought of having www.cbs12.com under my control was sublime. I even did the “mwhaaa ha ha” sound effect when I got the assignment.

Before I go on, let me just tell you that I had never actually uploaded video or full stories with photos to the web. The extent of my web producing duties before this was typing up a few paragraphs or adding a link to the site. But I had no worries. Scott, the web guy, is always so quiet and calm in the newsroom. His job seems really easy. Piece of cake.

The real CBS 12 web guy, Scott Smith

It took me an hour to upload one story. Let me repeat that. It took me ONE HOUR to upload ONE STORY. Crazy, huh? It was so much more than I imagined. I had to get all of the information for the story, find the picture, then I had to figure out how to make it look nice. That’s key. I learned anyone can throw something on the site, but making it look clean takes skill.

In the five hours I was adding stories to the website, I got five stories online. I don’t know Scott’s average, but I’m pretty sure it’s better than that. Oh — and I forgot to mention — he’s also in charge of our Facebook and Twitter pages. I didn’t even touch those that day.

Scott came back to work the next day — thank God! And Miss “Control Freak”, Miss “I-Can-Do-Anyone’s-Job” learned a valuable lesson.

Check yourself before thinking your coworkers have it so easy. Walk in their shoes. And if you’re like me — you’ll gladly walk right back into yours.

I woke up this morning in my nice house. I drove to the gym in my nice car. I dropped off my kids at their nice school.

And then I came to work and I read about what happened to Nubia and Victor Barahona. It was not nice. The Barahona twins were found in their adoptive father’s pickup last week. Nubia was dead in a plastic bag in the back — her body doused in chemicals. Victor was drugged and having seizures — scalded by burns from the same chemicals.

But that was only the latest horrible event in their young lives. For 10 years, according to DCF documents — these children were abused, neglected, threatened, and tortured. They were born to a drug-addicted mother. Their father was accused of sexually molesting a sibling. And then they were put in the hands of foster parents — the Barahonas.

The new secretary of the Department of Children and Families said yesterday, ”No government agency can prevent those very few who have lost the core values of humanity from performing inhumane acts“.

But how do people “who have lost the core values of humanity” become foster parents in our state?

Look — I know that DCF is not to blame entirely for what happened to Nubia and Victor. Blame their biological parents. Blame the friends and family who never said anything. And yes – blame all of us who don’t want to know about it.

Because we live in nice houses. We drive nice cars. We drop off the kids at their nice schools.

My mother gave me a great piece of advice right after I got married. She told me to stop criticizing the way my husband put the dishes in the dishwasher.

“At least he’s helping,” she said.

You see, my mother knows something about me that you probably don’t: I’m a bit of a control freak. Actually, if you work with me, you know this too. (Shut up, Roby!)

Being a control freak can help your career. It does quite the opposite for a relationship. But sometimes I just can’t control myself (no pun intended).

Like many of you — it was Christmas-decorating weekend at my house. We bought the tree, tested the lights and got out the boxes and boxes and boxes of cr–, I mean, special holiday stuff. Everything was fine until my husband decided to take creative liberty with the outside lights. Every year, we put those thick rope lights around our palm trees in the front yard — one is strung in white lights, one in green and one in red. We lost a palm tree in the freeze last winter, so we only had two to worry about this year. Problem was — half of the red and half of the green lights didn’t work. So Jeff (that’s my husband) decided that one palm tree needed to be half green and half red.

You know that screeching brake sound?  I heard that in my head when he suggested the half green/half red combo.

“But it won’t look nice,” I said.

“I’ll be fine, Babe,” he said.

“No, it won’t. I think it looks messy if the tree is not all one color,” I said as I started to panic.

Fifteen  minutes later we were on our way to Lowe’s to buy more red rope lights.  

Tis the Season

But this is where the story gets really good. So, we got home. Jeff got out the ladder and strung one palm tree in white rope lights, and the other in all red (I think I heard angels singing).  And then it happened. We plugged them in. And would you believe that one of the brand-new strings of red rope lights did not work? I tried it numerous times in several outlets. Dead as a doornail.

So what do you think I did? Well, if you guessed another trip to Lowe’s, you’d be wrong. Jeff and I used the remaining green lights. So we have a half green/half red palm tree. Big deal. It actually looks kind of nice.

I really need to listen to my mother more often.

I am a “yes” woman.

Suzanne, can you work on Thanksgiving?  Yes!  Can you emcee an event in Vero this Saturday?  Yes!  Can you turn 4 special reports in a matter of days? Absolutely! 

“Yes” is good for your career.  I have always been willing to go the extra mile and work the extra hours because I was taught — that is what it takes to get ahead. 

But they say something starts to happen to you in your mid-30′s.  (No, not *that*!)  You become more confident, less of a people-pleaser and more apt to say “no”.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t hit me yet.

Practice, practice, practice

When no one volunteered to be the head room mom for my daughter’s class this year, who do you think accepted kicking and screaming? If someone calls with a great story, I’ll rearrange my entire schedule just to get it done. And when our web producer asked who wanted to blog, I immediately jumped at the chance. (Notice the last blog I wrote was 2 weeks ago.)

I was so proud of myself when I recently said “no” to speaking at the Eagle Academy’s final graduation a week before Christmas. I’m in full-blown panic mode that time of year. But just yesterday,  when Eric Roby turned to Curt Fonger and  asked if *he* would speak at the graduation, I felt a twinge of guilt.

There is a price you pay when you say “yes” all of the time. You are exhausted. You forget things. And sometimes the people that you most want to say “yes” to (your family, your friends) get lost in the shuffle.

So, I’ve decided to start practicing. Everyday, I’m going to say “no” to one thing that doesn’t really matter. Today, it was the gym. I think I picked the wrong thing, but you get the point. I can’t do everything. I can’t be everywhere. I can’t help everyone.

My time is precious. Yours is too.  We all need to set priorities.  Tonight,  my priority was getting this blog written. Check that off the list. If you need me to do something tomorrow, though — here’s a warning — I might say “no”… but I’ll probably say “yes”.

This is what I’ve seen all day long.

It’s called the Fail Whale and if you’re on Twitter, you’ve probably seen it before. It means that, for whatever reason, Twitter is over capacity. Not working. A big fat FAIL.

Harpoon the fail whale

Normally, this doesn’t bother me. But it’s been 2 days since I updated my Twitter page. And my last tweet is, well, dated. Your last tweet says a lot about you. It’s what people see when they first look at your profile — your Twitter first impression. And for the past 2 days — people’s first impression of my tweets has been this:

Not anymore — we just got off! Night. RT @MichaelBosco is watching @suzanneboyd and @iowaroby on the 10:00 news. 2 days ago

It’s a response to a viewer who tweeted that he was watching the news Friday night. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a bad tweet, it just doesn’t say much about me.  I normally tweet about food:

@haylica That’s why you have to get the chicken strips. No carbs. And you have to get the chick-fil-a sauce. Are you writing this down?

I tweet advice about how to get rid of a headache:

@LookItsAndy You need Ambien and a really good night’s sleep. If that doesn’t work — try a chiropractor and then an acupuncturist.

And I often make fun of my co-workers in my tweets:

What happens when Floridians get their 1st cold snap? They break out the ugly sweaters! Whose is the ugliest? http://tinyurl.com/254a3ch

But you never really know when Twitter will decide to fail, so you don’t want your last tweet to be something that might embarrass you.  For instance, Eric Roby (@IowaRoby) writes in his last tweet: 

some surprising results in our ugly sweater contest. you can vote at wflx dot come or make a comment on my facebook page!! results at 10:37 (not only dated, but “com” is misspelled)

And I doubt Roby will even check his Twitter page until tonight when I start making fun of him on Twitter. It’s the only time he gets on the site. And now that I’m picking on him in my blog, maybe it will encourage him to start writing his own (using spellcheck, we hope!).

Back to my point, though. Twitter is a fairly new medium that lets us put ourselves out there to people who don’t really know us.  And *everyone* is reading it. So be yourself, but be your best self. Use a filter. Use spellcheck. And most importantly, update often.

I am a Florida girl.

I was born and raised in North Florida, went to college in Gainesville, got my first job in Sarasota and I’ve been in South Florida for 12 years now. I am a product of my background, so yes, I do have a Southern accent. (Hee Haw was a staple in the Boyd home)

No one corrected Minnie Pearl

But for one viewer, my accent is like nails on a chalkboard and he’s written several e-mails to tell me so.  “Sam”  has even tortured himself watching an entire hour-long newscast with my redneck accent so he can log every single word that I pronounced incorrectly. I wish I would have saved that e-mail, but it looked something like this:

5:02 “git” instead of get

5:08: ”wale” instead of well

5:13 ”tin” instead of ten

You get the picture. 

He closed out the e-mail by telling me to get a speech therapist because I’m too pretty to sound uneducated.  Now, the dilemma. Do I tell chipper ”Sam” to go jump in a lake? Or does he have a point?

I wrote back with my typical sarcastic response. I thanked him for his comments, then said “if you think I sound bad now, you should have heard me 15 years ago”.  But then, I got to thinking. Maybe I do sound like a backwoods hick. Or is that heck?

Criticism is a funny thing. Our instant response is to become defensive, especially when it comes in the form of a nasty e-mail. But we can learn a lot from how others perceive us. I had an old news director who used to say “perception is reality”.  

If you run a business and customers don’t like your product, you try to change it. Reading the news is my business, so I’m working on tweaking my product. Don’t git me wrong, I haven’t gotten a speech therapist, but I am more cognizant of my short e’s versus my short i’s.  

“Sam” has written me several times since then and each time is nastier than the last. I have stopped responding, though,  because his last e-mail came when I was pregnant.  He chastised me for confusing lie and lay and asked if pregnancy was my excuse for bad grammar.  Really ”Sam”?

I’m all for learning from critique, but he needs to learn — you don’t mess with a hormonal woman, even one with Southern charm.

Florida Highway Patrol has a campaign for everything these days. There’s “Click it or Ticket” to encourage drivers to wear their seat belts. “Operation Safe Ride” targets aggressive drivers and ”Over the Limit. Under Arrest” for drunk driving . But I would like to propose a new campaign for those drivers who think their horn is an extension of their mouth – ”Think before you Beep”.

No horns allowed

I don’t have many pet peeves. But unnecessary honking really gets my goad. There are reasons cars were given horns. Someone is backing into you – you honk. Someone is veering into your lane – you honk. Someone is not moving fast enough at a green light – well….  let’s talk about that.

I was stopped at a red light the other day with my 5-year-old daughter in the backseat. We were headed to her ballet class. Next thing I know, the driver behind me is laying on his horn. This was not a gentle tap. This was a full-on honk! I was so startled I jumped in my seat. 

The light had *just* turned green. In fact, my brain hadn’t even had time to tell my foot to get off the brake, before this crotchety man decided I needed to get moving. I have no doubt his hand was on his horn ready to honk once he saw the light turn.

Now — there are two extremes to handling a situation like this. You can do the adult thing and move on or you can go all road rage on the guy. I’m embarrased to say, I reacted somewhere in between. I started to feel the anger move up my gut and into my throat. And as if he could hear me, I screamed at the man. Then, threw my hands up and just sat there with my foot on the brake. Real mature, I know.  

In my fit of anger, I had forgotten my daughter was in the back seat. And it wasn’t until she said, “Mommy, what’s wrong?” — that I realized how stupid I was being. What was I thinking? Granted, the only weapon this man looked like he was carrying was a cane, but that’s not the point.

The way we react to a difficult situation can be the difference between it ending well and ending very badly.  After leaving my foot on the brake for an extra 5 seconds (I really let him have it!), I continued on to my daughter’s ballet class. And he to his early bird special.

FHP campaigns are designed to remind us all to be responsible. I learned my lesson that day. I wonder if he learned his.

There is something very comfortable about my Publix.  If you do the grocery shopping for your family, you know exactly what I am talking about.

For instance, I never buy peanut butter, but I know exactly what aisle the peanut butter is on in my Publix. I know 9 times out of 10, Delwanda will be icing a cake in the bakery section at my Publix. And I know that if I accidentally drop an entire glass jar of baby food at my Publix, the young man stocking shelves won’t make me feel like a complete idiot. (Yes, I’ve done that! — proof to the right)

Cleanup on aisle 7

The “Cheers” song should play when I walk into my Publix because everybody really does know my name. And it’s not because they know me from television. They know me from being there 5 days a week! I’m not one of those moms who is super-organized, so I’m constantly running in for one or two items. Yesterday, I just had to run in to get Minute Rice for my daughter’s lunchbox and also came home with  a delicious chick pea salad, some tilapia and the latest on cashier, Erlande’s baby girl.

There are times when I’m closer to other Publix stores. But everytime I ”cheat” on my Publix, I regret it. I can’t find the milk or the avocados at a new store, much less the peanut butter. I do always seem to be able to find the wine, though.

At my Publix, the older gentleman who bags my groceries may not be the fastest, but he knows how to bag. He is *very* careful with my eggs. And despite the Publix policy against tipping, I always give my bagger a couple of bucks when he helps me to my car.

My Publix is small. It doesn’t have the big, fancy deli or the large selection of Greenwise products.  The produce section is crammed in the corner between the eggs and chips and very rarely are more than 3 checkout aisles operating at one time. But it’s my Publix and I’ll take it over the others anyday.