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amitherightcaller
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Taylorengineering is a "sick puppy"!!! Just like all of us who embark on a career in radio!
I, too, share these nightmares, 9 or 10 years after I got out of radio.
The funny thing is, for me these nightmares always take place at the college station WFRD (99 Rock) I used to work for. Maybe I felt the most abused there.
Let's recap all the different scenarios that happened to me while working there:
I was booked to engineer the AM station WDCR. The PD of the FM (and hence the AM during a Christmas break) needed someone to cover the FM and when I came in, was convinced that I could run a live show on both the FM and engineer the hockey game on the AM at the same time. The hockey game was local Dartmouth sports, over a phone line, and there was no good phone patch. The way to cut audio from the studio was to UNSCREW the mouthpiece from the handset and leave the phone off the hook for board audio. During the breaks, in order to communicate with them to let them know they were back on, the mouthpiece must be screwed back on. Meanwhile, some of these breaks coincided with breaks on the FM and the studios were probably 15 seconds apart at a dead sprint around twisty hallways and steps into studios. There was a time when the record was skipping in the FM while in the AM.
Sometimes the FM transmitter ran hot, and sometimes it ran cool. Adjusting it with the Moseley was next to impossible for reasons unknown.
The Denon CD-Carts were a wonderful thing... except when the carts broke, the CD locked into one was scratched to oblivion (figure that one out), and due to budget constraints, the majority of CD's were not locked into carts so instead of just plopping a CD into a tray, you had to slip it in a cart first and then cue it up in the machine. Not so handy sometimes. Especially when the CD you just put in, starts skipping and you don't have another CD ready.
The phone patch didn't always record to the reel to reel in the studio. (And no, it wasn't cause I pressed the wrong button.)
Anytime you played a tune off a CD, you had to first get the album cardboard counterpart to it, to which a daypart tracker was affixed. If someone played that song 5 days ago, you couldn't play it. 10 days ago during your daypart. A real bummer if you had your heart set on a certain song.
I had my run-ins with management. One time I came into the station an hour early after driving 30 minutes only to find the morning guy had not come in so the station was off the air at like 9:00am or so. So I fired the station up and then cracked the mic saying I was going to play a really long song, or live album or something to that effect because "I needed to get my shift together." Someone listening (and in some sort of power) thought I had said "S**t together". Luckily the PD believed me. That same day, at high-noon, I had meant to do a live legal ID that slammed the competing rock station in town (new to the game) who had Top-40 voices still on the air. So, I thought in my mind I would say "you're listening to an obnoxious rock jock, NOT! Actually you're listening to... [insert station ID and slogan]". Unbeknownst to me I was so hyped up on getting daring, I slipped and actually mentioned by name the station I was accusing! OOPS! Some of the other jocks thought it was hilarious and said they would have said the same thing, but they didn't have the balls that I had. However, that earned me an immediate call on the "red phone line" that you knew immediately was bad. Later, when the PD called me about that other thing, he asked me about that, to which I admitted to it and explained the situation, and he was kind to me and allowed me to keep my temporary job there.
So that might spawn some nightmares I suppose, lol!
The funny thing is, for me these nightmares always take place at the college station WFRD (99 Rock) I used to work for. Maybe I felt the most abused there.
Let's recap all the different scenarios that happened to me while working there:
I was booked to engineer the AM station WDCR. The PD of the FM (and hence the AM during a Christmas break) needed someone to cover the FM and when I came in, was convinced that I could run a live show on both the FM and engineer the hockey game on the AM at the same time. The hockey game was local Dartmouth sports, over a phone line, and there was no good phone patch. The way to cut audio from the studio was to UNSCREW the mouthpiece from the handset and leave the phone off the hook for board audio. During the breaks, in order to communicate with them to let them know they were back on, the mouthpiece must be screwed back on. Meanwhile, some of these breaks coincided with breaks on the FM and the studios were probably 15 seconds apart at a dead sprint around twisty hallways and steps into studios. There was a time when the record was skipping in the FM while in the AM.
Sometimes the FM transmitter ran hot, and sometimes it ran cool. Adjusting it with the Moseley was next to impossible for reasons unknown.
The Denon CD-Carts were a wonderful thing... except when the carts broke, the CD locked into one was scratched to oblivion (figure that one out), and due to budget constraints, the majority of CD's were not locked into carts so instead of just plopping a CD into a tray, you had to slip it in a cart first and then cue it up in the machine. Not so handy sometimes. Especially when the CD you just put in, starts skipping and you don't have another CD ready.
The phone patch didn't always record to the reel to reel in the studio. (And no, it wasn't cause I pressed the wrong button.)
Anytime you played a tune off a CD, you had to first get the album cardboard counterpart to it, to which a daypart tracker was affixed. If someone played that song 5 days ago, you couldn't play it. 10 days ago during your daypart. A real bummer if you had your heart set on a certain song.
I had my run-ins with management. One time I came into the station an hour early after driving 30 minutes only to find the morning guy had not come in so the station was off the air at like 9:00am or so. So I fired the station up and then cracked the mic saying I was going to play a really long song, or live album or something to that effect because "I needed to get my shift together." Someone listening (and in some sort of power) thought I had said "S**t together". Luckily the PD believed me. That same day, at high-noon, I had meant to do a live legal ID that slammed the competing rock station in town (new to the game) who had Top-40 voices still on the air. So, I thought in my mind I would say "you're listening to an obnoxious rock jock, NOT! Actually you're listening to... [insert station ID and slogan]". Unbeknownst to me I was so hyped up on getting daring, I slipped and actually mentioned by name the station I was accusing! OOPS! Some of the other jocks thought it was hilarious and said they would have said the same thing, but they didn't have the balls that I had. However, that earned me an immediate call on the "red phone line" that you knew immediately was bad. Later, when the PD called me about that other thing, he asked me about that, to which I admitted to it and explained the situation, and he was kind to me and allowed me to keep my temporary job there.
So that might spawn some nightmares I suppose, lol!
The day Challenger blew up. The on air jock was alerted, and joined ABC for ta live "It blew up" and the vehicle dynamics officer claiming "Obvuiously a major malfunction", etc. For a couple of minutes. He (the jock) had already loaded his next two or three songs before the live break occurred. So, when comes "This has been an ABC News special report...." he punched up the next cart. Which was Kenny Rogers' Blaze of Glory.
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