N
NightCourtFan
Guest
I was telling someone the other day of my first job in radio...was on an Oldies AM station in the coal region of PA. The owner was a total jacka$$ and would pay us every 90days plus sometimes....other times he would give me a months worth of checks for the entire staff and then I would distribute them accordingly....He had me and the engineer go to a washed up station in Jersey and pick up there studio equipment to transport it to our studio's. We got back and hooked it up, only to get a call the next day saying that we had to bring it back to his office in Quakertown so it can be accounted for. Of course, my question was how can I keep the station on air if we take away the board and all the other equipment. Needless to say, we trucked all the equipment back to Quakertown and put it in the back room of his warehouse, where it sat until I left that station. Periodically he would call me and ask when I was coming to pick it up...but we had no station vehicles and he wouldn't rent us a van to make the trip so we were at a stale mate.
Getting a hold of him was another challenge..if he wanted to talk to you he would answer, but most times you would have to leave a msg and hope he would get back to you....I put up with that for a while..then I started to just leave threats to quit on his voice mail..next thing you know I would would get an instant call back.
He also had a brilliant idea to move the station to the tower site..which lied on a small piece of land surrounded by strip mines and coal banks...and roads you could barely get a car down..if you've ever been in the mountains around Shamokin, Mt Carmel or the like you know what I mean. I told him that wouldn't work and that no one will want to work there if you move to the bldg..he disagreed with me and told me that he thought there was alot of business opportunity to be built out there. So he went to the Township meeting and made his proposal and they laughed him out of the building...He called me right after and all he said was You were right! and hung up.
The best story so far with this station is the time he made me fight a cable bill for 44 dollars b/c he didn't authorize that purchase( the general manager at the time did). The owner had me go from one lawyer to another..trying to fight for 44 bucks. Every lawyer told me the same thing.."just pay the bill"!! I would tell the owner what they said and he would have me go talk to another lawyer....so I did...but instead of trying to plead my case I just told him to call my owner and tell him that he needs to just pay the bill....well we ended up ion court and he (the owner) paid 44 dollars plus court costs.
I could write a book on everthing that happen to me at that station..and I was only there a little over a year!!!!
Getting a hold of him was another challenge..if he wanted to talk to you he would answer, but most times you would have to leave a msg and hope he would get back to you....I put up with that for a while..then I started to just leave threats to quit on his voice mail..next thing you know I would would get an instant call back.
He also had a brilliant idea to move the station to the tower site..which lied on a small piece of land surrounded by strip mines and coal banks...and roads you could barely get a car down..if you've ever been in the mountains around Shamokin, Mt Carmel or the like you know what I mean. I told him that wouldn't work and that no one will want to work there if you move to the bldg..he disagreed with me and told me that he thought there was alot of business opportunity to be built out there. So he went to the Township meeting and made his proposal and they laughed him out of the building...He called me right after and all he said was You were right! and hung up.
The best story so far with this station is the time he made me fight a cable bill for 44 dollars b/c he didn't authorize that purchase( the general manager at the time did). The owner had me go from one lawyer to another..trying to fight for 44 bucks. Every lawyer told me the same thing.."just pay the bill"!! I would tell the owner what they said and he would have me go talk to another lawyer....so I did...but instead of trying to plead my case I just told him to call my owner and tell him that he needs to just pay the bill....well we ended up ion court and he (the owner) paid 44 dollars plus court costs.
I could write a book on everthing that happen to me at that station..and I was only there a little over a year!!!!