When Ya Gotta Go Ya Gotta Go

I started my radio career in college radio. The studio was a converted classroom. Unfortunately for us, the toilet facilities were quite a bit of a ways away. Well, not too much, but if you had to go to the restroom, you had to walk down a hallway and up a flight of stairs. Being as this was back in the good ole days of vinyl and carts, jocks would have to rush things a bit if they had to use the facilities.

One of the late night jocks decided to dispense with that hassle and simply used the drinking fountain right outside the station door to relieve himself. We knew about this because he felt the need to let the rest of the station crew know about it the next day. I know they say that pee is sterile, but I could never ever again use that particular drinking fountain for its intended purpose after hearing that.

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My Gun Is Ordering You Off The Air

I worked for a radio station, in the commercial centre of a developing nation, where talent was frowned upon and loyalty reigned supreme. However, I happened to possess both attributes and leaned heavily on the latter to survive each day. While my bosses with vast experiences, spent a portion of their time schooling me on the better ways to handle shows and run the studio, they were also busy keeping an eye on the intern I might have had a hard on for.

A remarkable memory will have to be my first day at work, after months of speculation, accusations, counter accusations, I resumed on a fine Wednesday afternoon in April of 2007. I strolled round the premises, made a few acquaintances and spent the rest of my day in the Live studio double-banking with a senior presenter.

Around 6pm, we had a visit from the Program's Manager. With a thin smile and in the calmest voice possible, he asked us to sign off air. I thought it was a joke, but then I peered over his shoulder and saw two other men with guns I had only seen in spy movies. I whispered to my older colleague and it dawned on us almost immediately that we were being shut down by the Federal Government.   This was at the height of the political tension at the time as elections drew near.

There were assumptions, especially from supposed eyewitness accounts that the station was set up by the opposition to be used for propaganda during the elections. The Federal Government was not having that.
I thought my life was over.  I had waited three years, working a variety of odd jobs, and just when I saw the silver lining, men in guns dressed in impeccable danshiki (native wear) were politely rounding us up, and asking us to switch off all communication devices.

The Program's Manager and another senior colleague were taken away for questioning while the rest of us were asked to go home.  I spent four months out of a job again and even got ribbed about being the station's bad luck charm.  With the elections over and the incumbent party regaining power, the station was reopened and I got back to work.

Three years later, I picked up a recognition award for outstanding all round broadcasting excellence.  Since then, I've featured on other fledgling radio stations as a morning show host and Production Manager.

Currently, my wife and I are Media Consultants.

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Emails To FRJ

Wow, I have received amazing feedback to this blog.  Some of the feedback is from some of the top professionals in the radio industry so it is humbling that some of these people like what they see here.

However I would like to clarify something.  The majority of these stories are not mine.  I just repost what has been sent to me.  Most of the time I make edits so the story flows a little easier but that is about it.  All of these stories are real.

I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time out of their day to read some of these amazing radio-related stories.  Please, share your favorite links on your Facebook and or Twitter and tell your radio friends about us.

The more people who know about this blog the more stories will come in for all of us to share.

Follow on Twitter and like us on Facebook. Thanks again everyone.

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Music Pee'd The Dog Off

I am what some would call a workaholic, so much in fact that I had accumulated quite a bit of vacation days.  I was forced by the station to take some time off so I had planned on taking a vacation to Hawaii.

I was hours away from my departure when I received a phone call that my sister had been in an accident.  I canceled my trip and drove the nearby city where she lived.  I won't go in details but she was injured and in the hospital.  There was really nothing we could do until she was out of surgery.  None of our family lived close by so I kept in touch with most of them over the phone.  My folks were flying in to see her but would not be there until the next day.  I too had one more day of work before my official vacation had started so I decided I would drive back, voicetrack my shift, pack some clothes, and then drive back to the hospital.  I had been there all day and before I had left, the doctor told me my sister was out of surgery and awake. 

I went in to see my sister and she looked terrible.  However she assured me that she was okay.  After about an hour, I told her my plan and that I would be back to see her after I went back to track my final shift, and packed some clothes so I could be in town for a few days.  She had asked me if I could look after her dog.  She said by that time he had been left alone and she did not know if he had any food or water.  It wasn't a problem so I said yes.

I went to her house and fed the dog.  I then realized that I did not know when someone could make it back to feed him again so I decided to take him with me.  We drove back together and I made it to the radio station around 4PM.  It was a really hot summer day so I knew I could not leave him in the car.  So I took the risk and took him inside the station.  I only needed to voicetrack a four hour shift so it wasn't going to take me long.

I used an empty studio so I could knock out my voicetracking without any interruptions.  I finished my shift and left the dog in the studio so I could get ready to leave on my vacation.  After about 15 minutes I was ready to go and the only thing I had to do was grab the dog.  I walked into the studio and the smell punched me in the face.  I knew what had happened and I knew he peed somewhere.  Sure enough, I found it.

I knew I could not leave the station without telling anyone so I told my boss what had happened.  He told me not to worry about it and to get back to my sisters side.  I grabbed the dog and we were off.

My vacation wasn't spent like I planned.  I had spent the next several days mostly at the hospital, but I had some family fly in so I made the best of it. 

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Drunk And Naked In Vegas

I worked in Vegas for a few years. I just had a nasty divorce and what better town to get over an ex?

Anyway, I had my share of fun and to say that I slept around would be an understatement.

Working in Vegas, you get certain perks (at least you used to). I used to frequent certain casinos that knew me by name. One would set out my favorite drink when I would show up. Free of charge of course. So, I hit this one casino with a girl I was trying to impress and drank for free for. Couple of hours...

That's when it all gets fuzzy.

I don't remember much of that night. What I do remember is waking up, naked in the studio.

Yes, I got hammered, that chick drove me back to the station, we had sex and then she left. What's worse is that I was naked and a PART TIMER was slapping me on the face at 4am to make sure I was OK!!

I was and am OK. Just brutally embarrassed. Good times.

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You Can't Steal Broken Equipment We Throw In Trash

Every time I think of this story, I get angry.  I consider myself to be a lifelong fan/student of radio.  I love it.  I am the type of radio nerd where I get excited to listen to a stations new imaging package, or take the time to get caught up on all the latest radio rumors, etc.  I love radio so much, I have converted my home office into a mecca of radio history.  I have lots of pictures, old microphones, carts, all kind of stuff that I keep for decoration.

One day I had noticed that the engineer had thrown away an old Shortcut that was broken.  This machine was in an old studio and had been there for years.  It was beyond repair so the engineer threw it away.  I asked the engineer if I could have it cause it would be perfect for my radio room.  He told me that it was unrepairable and I reiterated that I only wanted it for decoration.  So he said yes. What a huge score, I kept thinking about how nice it was going to look in my home office.

About an hour later the Operations Manager paid me a visit and asked if he could speak to me.  We had gone to his office where he confronted me about stealing station property.  I told him that I would never steal station property and he then asked me about the Shortcut.

I had told him about the conversation that I had with the engineer.  It was in the trash and he said I could have it.  The OM told me that this was considered stealing station property and that I was going to be suspended for 3 days without pay.

How in the hell could I stealing trash?  It was literally in the trash can.  The OM did not care.  He was always a stickler for the rules and when it comes to old equipment, protocol was that paperwork needed to be signed in order to transfer or sell any station equipment that was no longer in use.

I went to my car and got the shortcut out of my backseat and returned it to the OM's office. Fucking ridiculous.  Not only did I take a pay cut, I embarrassed myself.  In the three days that I was out of work, rumors flew around the radio station that I was stealing.

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Owner Gets Eye Full Of Condom

Back in 2001 I used to be the producer slash co-host on a morning show for a mom and pop owned radio station.  The owner rarely ever visited since the station was only one of many businesses that he owned.  One morning I noticed the studio hotline ringing around 6:30AM and answered it once we had gone into a song.

It was the owner.  He said that he was coming into the station with a reporter who represented the morning show on one of the local TV stations.  He then said that they would arrive around 7AM.  On any given day, when we got warning that he was going to visit everyone would do a mad dash to make sure the station was clean.  But it was 6:30 in the morning and barely anyone had gotten to work.

It sucked cause I was in the middle of a show and had to break away to make sure the station was presentable.  It wasn't like the station was a terrible mess but whenever an owner visits, there is always something that could be cleaned up.

I left the host in the studio to continue with the show and went to go look for stuff to clean.  I walked around and the place looked pretty good so I rushed back to the studio.  A little later the owner showed up with the reporter and we gave her a tour of the studio.

I didn't know exactly why the reporter was visiting us and I did not ask.  We still had a show to do.  A few minutes had gone by and the owner escorted the reporter to the conference room.  I know this because we could see through the studio glass that was where he had taken her.

Once our show was over the program director walked into the studio and told us that the owner wanted to have a meeting in the conference room.  It was the PD, myself, the host of the morning show, and the midday jock. 

The owner looked pissed.  I have never seen him so angry.  He told us that he brought the reporter into the conference room to be interviewed when they both saw a used condom on the floor.  It was not a wrapper, it was an actual used condom.

Damn, I never checked the conference room cause no one ever goes in there.  Besides it had windows and looked clean from the outside.  The owner demanded to know who had sex in his conference room and we all just kind of looked at each other.  No one knew where it had come from.  The owner bitched us all out and said he had never been so embarrassed in his life.  I don't blame him, it made the radio station look unprofessional.  Still, none of us had anything to do with it.

After work was done for the day I did what a lot of people who work mornings do when they get home, I took a nap.  I woke up around 2pm and took it easy.  When I grabbed my cell phone I noticed that I had an email.  It was from the owner.  Here is roughly what it said

I just want to apologize to you guys for this morning.  I now know that the condom in the conference room was not your fault.  I found out it was **CENSORED** and he has been let go.

It was the overnight jock who finally owned up to having sex in the radio station and the owner fired him for it.  Soon after, the station hired a janitor. 

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Tickets For Sex

We were doing a promotion for a really popular pop star to come into town for a performance.  We knew that this was going to be big since the artist had just released their sophomore album.  Like any other promotion we teased it repeatedly on the air and every single day I would get countless children calling me asking for tickets.

Occasionally, I would get moms calling into the radio station to beg me for tickets for their daughters.  One day a woman called me up and gave me a sob story how her relationship with her daughter was on the rocks.  I don't remember why.  She told me she was trying any and everything to mend the situation and had devised a plan to get back on her daughters good side.  Her plan was to score tickets to the performance to win her over since her daughter was a die-hard fan.

I told the woman that I needed to be fair to everyone and distribute the tickets normally.  She was just going to have to be the right caller at the right time just like everyone else.  By this time I had already spent over three minutes on the phone with her and I need to get back to work so I told her I had to end the call.

I hung up the phone and got back to work.  It seemed like the listener lines wouldn't stop ringing, all with people wanting the same thing.  The next night I picked up the listener line and it was the same woman as the night before.  She told me that after we had hung up she tried for the remainder of my airshift to call me back but the phones were all busy.  "Since we announced this performance, they haven't stopped ringing so I am not surprised." I told her. She again tried to sway me to giving her tickets for her daughter and I again told her that she was going to have to win them on the air like everyone else.  Then the woman says

"I'll sleep with you if you do this for me."

I said "Whoa, I don't do that kind of thing.  Besides, I don't even know you." 

I told her I respected the fact that she wanted to get some tickets for her kid but she could not offer sex to convince me.  She then says

"You're right, you don't know me but I am dead serious.  You get me the tickets, then you can come to my home and I will have sex with you.  Once we are finished, we never have to deal or see each other again."

I declined her offer.  I told her that I had to get back to work and hung up on her.  I thought, what a whore.

The next day I was sitting at my desk doing some show prep when the boss had approached me.  "I need to see you in my office."  We walked into his office and he had told me that a woman contacted him accusing me of asking for sex in order for me to hook her up with tickets.

"Aw that is some bullshit!  That is a lie, I would never jeopardize my career over some dumb shit like that."

My boss gave me the benefit of the doubt but we both knew how serious this situation could get.  He told me the woman had also said that she was considering taking the story to the newspaper.  I thought if I get accused of this and it winds up in the media I am done.  Even if I am proven to be innocent, this sort of thing never goes away and people will always assume that it was true.

My boss asked me what had really happened and I explained the situation to him.  I had mentioned that I initially recorded the conversation but later deleted it.

"Wait, a minute.  Voxpro keeps audio still on file that has been deleted."  YES!

We went to the studio and kicked out the midday jock to begin going through the audio.  It did not take long but we finally found it and we both listened.  The audio proved that I was telling the truth.

Oh man, that could have ended badly.

We called the woman and my boss informed her that I was also on speakerphone.  She started to yell at me accusing that I told her that in order for me to hook her up with tickets that she had to sleep with me.  She then told me that she was going to go to the media and get me fired.

"Lady, you're a real bitch.  Here, here is proof of our conversation last night because I recorded the whole thing."

I played back the audio.  After she heard that she was caught in a lie there was a moment of silence and then she hung up.  

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She'll Have The Lobster I'll Just Have Water

I had a really bad breakup.  After 5 years of dating the same woman she up and left me.  She said she was homesick and wanted to move back home to Texas.  We ended things on a good note but I was devastated.  As heartbroken as I was I did not let it effect my on air performance.  However once I turned the mic off, I was back to my depressed self.  Management knew what was going on and they gave me my space.  As long as I did not let it effect me on the air I guess they did not care much.

It did not take long until my coworkers and friends all started to try and cheer me up.  Some of them even suggested that I start to see other people again.  That was the last thing that I wanted.  I just wanted to go home after work and sit in front of the television and do nothing.  After a few weeks my friends started to insist that I get over it.  It was just too hard for me to do that because I still needed time.

My boss had randomly given me a Saturday night off.  I thought that was very strange because I work every Saturday night.  I wasn't about to argue and looked forward to a nice quiet night at home alone.  When Saturday came around I got dozens of text messages from friends inviting me to hang out at a local bar.  I did not feel like it and declined all invitations.  Apparently there was some sort of formal party that much of the staff was going to attend and they all wanted me to join them.

Around 7pm there was a knock at my door and it was my buddy from the station.  I invited him inside and then he tells me to get dressed, insisting that I go to the party.  After about an hour of discussing it, he finally convinced me to go.  I felt it was more of a chore to go to this party versus going for fun.

As we were in the car my coworker had pulled into a really nice restaurant.  He then turns to me and says "Look man, everyone is worried about you.  So, I wanna come clean and tell you that there is no formal party tonight.  We set you up on a date and she is going to meet you here in about 20 minutes."

"Dude, what the fuck?  I don't wanna be forced on a date with a woman I don't know!  Wait, she is a woman right?"  Hey, I had to ask since my coworkers had pretty sick sense of humors.  My friend calmed me down and told me to do it as a favor to him.  I agreed.  I started to ask questions on who this girl was, how did they find her, etc.  He refused to answer any of my questions and told me I was going to have to wait and see.

I got out of his car and walked inside where they had a table waiting for me.  The place was really nice and did not look cheap, at all.  I was scared.  I was thrown into a situation where I had zero control over.  My friend was smart to take me to the restaurant himself cause he knew if I had my car that I might have skipped out on the date and gone home. Damn!  There was no getting out of it.

Finally my date arrived and she introduced herself.  She seemed nice at first and was gorgeous.  I thought, well lets see how this thing goes.  We talked a little and then the waiter came to our table to take our order.  I ordered a normal entry and had a beer to go with it.  She ordered from the most expensive section of the menu.  She ordered a filet minion appetiser, a lobster tail entry, and a $60 bottle of wine.  I thought damn, this woman must think I make a lot more money than I actually do.  I am not a cheapskate but I knew this was going to wind up costing me over $200.  If I had known the girl, liked her, and asked her out myself, it would not have been a problem.

I got over how much the check was going to cost me and we started to make some small talk.  I then started to notice things.  She would interrupt me, abruptly change the topic of discussion, and seemed disinterested in anything that I had to say.  She was rude.

When the food came she started to shovel food into her mouth and talked with her mouth open.  It was amazing.  It was like this girl knew everything that annoyed the hell out of me and the universe plopped her right in front of me.  I was annoyed but I remained polite.  The situation grew awfully tense and it was clear that I wanted to wrap the date up so I could go home.  After the lobster and wine pig out she excused herself from the table.  Around 10 minutes had gone by and my coworker had walked into the restaurant.  He sat down at the table and I began to explain the horrible time I had with this woman.  He did not say anything and listened to my rant.  I was not happy.

After I caught him up to speed he had a huge smile on his face.  He said that the dinner was on the radio station.  We got up and headed towards the door and I told him I could not leave because I wanted to wait for her to get back from the restroom.

"She isn't in the restroom, she left.  I know cause I saw her leave on my way in."

What a nightmare.  We exited the restaurant and I saw the woman in the parking lot.  She was standing next to my car!  Before I could ask how my car ended up in the restaurant parking lot she smiled and reintroduced herself.

"My name is **CENSORED**.  The joke is on you.  Your friends set this blind date up as a distraction from your recent troubles.  They also told me all of your pet peeves and told me to annoy you.  I am really not vulgar or rude like that.  Oh my god, I don't eat like that either.  I don't even care for lobster."

I laughed and said "You could have fooled me."

She smiled and asked me not to be angry with her or my friends for playing a practical joke on me.  She asked me on a real date the following weekend and I said yes.  We hit it off and eventually started dating.  I was just relieved that the real her was nothing like the fake her.

I have some amazing friends and coworkers and this was just the right push I needed to move on with my life.  I still was not over my ex at that moment in time but it really helped me to get passed the breakup.  
          

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That Guy Is A Douche Bag

I work in a top 10 market.  One night, my intern had said **CENSORED** was a douche bag on the air during one of our discussions.  After about 5 minutes the studio hotline rang and I answered it.  It was the celebrity that the intern bashed on the radio.  I knew this had the potential to be radio gold so I hit record on the voxpro.

The celebrity wanted to know who called him a douche bag.  We were all in the studio on speakerphone so everyone in the studio was listening in on this conversation.  I took one look at the intern and he had a look of pure terror on his face.  He's a young guy and I always speculated that he was a coward.

He quickly maned up and said "I am the one who said it."  During situations like this I would normally intervene, but this time the intern was on his own.  The celebrity told the intern stuff like "Bitch, you don't know me.  Don't you ever disrespect me like that again or I will come to your job and beat the shit out of you."

I have never recalled another time in my entire career when it was that quiet in the studio.  Then, something unexpected happened.  The intern told the celebrity "Fuck you.  I am apart of this show and I will say whatever the fuck I want.  If you wanna come beat my ass, come do it now.  Just know, I will sue the shit out of you if you touch me."

It takes a lot to shock me, but that right there made my jaw drop.  "Holy shit!"  I said.  The great thing about all this was that I was recording the whole thing!  I never knew the intern had balls of steel like that.  This wasn't a megastar, but he was famous.  To top it off, the celebrity was just in the news for shedding all kinds of weight and gaining muscle for an upcoming movie role.

They exchanged insults for a moment and then the celebrity started to say that he was going to get the entire show fired.  Like a jackass the intern says "We got the whole conversation recorded, ain't shit going to happen to us."

I wanted to KILL him for saying that because what I feared was going to happen, happened.  The celebrity said "You do not have my permission to use this call on the air or on your web page."  It wasn't long after that when the celebrity hung up.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

By him saying that rendered the audio useless.  What good was it if I couldn't air it?

I bitched out the intern because I was angry. After a little while I calmed down and told the intern that I was impressed by what he had said.  He replied with "I am an unpaid intern, so I got nothing to lose.  If he did come to beat me up I would have sold the story to TMZ for money.  Then, I would have sued and got paid in court."

Even though he ruined what could have been the best phoner of my career, my respect grew for the man that day.

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Sales By Day, Pig By Night

I had one of the sales girls who worked at the station live in the same apartment complex as me.  I found this information out one summer day when I was at the community pool and saw her there.  She was older lady in her 30's, divorced, and from what I could tell, fairly nice.

This woman had an unfortunate accident over the weekend broke the large bone in her leg.  The bad thing was that she lived on the 3rd floor.  I know it was not easy for her because I had overheard her talking about how hard it was going up the stairs to another coworker.  Being a nice guy, at the end of the day I had asked her if she needed assistance getting up all the stairs after work.  She politely declined.

Around two hours had gone by and I pulled up to my apartment.  I was tired and ready for a cold beer.  Before I could leave the parking lot to go up to my apartment my phone rang, it was the sales lady.  She had told me she saw me pulling in and asked if I could help her.  "No problem, I will be right there."

The walked over to the building and saw her at the base of stairs.  "Told ya I would help you."  She quickly said "No, I do not want to trouble you."  I explained that it was no trouble at all.  As I was helping her up the stairs I noticed that with her injury, she really did need the help.  "How do you do this everyday?" I asked.  She had said sometimes she got help from neighbors and sometimes she had to crawl up the three flights of stairs to her apartment.  I thought that was inexcusable and offered to help her everyday until her leg healed.

As we reached the top of the stairs I wanted to make sure she got to her apartment okay.  As we were standing in front of her place she thanked me and I had told her that I would help her inside.  She told me no thank you and that she could take it from there. 

I was not going to argue with her, I needed a beer anyways.  To be polite I was lurking for a moment as I was saying my goodbye.  She opened the door and the smell hit me like it was a punch in the face.  Her apartment reeked of cat urine and there were things all over the floor.  I only caught a glance at the apartment but it had explained why she did not want me to help her inside.  It was bad, I would have never figured the woman to be such a slob.  It wasn't as bad as the kind of shit you see on the TV show hoarders but pretty damn close. From what I saw, there were pizza boxes, dirty clothes, trash, and all other kinds of shit just literally everywhere. 

Maybe that would explain why the woman was divorced.

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Sex With The Bosses Wife

Before you all go on to judge me and call me a terrible person, yes I admit it, I slept with a married woman.  It just so happened to be my program directors wife.  This is a very complicated situation and the only reason why I am sharing it, is cause I don't have to leave my name.

In any case, this sort of thing is like playing with fire.  I hated my boss.  He was huge dick.  I assume he hated me too, but I was a decent jock and a good worker so he kept me around. 

I had got suspended because of some shit I did on the air.  It could not have come at a worse time because we had our yearly concert we were throwing coming up.  I was told that I could go, but not be on the stage or introduce any artist.  I was mad as hell cause I promoted the shit out of that event.

On the night of the show I was backstage in the green room hanging out with the artist and record executives.  Once the show started everyone had pretty much disappeared to see the show except for me, the bosses wife, and a few other people.  We began to talk and she seemed sympathetic towards my suspension.  Somehow the conversation veered towards my boss and she was telling me all kinds of things like how she was unhappy, and sexually deprived. 

After a little while my boss walked in and asked for me to run back to the radio station to grab some backup equipment.  I told him I was in "chill" mode and suggested that he got one of the promotions kids to do it.  He said they were all busy and then told me I was lucky that I was even allowed to go to the show due to my suspension and that I had better do it. 

I finally said yes and was surprised that his wife had said that she would ride along with me.  We talked more in the car while we were on the road and I started to jokingly say inside my head that I was going to fuck her.

The station was a ghost town, not a single sole in the building.  As we were getting the equipment I jokingly made a move and she responded.  She started to kiss me and I was like WOW!  What the hell am I doing?  That thought quickly escaped me when she unzipped my pants and we went at it.  During the deed I was telling myself that this was bad but she was hot, but I was horny, and mad at her husband.  We finished, got the equipment, and headed back to the arena. 

For the rest of the evening I kept wondering what I had gotten myself into and if I just killed my career with one simple nut.  Surprisingly, no one knew.  She did not tell him and we had gotten away with it.  I did not see or speak to her for several weeks.  When I finally got some alone time with her we had a short conversation about what had happened. She assured me that she wasn't going to tell and that she did not regret it.  That was a huge relief.  I admit, I was worried.

She friended me on Facebook and we would occasionally chat online. 

A few weeks later I received a Facebook instant message from her asking for me to go to her house.  My boss was out of town attending a radio summit and would never know.  I took the risk, went to her house, and slept with her again.  There is nothing more disrespectful than a man plowing another mans wife in his own bed. 

The affair went on for a few more months.  I slept with her dozens more times and we were never caught.  I know, I'm a terrible person but I don't care.

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You Racist Prick

I used to work with a guy who I used to think was a cool person.  We worked together for 4 years and had grown close.  Besides the work stuff, we would babysit each others kids, invite each other to hang out on the weekends, and I even stood in his wedding.

The station had let him go and promoted me from APD to acting Program Director.  I was given access to his email so I could pick up on the business he had left off on.

I must have gone through years of correspondence when I found an email between him and a colleague of his.  His friend had hit him up asking if he could give him a job with our radio station.  He have always been a very small staff and jobs don't open very often.  My former boss responded to his friend with the usual I don't have anything for you at the moment.  I was about to close the email when something caught my eye and I continued to read the email.  He had told his friend that he would offer him my timeslot if he could but was forced to have some "color" on the station for equal opportunity.

Man, that was really fucked up.  It made me angry that he would speak like that because I had never known the guy to even remotely have a racist thought inside his head.  I moved on to the response from the email and the friend said something like "Damn jigaboos, they ruin everything!"

I was crazy pissed off.  How unprofessional.

A few weeks later my former boss had messaged me in a private message on Facebook to see how I was doing.  I ignored him.  After it was apparent that I did not want to speak to him he messaged me with "So, you take my old job and now you don't want anything to do with me?  Real classy."

I responded with "Damn jogaboos, they ruin everything!"  

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You ARE The Father

Just like a lot of jocks out there, I went through my whore phase.  Sleeping around with questionable women, it was great.  I got a job at a station and did my thing.  I was there no more than a month when a larger market came calling.  I took the gig and left my previous station behind.

A few months had passed and I received a phone call from my previous employer.  They had told me that someone was trying to get a hold of me.  I thought it was strange and called the number they gave me to see who it was.

A woman answered the phone and she told me her name, and told me that I had impregnated her.  I did not recognize her name or her voice but she had said we met one night in a bar and slept together later that night.  I told her I did not remember it and she said we were both really drunk.

I was shocked.  I didn’t have any kids so I did not know what to do.  I called my family for some advice and they also did not know what to do.  I kept in contact with the woman and when the baby was born, she called to let me know.

I was still very unsure about how I felt about the whole situation.  I took a few days off and flew into town.  I went straight to the womans home to visit my “son”.  As I was about to knock on the door I asked myself “dude, what the hell are you doing?”

After thinking about it for a few minutes I knocked on the door.  The woman answered the door, she quickly smiled and invited me inside.  I did not recognize her, at all.  We chatted for a second and then she took me into a room to see the baby.

The whole situation was really awkward.  After seeing the baby, I did not sense a connection on any level.  She was all over me, suggesting that I hold the child, telling me funny things that he liked to do, etc.
I couldn’t take it anymore, I had to get out of there.  I made an excuse that I had to leave to get to the hotel and would be back the next day.  Before I left, I made sure I was not going to be blamed for being the childs father if I wasn’t.  I told her I wanted a moment alone with the child and once the mother left the room, I swabbed the inside of the babies mouth with a q-tip.  I am not the smartest man on the planet but I knew that I could get the DNA sample tested to prove if I was the real father.

The next day I flew out.  She had called me later on that day and I had given her an excuse that I had to fly back earlier than expected.  I set up for a paternity test.  Wow, I had no idea those things were so expensive but it was worth it.

The results had come back and like I thought, I was not the father.  I called the woman and explained what I had done. She was furious.  She kept saying that I was the father and that there was no way that anyone else could have fathered her child.  I think it is funny when people try to argue with paternity test because they are 99.9% accurate.  I told her to give it up and to find that childs real dad.  She realized that her game was up and finally came clean.  She told me that we did meet in a bar but never slept with one another. 

Whew, that was a close one.  What a psycho. 

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Stalker

I had a string of bad luck when it came to women. I found one who I thought was a nice, normal, sweet, girl.  I could not have been more wrong.  I should have noticed the subtle signs but she was just really good looking and a bit shy.

It started one night at a club when I met this girl.  I was around 25 and she was 20.  Not old enough to get into the bars but that did not matter to me.  Did I mention that she was really good looking?  I only wanted to sleep with her and did not know we would wind up dating.

The fact that she was 20 years old kind of worked out because she could not get into the bars to bug me while I was working.  We spent a lot of time on the phone and would occasionally hang out at my house.  We had been dating for about two months when things started to change.  One night I went out to throw out the garbage and I noticed her car parked nearby.  What the fuck?  I walked up to the car and asked what she was doing.  She said she had come to visit me.  I said well why didn’t you call me or come up to the house?  Her response was “I don’t know.”

I was too blinded by her appearance to realize she was stalking me.  A few days later I went to the mall to see her while she was at work.  She worked at a kiosk for a cell phone carrier.  I asked her coworker if I could speak to her and she had told me she had gone to lunch.  Before I could walk away the coworker had stopped me from leaving.  She told me “your girlfriend spends a lot of time talking about you.”  Flattered, I said “really?”  The woman said “yes, but that isn’t all.  She also looks up your phone records”.

Wait, what? 

My girlfriend had worked for the same cell phone carrier that I used and was looking up my phone records to spy on me.  I was not happy about that.  It wasn’t because I had anything to hide and was more of a matter of principal.  When I got around to confronting her about it she laughed and said “Yeah.  You call your parents quite a bit”.  I don’t remember how she talked her way out of that one but I moved on and got over it.

Things started to go downhill from there and she was making more and more mistakes that led me to believe that this was not the girl I had initially thought.  I broke up with her a few weeks later and thought that was going to be the end of it.

She started calling me every night crying that she wanted me back.  When I would not answer she would leave long detailed messages rehashing the same.  I stopped taking her calls and it only pissed her off even more.  She started leaving 6 to 10 page letters on my doorstep and would also try to get a hold of me on the listener line.

It was not too long after that I met another girl.  I had zero intention on dating this one and just wanted to have some fun.  The new one was no where near annoying as the previous one.  After a short while she was already asking me to show her the radio station.  I told the new girl that it was not cool to show her around during business hours but agreed to do it late at night.  I figured just a few minutes showing her around while no one was there couldn’t hurt.

I waited until midnight and picked the new girl up and took her to the station.  I showed her around like I promised and that was that.  As we were leaving, I could see someone was standing by my car.  The station was in a rough area of the city so I did not know what was going to happen or who it was.  Sure enough, it was my ex.  She caused a huge scene and wanted to fight the new girl. 

I later found out that she had been following me for weeks.  Scary.

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You Got Knocked The F Out

One day I learned that the station hired someone who was considered to be a shock jock. It was a little odd since none of the other on air staff were controversial as most shock jocks try to be.  Odd as it may have been, it was not surprising since the program director was trying to do any and everything to keep his job.  This shock jock was nothing special.  He guy was kind of cool but I thought he was a bit of a fake person.

Six months had gone by and the station let some people go so we were all picking up the slack in other areas that we normally wouldn’t.  Namely board oping and promotions.  One day I was helping the promotions team put together some mailers the station was sending out to listeners.  We happened to be listening while we worked.

The shock jock insulted a woman on the air.  I do not recall exactly what had happened or what had led up to the incident but it was clear he attempted to humiliate the woman.  This jock was always doing this sort of thing so it really was not anything new.  About 30 minutes later the shock jock aired a call from the womans husband.  I assume she had called him to tell him what had happened and he called the shock jock to confront him.  It just so happened that the shock jock also aired the husband calling into the station.
He also tried to tell the man off and humiliate him on the air as well.  I guess the jock pissed off the wrong person that day because the man had gone to the radio station to look for the jock.  A few things about this story was funny because the man did not go to the station guns blazing.  He calmly asked the receptionist to page the jock and told her he was expected.  Once the jock went to the lobby to see who was visiting him the man started to beat on him.

This man was very large and the jock was a scrawny whimp with a microphone.  He gave the jock a really good beating and disappeared before the police arrived.  They later found him and arrested him.

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Station Taking A New Direction

I used to work for a Hip Hop station in a fairly decent sized market.  We did not have any direct competition but the market did have a Top 40 station indirectly competing with us and then a new Top 40 station had also emerged.

I thought it would be a no-brainer to swing the station more Urban since the market was already being flooded with Top 40 music.  Apparently management did not see it that way and leaned the station more Top 40.  To me, this was the dumbest move the company could have done.

So now there were 3 stations playing the same Top 40 crapola in the same city.  I was not happy.  Our imaging claimed we were a Hip Hop station but playing the same crap the real Top 40 stations were playing.
I could not understand the logic behind such a move and it was not long that I voiced how I felt about it.  We were in a programming meeting when I was explaining to the staff how dumb I thought the whole things was.
Someone finally spoke up and told me “You are old school radio, this is new school.  Urban stations now play the Lady Gaga and the Justin Bieber records.  You are too old to understand”  I was not angry at the comment but also was not happy about it either.

“Is this what the Urban format has been reduced to?  It is situations like this is the direct reason as to why the genre is in the sad shape that it is in.”

Some of the staff looked at me in shock that I was speaking out the way that I was.  I honestly did not care.  I had just resigned my contract and I knew if they would fire me over my opinions, they were going to have to pay up.  However there was one thing that I was not telling anyone.  I actually wanted to get fired.  I grew sick and tired of radio.  I wanted to start my own business.  I was tired of working for the man and wanted to do my own thing.  So, I started not to care.

I still performed my job as I was instructed to, but I would make sure that I would make snide remarks about how I felt so-in-so had no place on a “Hip Hop” station.  I would also criticize everything.

I was asked repeatedly to stop but again, I did not care.

It got to a point where the station had let me go.  This was exactly what I had wanted.  They were forced to pay out my contract.  Now, I had enough start up money to start my own business and that is exactly what I did.

It did not take long for it to become popular and in less than a year I was making more money off my business than I ever was in radio.

You fired me but I won in the end.

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Who Farted?

The year was 2002. I was not feeling well so after my airshift I was eager to go home.  I was walking out the back door towards the parking lot when my stomach started to hurt really bad.

I was in a long hallway that led to the exit and I could not hold it in any longer.  About 25 yards from the door I let a really nasty fart go.  No one was around and I was about to walk out so I felt it was safe.
I was no closer than 10 feet from the door when it opened.  Then, I see the program director, his wife, what looked like a manager or record exec, and a recording artist the station played walk in.

I thought oh great, there is no doubt that fart followed me.  Out of all the days to make an unannounced visit, its a day when I am dropping nuclear stink bombs in the hallway.

It was not everyday that the station had artist stop by and since I was also the music director, I knew that I had to stop and chat.  The group stops to address me and the program director introduces me to the artist.  After a few moments the smell hit us and was way too potent to deny.  Everyone had smelled it.
Of course no one said anything but in the corner of my eye I could see the manager/record exec get that “someone farted” look on his face.  I was embarrassed but the damage was done.  I pulled the P.D. aside and told him I was not feeling well and excused myself.

In the years after that day whenever I would see the artist on television I would always tell myself

“That guy smelled my butt”.

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Lost Phone Equals Chaos

I had either lost my smartphone or it was stolen. All I knew was that it was long gone.  Little did I know it would turn out to be a huge inconvenience.

I had all my contacts in the phone, personal numbers to the station jocks, back numbers to the studio, my personal contact info including my home address, and even a few numbers for celebrities.  Like an idiot, I had taken the time to fill out all my contacts information which included the contacts picture.

I live and die by my phone so I quickly went out and bought an iPhone so I could track it in case this had ever happened again.

After about a week we started to get prank calls on the studio hotline.  It was slow at first but kept getting worse and worse.  I informed management that someone had our studio line and the number was changed.
After the number was changed I was then getting prank calls on my cell phone.  I then realized that the person who had my previous phone was playing jokes on me.  Once the immature individual realized that I had the same cell number, I was getting prank calls at all hours of the day and night.  I worked 7 days a week so it was hard for me to get up and go to the phone store to get my number changed.  Finally I had made the time to do just that.

We were at our weekly programming meeting when I had let the staff know that I was being constantly prank called.  Literally all of them had admitted that they were also getting prank calls. 

I was hesitant to tell them what had happened but I knew I had to.  It was
because I had lost my phone  They weren’t happy with me because they all had to change their number but they eventually got over it.

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That Jock Is Terrible

I took a vacation to the beach. I used to work in a market that was by the beach so I missed it.  I always tried to make it down to whatever beach I could as often as possible.  I grabbed some family and friends and we took a trip to the nearest town that had a beach where we could relax at. No matter where I travel, I always listen to the local talent.  The town we were visiting was a smaller market between 130 - 200 on the Arbitron scale.

My buddy wanted to stop by Walmart so he could buy some beach towels.  I always make it a habit to head over to the electronics section every time I go to Walmart so I told my friend that was where he could find me.

As I was in the electronics section I could hear some of the radios/stereos were on.  I patiently waited for a talk break.  While I was waiting a Walmart employee had came up to me to chat about some of the radios that were on sale.

As we were talking the jock came on and did a godawful break.  Hey, I remember what it was like to be a green jock, but this guy was overly bad.  I had said out loud “Wow, that DJ is awful.”

I did not tell the Walmart employee what I had done for a living.  He just stood there for a moment.  After about 2 seconds of silence he finally spoke and said

“That DJ is my brother.”

I laughed in a kind of “Ha ha nice joke” kinda way but I quickly realized by the look on his face that he was serious.  I felt like an asshole.

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Jock With PPM Listening Device

This is a story I have never told any of my radio friends.  It is the story of how I wound up getting a PPM listening device.

It started one day when my girlfriend at the time received a phone call from Arbitron.  They asked her if she wanted to do a phone survey and they told her they would send her $5.  She wasn’t in the business so she did not know what exactly what Arbitron was.  A few days later we were in the process of moving into together and I saw a letter that read ARBITRON on it.  I asked her why she had a letter from Arbitron and she explained the situation to me.  I then explained to her what exactly Arbitron was.

A few days had passed and I fell victim of December corporate layoffs.  I was out of the job.  
Ironically, that same day Arbitron called my girlfriend again.  She was about to send the call to voicemail when I had told her to answer it.  Comes to find out, they had called to ask if her household would be interested in joining the PPM panel.  She did not understand what that was but I knew exactly what that had meant.  I told her to say yes and they signed her up.

A few days later the UPS man delivered a medium sized box to our home address from Arbitron.  I thought wow, what are the odds that I would get to see the other side of PPM?  I opened it and there were to listening devices, they looked like very ugly pagers.  They were bulky and square.  Also included were chargers to the listening devices and even some carrying cases. 

Normally, it would be a huge no-no for anyone in the business to partake on the PPM panel.  However at the time I wasn’t in the business, so I did not see harm in it.

I continued to look for another gig in both in and out of the market with no success.  At first, I did not mind the listening device but after a while it got annoying.  But I had figured, I did not have a job and it was some sort of income coming my way.

The first check from Arbitron was the largest.  If I remember right it was somewhere around $145 each.  After that, the checks that came in the mail each month were between $30 - $50 each.  One thing that annoyed me besides how bulky it was, Arbitron will call and harass you if the device does not detect motion.  The phone call is basically them telling you to put it on. 

A few months had passed and I scored an interview with a local station.  I knew if I landed the job that I was going to have to give up the listening device.  And that was something that I was more than happy to do.  I wound up getting hired and I contacted Arbitron that I wanted to opt out of the program.  I had sent them their equipment before I started at my new job.

Out of all the people in this city, I thought it was a really cool overall experience that I got to see the other side of PPM. 

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Just Got Separated, Wanna Have Sex?

I made the mistake of sleeping with a girl on the promotions crew.  I had just gotten separated from my wife who could not handle being married to someone who was in the business.

After the deed was done, things had changed.  At first, the girl requested she worked all the remotes I was scheduled to.  Then it came to a point where she thought it was okay for her to be in the studio during my airshift.  All I wanted was a night of fun.  She did not see it that way.  In her world, we were a couple. 

Who I sleep with is of no concern of anyone beside myself and the other person.  So naturally I did not want anyone to know about it.  Too late.  People had suspected that I nailed her and were all talking about it.  The fact that she was always wanting to be around me only made it worse.
I broke it to her gently that what she was doing was out of line and that she had mistaken sex for an actual relationship.  It did not go over well and she caused all kinds of drama.

This eventually got back to my future ex wife since she had friends whom I worked with.  Needless to say, I regret ever doing it.

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STOP THIEF!

A former jock at our station had her contract coming to an end.  I remember her mentioning to me that she was worried because she was not approached for an extension.

A few weeks later she was let go because her contract was not renewed.  I do not know the logistics of what her contract had in it, but she landed a gig crosstown at the competitor.

Of course, we listened.  It did not take long but we noticed that we heard some familiar sounds.  After listening a little more we also noticed that some of the callers sounded familiar as well.

To make a long story short, this woman had taken all the sound fx from the studio computer, took audio from callers calling into our station, edited them with her voice interacting with them, and was reairing them on the competing station.

This was very uncool because we had to dump all our audio.  We couldn’t even use the calls some of us had in the can because we did not know what she had taken or would use on the other station.

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Stole Your Girl

One day I got a completely random phone call on the listener line from a guy threatening to beat me up.  He was saying how I fucked his girlfriend, and she left him for me.  I honestly had no idea what he was talking about.

I told him I was married and that he must have mistaken me for someone else.  He did not listen because he called several times during my airshift to harass me.  This went on for about 2 weeks and every time the man would call, I would tell him I had no idea what he was talking about.
I was broadcasting from a remote one Saturday when this guy came up to me and got into my face.  It was the same guy who had been calling the studio.  He had heard me on the air and came to my remote to confront me.

I knew this wasn’t good because I did not want this guy to cause drama while on a remote.  He did.  He assaulted me and I was forced to defend myself.  The scuffle did not last long, only a few seconds.  One of the guys on crew had came in to get in between us so it would stop the fight. 

The police were called and I filed charges against the man who attacked me.  It was embarrassing.  I had to try and explain to the client why I was fighting in the parking lot.  Not only that it was very unprofessional.  That following Monday I also had to explain what had happened to my boss and the operations manager.  I tried my best to let it be known that I had nothing to do with the allegations the man was claiming against me.
After word of the incident spread around the radio station I received a text message from the night jock that said

“I heard you got in a fight with my girlfriends ex.”

Like I figured, the man mistook me for the wrong man.  It was our night guy who stole this mans girlfriend and I had to face the consequences of it.  It really pissed me off.  I had lost a client, embarrassed myself, and had rumors floating around the radio station about me that I was cheating on my wife.  All because of a mistaken identity.

A few weeks had passed and the man I scuffled with called me again.  This time he apologized.  He finally did realize that I was not the man he was looking for.

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Ouch! That Hurt!

I’m considered to be clumsy by just about everyone.  One day we received word that a local pizza shop was sending over free pizza for lunch.  When they arrived at the radio station, me and a few other on air staff went downstairs to greet them and properly thank them.

They brought a lot more pizza than we all had expected.  I was on the air so I had to cut the chatter to a minimum.  I grabbed an entire pie and took it to the studio.  I was not going to eat the whole thing, I just did not have time to gather it in slices and intended on leaving the leftovers in the studio for anyone who wanted it.

I walked into the studio and tripped over a cord that was on the ground.  The pizza flew, landing all over the board, and the touch screen computer.  As I was falling my face caught the edge of the studio desk that the controls rest on.  My nose had opened up in a bloody mess and was gushing blood.  I admit, I laid out a huge scream.  It hurt so badly.

The thing was, just about everyone who had a office near the studio was downstairs and no one heard me scream.  I sat there for about 5 minutes and finally the engineer had happened to walk in.

The engineer was a hothead, always pissed off.  So when he walked in and saw blood and pizza everywhere he freaked out.  He seemed a hell of a lot more concerned about the controls than he did me.
They had let me go home for that day because I needed to go to the hospital for stitches.  The next day there was a sign that read NO FOOD OR DRINK ALLOWED IN THE STUDIO.

Sheesh. it was an accident.

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Sex In The Studio

This story is one that haunts me to this very day.  I had a coworker that was the type of guy who would sleep with just about anyone.  The guy had very low standards.  One night, we had a concert event.  This was a station exclusive event so all the crew was at the event.  Once it was over, I decided I would stay behind and help the crew load up the van.  My roommate was on the promotions crew so it was nothing out of the ordinary.

As we were driving back to the radio station we decided that we would stop for a bite to eat.  By the time we were finished, it was already after 2AM.  Once we got back to the station I realized that I wanted to do a few things in the studio to save me time from doing them the next day.  It appeared as if the entire radio station was empty.  It was the kind of quiet that you do not get to experience during normal business hours.
I opened the door to the studio and I was shocked to find my coworker with a completely naked woman on top of him.  To make matters worse, the smell in the studio smelled godawful.  Now, I am not one to judge a persons choice in women, but this girl was easily over 250 pounds.

They both jumped up and I quickly exited the studio.  I was not trying to get a look at my coworkers junk.  I felt what I needed to do in the studio could wait so I left.  As I was driving home my coworker was blowing up my phone trying to get a hold of me and texting me asking that I not tell anyone.

In the end, I never told anyone because I knew that was something that would have gotten the man fired.

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Wrong Station Fellas

It was my day off and I was running errands in the city.  I was apart of a new station that had launched against a heritage a few weeks earlier.  I was downtown walking around when I noticed the competitors station van nearby.  It was a one way street and they were driving towards me.  As the van passed I tried to look who was driving but did not recognize the two guys inside it.  The most noticeable thing about it was that they were bumping their stereo pretty loud.

As they were driving away the song had ended and I heard my stations imaging.  They quickly turned it down in embarrassment.  It was a busy time of day so a lot of people had heard what had happened.  A station van jamming out to a competing station.

I called my boss and told him what I had just seen and we laughed about it for weeks.

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He's Here To Kill Us All

I was the morning guy at a crappy station in a small market.  For weeks someone would call the listener line and threaten me physical harm.  He said all kinds of stuff like he was going to kill me, he was going to blow up the radio station, you name it.

One day when my shift was over I noticed a man in the lobby.  The studios window directly faced the lobby so I could see clear as day that someone had walked in.  He told the receptionist that he wanted to speak to me.

I did not put two and two together so I met the man in the lobby.  He claimed that he was a jock in another market and wanted a tour of the radio station.  It was a tiny station and the studio was pretty much the main part of the entire building.  We talked for a few minutes and something struck me as odd about the whole thing.  It was a small market, and we were a mom and pop owned radio station  Why did this man want to tour our station so badly?  Why did he not go to the corporate stations in town?

I tried to listen to the mans voice to see if it was the listener line terrorist that had been harassing me.  I honestly did not know.  I called the owner and quickly explained what was going on and he completely overreacted.  He showed up at the radio station with an assault rifle.  By this time the man was already gone but it makes me think what would he have done if he was still there?  It also makes me think if what the man said was true or if in fact he was the man making threats.

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That Mic Is HOT!

I was filling in on the night show one night and it came that time of year when I was forced to take the annual Clear Channel Payoa test or whatever it is called.  I always hate taking those things but understand that it is something we have to do as Clear Channel employees.

I was interrupted by my talk break.  I took a few moments, said what I had to on the air, and resumed my test.  I was determined to knock it out and pass the test in one try so I was focused, maybe a too focused.

When I finished the test I realized I had failed by one question.  I yelled out “BITCH!”  As soon as I yelled it out I took notice that I was not hearing the music come out the studio speakers like I should have been.  Ha!  Obviously the mic was still on.  I got away with it since no one said anything to me about it.

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Turn Off The TV

We had a night jock once that did not take his job very seriously.  On many occasions he would miss talk breaks because he was watching TV in the studio.  He was one the most unprofessional jocks I have ever worked with.  I cannot tell you how many times I would be listening and the song would end and jump into the next song without imaging.  Yup, another missed talk break.  It was so bad that even people who weren't in programming had caught onto it.  I had heard the APD had reviewed the security tapes to see what he actually did at night.  He would roam the halls, have unscheduled guest come to the radio station, but the thing that he did the most was watch the television.  For months I had wondered why the program director did not fire him.  Later, we found out that he was sleeping with her.  Figures.

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DJ Bail Money

I have always felt that being a program director is a lot like babysitting.  Not all the time, but there are times when it does.

I was at home asleep when my phone rang around 4AM.  It was not unusual for my phone to ring at that hour by some emergency at the radio station.  This time was different.  As fate would have it, my midday jock, 2 of my part time jocks, and a van driver were all arrested. 

Bailing out a radio DJ from jail is a situation that is common in the industry.  Things happen.    On any normal day they DJ would be bailed out and then would have to deal with the consequences.  In this case, it was complicated.  I had 2 of my part timers and a van driver in jail too.

As I had my midday guy on the phone, I demanded to know what they had done.  He did not give me a straight answer.  After speaking with the DJ, I called the police station and was told that they were all picked up on a drug related incident.

I called the bossman and explained what had happened.  He agreed to bail them all out.  Leaving my wife at 4AM to drive downtown in the snow did not make me a very happy person, but I did it.

When I arrived at the police station I had began going through the process of getting them out of jail.  As I was signing papers, I noticed one of the part time jocks had a bail of $20,000.  When you bail someone out, normally you only have to pay 10% of their bail.  Still, the radio station was unable to pay $2,000 to get him out of jail.  I had no choice but to leave him.

By the end of it all, I did not fire my midday guy.  He was the number 1 jock in the city.  I did have to play damage control and tried my best to keep the incident out of the news.  He was punished though.  The part timer who was also bailed out was let go and so was the van driver who was also arrested.  The jock who stayed in jail was charged with possession of a large portion of cocaine and had to serve time in jail.  It was clear he was let go too.

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They Took My Job

I was the night jock in a medium sized market.  I wasn’t number 1 but my numbers were respectable.  One night I was told that I was forced to have a new guy as my new cohost.  Almost immediately it did not make any sense.  I asked why and was told that the station just wanted to shake it up a little.

I am no fool.  If this were true, why did they hire someone from a different city, move them to our market, if he was only going to be a cohost?  I confronted the program director on my theory that I was going to be replaced and he promised me that I had nothing to worry about. He said we needed another jock on staff to also fill in and help on weekends.

The new guy was actually kind of cool but I did not allow myself to become close to him.  We worked well together and the show did not gain or lose any popularity in the following book.
As I had feared, I was let go and he replaced me as the station night jock.  Instead of letting me go once the new guy started working at the station, they allowed him on my show to get my listeners familiar with him so the show would not lose any listeners once I was let go.

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Applying For My Own Job

I was unhappy with my situation.  I had put up with so much bullshit at my cluster that it wasn’t even funny.  I had a bipolar O.M., egotistical jocks, plus unprofessional sales associates.  I was just fed up and decided that I wanted to look for another programming job.

I saw an ad on All Access for a stealth program director job and it instantly grabbed my attention.  Everything on the ad described my ideal situation. 

Once I got home I immediately applied for the position.
To make a long story short, the stealth position I was applying for was for my own job.  The O.M. never admitted that he had posted the opening but made it clear that word got around to him that I was looking for another gig.  I was given a lame excuse and was handed my walking papers.

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Social Media FAIL

In 2006 our PD was convinced that social networking was the future of branding a radio station.  He was absolutely right.  We were all encouraged to have a MySpace and a Facebook to interact with our listeners.

One of my coworkers apparently did not “get it”.

He would continually post questionable post about conspiracy theories, criticize the music we would play, and use profanity.  I pulled him aside and tried to explain to him that what he was doing was not a good representation of the radio station.  He just shrugged off my warning and continued to do what he wanted.  It got to a point where the program director also addressed his online persona.

Afterwards, he was upset.  He was not fired but was encouraged to clean up his social media.  He refused.  I remember him saying “It is my MySpace, my Facebook.  How can the radio station dictate what I put on my social networks?”  He did not understand that he represented the radio station 24/7, even on MySpace and Facebook.

The station also jumped on the social media bandwagon and got their own social media accounts.  It did not take long for them to grow in popularity.  All the programming staff had access to the station MySpace and Facebook so we could all contribute to it.

One night, my coworker had posted some sort of 9/11 was an inside job conspiracy post on the radio stations social networks.  Naturally, friends of the radio station commented on the post and he responded to some of the negative comments in an unprofessional manner.  Telling people to “shut the fuck up”, “your a fucking moron if you cannot see if was an inside job”, etc.

I did not know about this until the next day when I was asked to cover his on air shift.  I had asked why and was told that he had been let go.  The post were erased but I did see screenshots that someone had taken of the incident.  I do not know what happened to him after he was fired.

Fast forward 7 years later, I am now a program director.  I always tell my staff this story as a stern reminder to be conscious of what you post online.

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All The Kids Love It

Back in 2003, I worked for a popular Top 40 station.  One day we had brought in a band to play at the radio station for a select few listeners who were lucky enough to get tickets on the air.

The band weren’t huge superstars but they weren’t no-namers either.  We had this one guy who was considered by everyone at the station to be a groupie.  Always wanting to be around and interact with the celebrities that came by the radio station.

Listeners were starting to arrive and it was about 30 minutes before they were scheduled to perform.  I noticed that there was a commotion going on in the program directors office.  Someone was yelling and sounded pretty pissed off.

I later found out that the groupie coworker had told the lead singer that all the twelve year olds loved his music.  The singer got pissed and wanted to leave the station without performing.  The PD calmed him down and him and the bands manager convinced him to fulfill their end of the deal to perform.

After the performance, the listeners and band had left and we had a spontaneous programming meeting.  The groupie was not in programming so he wasn’t apart of it.

The PD let us in on what had happened.  I asked, why in the world did he say that?  None of us knew.  We assumed that he was not trying to be disrespectful but the singer took it as such.

Ahhhh, radio drama.

BTW, I LOVE YOUR BLOG!

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Go Home You're Drunk

I had worked in promotions.  We had a club gig one night and it seemed as if the moment the jock entered the club, people were buying him drinks.  It wasn’t anything new to us.  We always witnessed the jock drinking it up while the crew worked.

This one guy seemed awfully buddy-buddy.  I do not know if he personally knew him or if he was a stranger.  It did not matter but he kept buying rounds of shots.  I was working and didn’t pay much attention but it got to a point where the jock was wasted. Wasted to a point where he was pretty much passed out inside the club.  The remote had just started and he still had several breaks he needed to record.
About 20 minutes later the promotions director came to me and told me to drive the jock home.  I told her I didn’t have my car since we had gone to the club in the van.  She said she had gotten permission from the A.E. to use her car.  I will never forget what she had said to me.

“It isn’t a good look cause **CENSORED** is plastered.  Take **CENSORED** car and drive him home.  Once you take him home come back and finish the remote.”

I did what I was told.  As I was driving the guy home he was mumbling and drifting in and out of sleep.  As we were on the freeway, without warning he puked inside the car all over the seat, dash, and me.  If you have never been thrown up on it is the most disgusting thing that can ever happen to you.  I almost wrecked.
I took the next exit off the freeway and pulled over.  I didn’t know what to do.  I was covered in puke.  I rolled down the windows and eventually took the drunken DJ home.  I basically had to almost carry this asshole up the stairs of his apartment. 

Once I got back into the car I called the promotions director to tell her what had happened.  She was cool and said I could just drive back to the station to leave the AE’s car there.  After that I was free to go home.
A few days later I had bumped into the jock at the radio station.  He did not remember a thing but had heard he puked all over me.  Dickhead didn’t even apologize, he just kind of laughed it off.

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Hey! You Smell Like Weed

This ordeal happened when I was working at my first gig that wasn’t in my hometown.  Lucky for me, I happened to have some family in the city I had moved to so it made the transition of moving from my old station and city, to the new one much easier.

I had just moved and did not own a car.  I had sold my older car and I figured I would just buy another one in my new city.  The first few weeks flew by and I eventually landed my first club remote.

I had asked my cousin if he could give me a ride to my remote and he agreed if I was able to get his cheapass in the door for free.  I had told him yes in exchange for the ride.

When he showed up at my house I had noticed that his car had two other people in it.  I didn’t care as long as I got to where I was going.  I opened the car door and a huge cloud of smoke escaped the vehicle.  I was not a smoker but I know the smell of weed.  Apparently, my cousin and his stoner friends decided that they wanted to smoke a doobie on the way to the club.

The problem was, I was actually going to go work.  I did not smoke but I knew I was going to reek of it.  As soon as we got to the club I was damn near high off the second hand smoke and like I feared, smelled like weed.

I did my best to spray some cologne to mask the smell but I knew I was screwed.  I walked into the club and everyone assumed I was smoking.  I wanted to avoid speaking to the club owner but since it was my first night working that particular club, it was unavoidable.

He smelled it and asked that the station assign someone else to work the remote from then on.

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Wrecked Station Van

I remember one of the funniest things I have ever seen in radio.  It was raining and I was outside the station smoking a cigarette.  Whoever was driving the van was driving way too fast and made the turn into the parking lot at a bad angle.  The wet ground made the van skid and it slammed into a curb.  When it hit, it hit the curb HARD!
When the driver backed up it was clear that they had bent the axle and also bent the rim.

The driver was a young girl who had been with the station for only about 2 weeks.  She got out the van and began crying that she was going to get fired.  I admit I felt bad but it really wasn’t my fault, or my problem.  She shouldn’t had been driving so fast in the rain.

The next day I found out she did get fired.  I don’t know how much it cost to fix, but I’m sure it wasn’t cheap.

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Too Soon?

I had worked with an amazing talk radio host for many years.  We were great friends.  So it saddened me when I learned that he had passed away one day when I pulled into the radio station.

The program director had asked to speak with me and closed the door behind me.  I thought I had done something wrong or was about to get fired.  It was then that he then told me of **CENSORED** passing.  I was distraught.  Shock was hardly the word that could justify how I felt.
After about 30 minutes behind closed doors, I regained my composure.  I opened the door to the program directors office and walked out.  I am a sentimental kind of person.  I wanted to sit at my friends desk and just think about him and where he was at the moment.

When **CENSORED** desk came into view I noticed a crowd of people huddled around it.  At first, I thought people were paying their respects.  I was wrong.  Goddamn vultures were rummaging through my friends belongings taking what they wanted.

I was furious.  These people had no respect for the deceased.  I yelled at the at the top of my lungs to get the fuck out of there.  I am not a violent man but I wanted to kick all of their asses.

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