I was scheduled to broadcast at a car dealership like I did on any normal Saturday. Usually I drive my own car to the remote. First I stop at the radio station, then head to the broadcast and meet the promotions crew on location. I always manage to leave early to avoid showing up late.
On this on particular day I decided I would just go to my remote from my home and skip having to go the radio station. I do not remember why I chose to do so but it allowed me to leave a few minutes later than usual. As I was backing up my car from my driveway, another car cut me off without me seeing him. My car hit the other car with a huge thud. I thought, oh great, now I am going to be late for my remote because I have to deal with calling the police. After I filed a report with the local police I was on my way to my remote. I looked at the time and it was dangerously close to the first stopset but I was confident that I was going to make it. I was about a mile away when I heard the first stopset air. We ran a promo before the commercials so I knew my break was going to be next. But being how I did not record it, I knew that we were going to miss it.
Once the promo ended I heard the remote sounder play and one of the promotions kids doing a break. The kid wasn’t too bad but clearly inexperienced. I did not think anything of it and arrived at the remote.
I walked over to the crew and the kid who did my break walked up to me and said that the AE had told him to do the call-in because I wasn’t there. Before I could say anything my PD was calling my cell phone. I knew he was going to bitch me out. Sure enough, he did. I tried to explain the situation but he did not want to hear it. He just told me to see him in his office on Monday.
Once the phone call was over, I thought alright lets knock out the next call-in. That is when the promotions kid said Oh, they told me I was going to do the rest of the call-ins for the remote.
WHAT?!?!
At first, I was not mad at him but was pretty pissed since I had already been doing the remote for 3 months already. I did not want to call the PD, so I called the AE to confirm it. She told me she was on her way to the remote to speak with me. (Amazing how she wasn’t already there like she SHOULD have been)
Once she got there she had told me what the promotions kid had already relayed to me, that he was going to finish out the remote. "Well, there goes money out of my pocket" I said out loud.
The kid, was exceedingly annoying but ambitious. He was the kind of crew member who would try to dip his hand into everything at the radio station. To him, he did not want to be on crew, nor a board op, he wanted to go directly to being a jock. It was clear this kid did not want to pay his dues like the rest of us.
I thought fuck it, and went home. When Monday came around, my PD had bitched me out. I showed him the police report that proved my story was true but again, he did not want to hear it. As I was leaving the APD pulled me aside into an empty studio. We were really good friends and from time to time he would give me inside information. He had told me he heard while I was in route to the remote, that the promotions kid was talking shit about me. He had convinced the AE to allow him to do the break instead of her telling him. (Which was opposite from what he had told me) He had also mentioned that I was always late and that I acted as if I did not care about the client.
It gets better.
I was never late to any of my remotes and I would always interact with the clients. I wanted to keep that ongoing remote, so I always thought doing that was necessary. I found out that they had also given him my talent fee for that day (which I expected). Then, the APD had told me the AE had approached the PD asking to boot me from the remote to allow the promotions kid to do it from then on. It appeared as if the promotions kid had somehow teamed up with the AE & convinced her that he could do it better. I was furious. In the end, that did not happen but I had never forgotten about it. This kid was trying to sabotage me and thought that I would not find out. I got my revenge though. From then on every mistake the kid would make I reported it to the promotions director. Eventually, it resulted him getting fired. Normally I would never do such a thing since I believe in karma but fuck him.
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