Remembering My First Christmas in Radio

[dmargalotti]

20 years ago, I had been working weekends for a small AM daytimer in Hyde Park, NY. It was my first job in radio and I had only been at it for about 3 months. Come Christmas morning 1986, it was my job to get to work at 5:30am, sign the station on and work until about 12noon.

The day before, I became as sick as a dog...violently ill with the flu. I had the aches, the pains, the fever, the vomitting...the whole package. I went to bed on Christmas Eve hoping for a miracle. The next morning I awoke at 4:30am...worse than the day before. The chills were so bad I honestly could not stop shaking...I felt like I had been Mike Tyson's punching bag. But I knew there was no way I could call in sick. It was my first job...I'd only been at it a few months. Plus it was Christmas! I was sure that if I called my PD he would A) not believe me that I was sick on Christmas and B) can me on the spot.

So somehow I got to work on time and made it through the entire air shift. But hey...that's radio folks! I'm sure you've got some stories of your own...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Dave

 

[carlvenorden]

Hi Dave, Carl from NJRM (thanks for all your help in the past; we are doing the same show this spring so I'll be writing you).
I have a similar story, but it's a little different.
This wasn't when I started out in radio, good thing because, like you, we were live and you kind of had to be on the air. At the age of 17, I showed up at the station no matter if I was sick or it was snowing badly.
This was about 11 years ago; I was basically a board op for a local FM; the show was voice tracked, I inserted the traffic, wx, and requests, so in essence, I sounded like part of the show.
I had a terrible mouth abcess, which stretched back into my throat, so I was not only in pain, I had virtually no voice, and I had a high fever (and the shakes too). I went in.
The PD had some Tequila in the office and came into the studio to offer me some.......apparently to take the pain away. I don't drink liquor (and I dislike the taste), but he had me down about 6 shots of that sh_t.
I lost the shivers, my throat actually felt better, but I sounded a little s-l-u-r-r-y on the air.

The only time it becomes acceptable to call off from a radio shift (besides a death in the family or you are in the hospital) is when you loose your voice. That seems to be a yearly summer occurance for me, due to allergies. For maybe two weeks I have little voice or none at all, and I've missed work due to that. Actually you can go in and do other things besides an air shift, and I've done that with no voice.

The only Holiday story I have is this one:
I worked Mid-6am on our AM'er at the time; I was still young and looking forward to our family picnic at around noon; 50 family members munching on everything you can think of.
July 4 (about 1979).
The morning man called me and said he was sick (sure), and I ended up doing his shift; since it was a holiday we had no news person so I had to write the news and read the news...(no actualities that morning!).
The midshift man was in a car accident on the way in, called and said he wouldn't be in.
And I knew why by the sound of his voice, even if he wasn't in an accident he wouldn't be coming in.
Thankfully our 2pm man came in at 1 because he heard me on the air. A tee-toller, he did 1-6pm, and when I came in at 11pm, he was still there because the 6-mid guy called off!
So, in that 24 hour period, it was just he and I on the air, July 4, 1979.
Here is the end of that story; besides the fact that I missed the family picnic (and slept until I went in at 11pm), the morning guy was indeed so sick he ended up in the hospital, and the mid day guy was indeed in an accident, had no way in, so for the second day in a row, I did a 14 hour shift.
Ended up with the rest of the week off (paid), but nothing like that ever happened to me before or after.

 

[Captainfirst]

Similiar story, though it was my birthday and not Christmas, and tv, not radio. Had been working master control at WBGH-TV in Vestal, NY (offices were there, but we were a Binghamton station and ID'ed as such) for just over a month. Woke up about 10 that morning with a sore throat, fever of 102, stomachache, and cold chills. Called my PD, who tried to get someone to cover my shift but had no luck.

Worked from 2 that afternoon till midnight, popping aspirin, drinking pineapple juice, and eating graham crackers every once in awhile to keep up my strength...my boss was suitably impressed and gave me a fifty-cent an hour raise.

 

[JohnnyPancakes]

50 cents? Do you think he was able to spare that chump change? : If it was me, I would have told him to keep his crappy raise.

 

[SirRoxalot]

50 cents? Do you think he was able to spare that chump change? : If it was me, I would have told him to keep his crappy raise.

Hey, in 1978, 50-cents wasn't a crappy raise...

 

[Kent]

This is actually a Thanksgiving week story, not a Christmas story. However, it has all of the holiday cheer you'd expect in radio. About four years ago, we hired a program director for our AM talk station. He was fired 10 weeks later, and that happened to be the Friday before Thanksgiving. Not only that, but he was fired about 7 PM (two hours after the business office closed).

Well, he knew many of his part-time staff wanted to be off for the Thanksgiving week since it was a college town, and school was not in session during Thanksgiving week. So, he was now unemployed right before the holidays and rather upset as he had also just moved about 700 miles for a gig that lasted 10 weeks. What do you think he does? You guessed it! He had a copy of the phone list at his house and called all of his part-timers, who had no idea he had been terminated, telling them he managed to find a way to cover the schedule and that they didn't need to worry about coming in tomorrow, or any of next week! Happy Holidays!

I worked on Saturday and found out he had been terminated but had no idea all of our part-timers were already on the road heading back home for Thanksgiving. I was going to visit my family in Springfield on Monday, and my girlfriend was going to visit her family in Kansas City the same week. So, we decided to party together Saturday night with the staff of our FM top-40 station. We had dinner and went to the station's party and the afterparty, which lasted until about 3:30 Sunday morning. I had to be back at work at 8:30 Sunday morning as I had some production and voicetracking plus an airshift that had to be live. My schedule was 8:30 to noon board-opping and voicetracking at the top-40 station. Production and more voicetracking from noon to 4 PM. Airshift on our AC from 4 to 7 PM (4-5 was voicetracked, but 5-7 had to be live due to a rare Sunday afternoon remote). Home to pack and shower 7-8:30 PM. Board-op Ellen K's rhythm countdown from 9 PM to midnight.

Well, you can guess what happened next. At midnight, our part-timer didn't show up, and our full-time overnight guy was already on vacation for the week. I called his cell phone and got no answer. I called his home phone, and his roommate said he was on his way back to Chicago for the holidays. I called our utility guy to beg for help, and he was on his way to Kansas City to visit family. I began to panic! I called the APD of the news/talk station, and he had no idea what was going on and didn't care. I called our OM, who fired the talk station's PD, and he told me to suck it up and work all night or lose my job because he sure as hell wasn't coming in and the equipment wasn't reliable enough to auto-capture everything. So, I became the overnight trained monkey. In a 24 hour period, I, for all practical purposes, worked 21.5 hours and was still expected to drive to Springfield a few hours later. Luckily, my family was understanding, especially considering I called them at 6:10 in the morning on my dad's day off, and I was able to put off the three hour drive for a few hours to get some sleep.

This single experience is the reason I don't complain much about my current station running unattended in situations where I probably wouldn't do the same. I love the idea of no early mornings or late nights, especially now that I have a real job during the week!!