Not Quite 30-Love

#SchoolsOut, #LinzCrisis

#SchoolsOut, #LinzCrisis

Half past six, a perfect autumn morning, lying in my king-sized bed at the Arcotel Nike Linz hotel on the dawn of my second day in my dream job. I mentally frame this shot. An ideal opening scene for the movie version of my brilliant career. They pan from me to the Danube River sparkling blue as the song suggests. The sky is a mixture of pinks, mauves and hints of the deepest blue coming to life. The streaked clouds appear to race towards something, yet move at a glacial pace. I sit up and stretch. Birds fly around my head singing. Hang on, isn’t that Cinderella? I grab my phone to check emails before showering, when the unfamiliar ring of the in-room telephone disrupts. It is all the way on the other side of the massive bed. I can’t reach it without dragging the doona, as I crawl across the breadth. The ring seems to become more insistent. ‘Okay, hold your horses.’

‘Katie Cook?’ says an unfamiliar American female voice.

‘Yes.’ My posture snaps to attention. ‘May I ask who’s –’

‘It’s the woman who hired you, Katie. Perhaps the worst decision of my career.’

The birds are silent. The soundtrack screeches to a halt. This angry voice is not in my script. The river recedes from view as I identify the voice at the other end. Jane Townsend is the director of communications for the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association). She hired me with one Skype phone call and several emails – we have never met. My mouth is now dry. ‘Jane, I’m sorry. Is something wrong?’

‘That’s the understatement of the century. You obviously haven’t checked your emails this morning.’

‘I was just about to.’

My iPhone downloads what seems to be thousands of emails.

‘I’ll shortcut it for you. There was a shooting today in a Philadelphia high school. Ten students are dead.’

‘Oh my God, that’s terrible.’ Small beads of sweat assemble on my forehead.

‘The shooter upon entering the school was quoted as saying “School’s Out”.’

Coins started to drop at a million miles an hour. ‘f**k, the post… the i********: post.’

‘f**k, indeed,’ says Jane. ‘We are the number one trend in the country. The team tells me your post was scheduled for 3p.m. eastern daylight time – about thirty minutes before the gunman entered the school.’ She pauses. I can’t speak. My tongue swells to fill my mouth. ‘It started trending within minutes of the media covering the story. The digital team here in Florida had it removed within twenty minutes. Twenty minutes too late.’

‘I never meant –’

‘Don’t even bother, Katie. I’m sure I don’t have to paint you a picture of how the post was received. Read some of the emails, look online, the commentary is not exactly hard to find.’

My brain races, say something smart, meaningful, thoughtful, for God’s sake. ‘What can I do? Can I put out a statement?’ Really, Katie, that’s the best you can manage?

‘That’s already been done… As has the damage.’

Looking through the emails as we speak, for all the vitriol that is coming over the airwaves you would think the WTA was responsible for the murders. The most painful headline comes from the Daily Mail: ‘WTA Dances on the Grave of Slain Students.’ Could it get worse?

It’s such a great picture. Twenty up-and-coming tennis players who had graduated from WTA University in Florida, all throwing their tennis caps in the air. ‘School’s Out’ was the obvious caption.

‘Katie, we are a 24/7 organisation. There’s always someone awake to post digital, why did you schedule the post?’

I want to say ‘Brenda suggested it’ but I know how lame that would sound. ‘I thought it was a simple story. Something happy… and didn’t want to bother anybody.’

‘Well, that’s worked out perfectly, hasn’t it? What’s the point of a f*****g manual if you don’t read it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The digital media manual you were given on induction. You should read it – it’s very prescriptive. In the meantime, don’t say anything to anyone without clearing it through me. I don’t have to repeat that, do I?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t have any more time to waste on you. I need to get back to damage control.’

The phone goes dead – like my career.

I scramble to my feet and over to my bag. Manuals, manuals, where are all those f*****g manuals they gave me? I find the umpires’ manual, the court rules manual, on-site etiquette manual, expenses rules and regulations, and then the digital media guide.

Page one, paragraph one:

**

The WTA operates in a global 24/7 environment where anything can and does happen. That’s why we have members of the team in place in every time zone, enabling us to respond to whatever, whenever. Use your colleagues to make sure we are always awake and never forget the cardinal rule – NO SCHEDULING OF ANY SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS EVER.

**

Fuck, f**k, f**k, f**k, f**k. I probably should have read this on the plane instead of that new Janet Evanovich novel. If Stephanie Plum can’t pick between Ranger and Morelli after fifty books, there’s no saving her.

Sitting on the floor of my hotel room scrolling through the newsfeed, occasionally glancing across at the in-room minibar. Somehow, because of me, a happy picture of tennis graduates is playing alongside images of body bags containing innocent teenagers.

The flight from Australia landed at 7a.m. yesterday morning. Straight to the tennis stadium – no shower, just a clothes change and teeth clean in the players’ locker room, my suitcase standing in the corner. By 6p.m., sitting at my desk in the press room, the jet lag was begging my brain to give in. This was the job. This was what I signed up for. Adrenaline and caffeine, via my Coke Zero addiction, fuelled my brain.

With our work seemingly done for the day, the fantastic happy news story hit my desk in the form of a player photograph from our St Petersburg, Florida office. I captioned it and was about to post it to the WTA’s i********: account. I checked with my on-site manager. ‘What do you think of “School’s Out”, as a caption?’ She shrugged and went back to her laptop.

‘I’m going to post it.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better to post it when school’s actually coming out for the day in the US?’ she offered.

My fog-filled brain attempted to calculate the Linz time difference. ‘I think that would be about midnight here.’

‘If you can’t handle the hours, maybe this job’s not for you.’ Wow, that’s harsh. First day, just off a plane from Oz.

‘No, it’s no problem, I’ll do it. But wouldn’t it be smart to get the US office to do it?’

‘Sure, if you want other people to do your job for you.’ This conversation was going really well.

I started programming an alarm in my phone.

‘You could always schedule the post. You know how to do that, don’t you?’

‘Yes, of course I do. Great idea. Thanks, Brenda