Cheap GM's.

[Scooter Lesley]

I once worked for a GM that was so cheap he:_________________________________________________________________.

I once worked for a GM that was so cheap he...bought single-ply toilet paper that was not perforated. It wouldn't tear-off in even sheets, not to mention those...splinters!

 

[CarolinaFM]

I once worked for a GM so cheap he didn't even provide us with toilet paper.

 

[Ssummers]

I once worked for a GM so cheap that when I applied for the job, he gave me a blank piece of paper and said, "Here, fill this out".

By the way, isn't "cheap GMs" a kind of redundant term?

 

[DudeFan]

I am the cheap GM. But in our world, we call it frugal.

 

[radiostuwright]

I worked for one so cheap, in the days when the weekend Sunday shows would come
in on reel to reel, he would tell us to keep one now and then,( instead of mailing it back)
to use in the production room...just bulk it and it was almost as good as new.
He was also so cheap he would ask for seperate checks at the last supper.

 

[jovialjay]

I once worked for a GM so cheap he didn't even provide us with toilet paper.

I see you worked at WGCD/Chester, too.

 

[ngriffin]

Paperclips from all incoming mail were to be collected and put into a container on the secreratary's desk at one station where I worked.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

My story is about an owner/manager who was frugal.... but never cheap.

I was hired in to be full-time News Director. (That is not cheap!)

One night I was called in to "narrate" a play-by-play of tornado weather and a florescent tube was blinking. I went to the closet and found a new tube and I was up on a chair replacing the light when the owner asked me to get down and not do that again. "That's what I hire the janitor to do." (That's not cheap! A part time janitor at a radio station.)

But there was a tradition at the station from the early ultra-frugal are-we-gonna-make it days. When the News Director came in a 4 to 4:30 A.M. and tore all that stuff off the A.P. machine, he was to take all those unused over-night stories and forecasts and features and mark wavy lines through the print so no one would read the wrong side, and then take the paper cutter and create little sheets of paper 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 to type up local news. (That's beyond frugal. That's cheap!)

After a few months I began to realize that all over the station people were using MY marked and cut paper. Hey boss: how about they come in at 4 A.M. and cut their own paper.

From that day on, I picked up a sealed box of A.P TTY paper and carried it down to a print shop where they turned that paper into 5-1/2 by 8-1/2 sheets for everyone in the station. (For the era, that was frugal!) Today we would go to a big-box store and just buy paper of some kind.

But part of frugal was the fact that EVERYTHING in that station was 5-1/2 by 8-1/2. News copy. Commercial copy. (less paper handling noise in the mic?) Invoices. Sales proposals. Why have all the blank space around the edges that you have with full size sheets.

By the way, that station owner's name was widely known in the industry for 50 years or so. Not a shabby operator!!! Just frugal.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Earlier I worked for the guy who had "cheap" branded onto his forehead.

Every month or so I would run to the nearby regional city and go by the location of the juke-box operator and buy 45 r.p.m. records that the machines had worn out for pennies on the dollar. (The juke-box operator was cheap! He wouldn't give them away.) That was our programming content. 20-cent worn out records.

 

[fmradio1]

Cheap GM's? I had one that took the cake...

He had us cut press releases and other station mail into 3X5 pieces and used the blank reverse sides for phone messages.

He wanted me to call other area radio stations to attempt trading our shorter carts for longer ones instead of having the ones we had re-packed or buying new ones.

He refused to invest in any additional remote equipment despite a big push to do sales remotes and appearances. We had a card table, a traded out banner, some really old bumper stickers and a Marti & yagi (which came with the station when he bought it a few years earlier.) That's it. Not even a crude PA system and no station vehicle, not even traded out.

He gave me no budget for music, and we got little record service since the station was very small. He wanted me to make copies of songs from the other radio stations I did p/t for on reel-to-reel (recycled, of course), bring them in and cart them up for our air. This was a trend...wanting me to steal from other stations. I told him I saw a copy of the latest Arb book at my p/t station and his station actually appeared! He wanted me to make copies of the BOOK and bring it in.

I told him we needed a CD player for the production room (this was around 1990) so he brought in the one from his wife's stereo in her office at home ("She doesn't use it anyway").

He cancelled all the newspaper subscriptions along with the AP wire service, and told the news staff to "listen to the big, regional news station for the area on the way into work to get the top stories", then rewrite them for our air.

I could just keep going......

 

[TANKSBACK]

I worked for a GM who was so cheap that one Christmas he went into our "station prize closet" and gave the staff leftover promotional crap for presents. I got a cigarette lighter with the station logo on it. I don't smoke. The morning guy got a sleeve of logo golf balls. He didn't play golf. It's not like he couldn't afford presents, we were a huge FM signal with an AM daytimer simulcast and a ratings winner in a top ten market!

In a smaller market, I worked for a GM who was so cheap that when the offices closed a 5 p.m. he had the receptionist remove the toilet paper and paper towels from the bathrooms and lock them up. Night jocks had to bring their own.