Engineering Follies - Dealing with the General Manager/Owner

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Radio station executives are often considered "Big Frogs in the Small Pond" in many markets. Sometimes, this plays into their ego. Working with them can be a challenge.

Exhibit 6:

Sometimes people complicate things way too much!

One day I was called into the GM's office. The Program Director was already there. They said: "We'd like to run a network program on the AM. It comes down the line at 5 PM and must run as close to that time as possible. We'd like you to rig up a recording cart machine in the AM studio that will automatically record every day at 5 PM. That way the show will be ready to air as soon as the cart re-cues."

I looked at them and asked: Why can't you just take the show live?

The two of them looked at me and then the GM began laughing. "We can" he said.

And they did.

Contributed by Dana Puopolo

Exhibit 5:

We were off-the-air due to a Klystron failure in the (early 70's), and I got a call at the transmitter site from the GM while changing the thing out wanting to know why I had not put up a slate telling folks that we would be back when repairs were finished! I swear that is the truth!!

Contributed by: Tommy Gray

Exhibit 4:

When I worked for PAX TV, corporate engineering pre-built all the Master Control rooms at their facility in Florida, and sent them off to the stations. It was up to the stations to find space to make them fit-not the reverse.

It was not a big deal for me, because my space was empty. So we literally studded and sheet rocked a room in one corner of the empty building.

During construction, I noticed that the remote control for the Beta SP decks was on the left side of the table. I'm a lefty and this was perfect for me - but difficult for the right handed operators that were in the majority. I watched them crossing their arms trying
to switch and start a deck at the same time. The cure was obvious - we moved the control to the right side of the table. Problem solved.

That is until Corporate Engineering showed up one day. They went ballistic when they saw what I had done. How dare I change their design!

Then they went even more ballistic when they saw that I had put the Profile video server in another air-conditioned room instead of in the MCR  rack and was remoting the keyboard, mouse and monitor into the MCR. Of course, the reason I had done so was to
minimize heat build up in the room (I believe that heat is one of the things that causes equipment failures).

A few days later a registered letter came from corporate engineering notifying me that I was officially on probation for
six months. What corporate engineering did not realize was that by then I was also the General Manager of the station and a simple phone call to Dean Goodman (the President of TV) took care of things. Of course, that so POed them at C.E. that I am now blackballed at Paxson.

One more thing: they seemed to have a lot of trouble at Paxson with their Profile servers overheating and shutting down - except in Boston, of course. That changed when I left and the idiot that replaced me put it in the rack in MCR (and also moved the remote control back to the left side). Then they also started to have overheating problems.

Some people just can't learn anything.

Contributed by Dana Puopolo

Exhibit 3:

At WCHA in Chambersburg, PA, one of the Chief Engineer's jobs was to set up, test, stand by for emergencies, then tear down when finished, a remote studio for "record hops," (remember them?) and other sponsored events. When Chambersburg lost its electrical power for about a day because a farmer mowed down the high-voltage transmission lines serving all of central Pennsylvania, John Booth the owner, insisted that I set up the remote studio at the transmitter site. Notwithstanding the fact that we did not have an emergency generator at the site, I was required to do this (in the dark) --just in case, someone would "loan" the station a generator (and it would get magically wired in)!

Mr. Booth thought his station was so important that he could certainly get a generator from the Civil Defense. He had a great self-image and an enormous ego. His office was marble and mahogany with his desk set on a two-step high pedestal with a window behind. This required one to look up, as though to a judge, with the bright outside light in ones eyes. Yawn, that prepared me for a union job at WJZ-TV in Baltimore --no more ego trips.
 

Contributed by Richard B. Johnson

Exhibit 2:

I began to get an inkling that I was headed for shipwreck early in my stint at the commercial stations here in Cincinnati.

I was called on the carpet for calling the fire department before telling the boss of a fire in  the facility. I was 'written up' for insubordination!

Contributed by Jeff Johnson

Exhibit 1:

More than a few years ago, my business partner shared an office suite with the owner of a tower company. The tower company had been shafted on an AM they re-guyed. 

John Reiser (WQ4L) was still at the FCC. I asked John if it was legal to go recover the guy wires.  He said it was, as long as the intent was not to drop the towers, but only to recover the property.

So, a tower crew showed up at the site, with co-located studios and offices to recover the guy wires, and informed the owner what they were going to do, and what would, unfortunately happen as a result. The check book came out, but no, cash only. The owner said it would take an hour to get to his bank and back. He was told he had 30 minutes before they start work. 

He returned with the cash, early.

I wondered why someone with the ability to pay, just would not.

Contributed by Chip Fetrow

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