More Racism

Caller: "One of your callers just made a racial comment so I want to make one too...Why is the white cop always getting killed by the black man?"

I hate my listeners 95% of the time.
This isn't the other 5%.

Waking Up in a Cold Sweat

Twice in the last 24 hours I've had dreams involving work, actually more like nightmares. The first hit me this morning when I had a nightmare that I kept playing the wrong returns (its happened before in real life) and playing the wrong audio clips and all kinds of other bad stuff. Plus it didn't help that in that dream my coworker came to relieve my shift only to screw up stuff while I was still there.
The next came when I was taking a nap before the start of my overnight shift and I woke up an hour before my alarm was supposed to go off because my dream involved me being late for my shift and not being able to get dressed and find the number for the studio to call and tell them I'd be late.
Waking up in a cold sweat is not a good way to start a shift.

Using Your Best Judgement, and Being Wrong

During a 3 hour show Friday night I had a man call from way up in Massachusetts (which was weird because my station is a 7 hour drive south) to speak about what else but Obama, Palin, and the economy, nothing unusual because its the hot topics and my host was talking about those things exactly.
Now it was a full night of callers, on average 8 of the 12 lines were filled at any given time, so it wasn't a surprise when his call didn't get on the air. He called back after being on hold for an hour to ask whether or not he was going to be able to get on, I politely explained that it's not my choice (lies, it is my choice most of the time but he seemed reasonable so I told him my host had the choice). The caller was put back on hold for a little while and still never got on, its rare but it happens. He then called back after being on hold for about 45 minutes and ended up explaining what he was going to say to me so I could pass it on to my host:

"You see, I believe that the entire world is run by 10 Jewish bankers..."

And that's all I needed to hear.

Getting tired of this

No, I'm not getting tired of my job...but this just happened:

Caller: "Yes, we would like to talk about what Native American's want to be called."
Me: "Well, we're not talking about that right now, we're talking about Paul Newman."
Caller: "Yes, but I thought the hosts were getting tired of talking about him."


FUCK.

Harry Kalas and Ned Yost

From a caller:
"Ned Yost was fired from the Brewers today."

Me: "ok..."

Caller: "I Just thought you'd like to know because Harry Kalas just called me."




I don't even know.

Jinx

Like many major stations in the US we get weather updates every few hours from The Weather Channel. They're good people and do a good job. A caller told me recently to "Tell the guy who does the weather updates to stop saying showers because everytime he says it we don't get any rain."
Bad jokes?

Let's talk about Chinese people! With their kung-fu and their silly ching-chang-chong talk! We can't understand you! Go back to yer country!

I'm not racist at all, I felt that a quote from the Dave Chapelle Show skit "The Black White Supremacist" when he was talking about how he hates Chinese people. I'd show you the clip but its been removed from every video website because of the copyrights, so buy Season 1 instead.

We just had a guest on about Asian Americans and how they are viewed for college screening (thank god it was previously recorded) decided to let me know that "This woman should be working in a massage parlor."
I'm glad to see racists call me constantly to tell me things like this when I'm at work. I also enjoy when I'm supposed to do something to appease these callers like kick the guest off the air. Is everyone in this world a moron?

Infomercials vs Regular Programming

We as call screeners/board ops/producers generally start out at the bottom of the barrel doing any kind of show available. Saturday's are generally my day for doing a multitude of different programming. I've done everything from a show about medical footwear (thank god for planned callers) to lawyers giving free advice. For some weird reason listeners hate change in their programming schedule for their weekend much like people who watch a lot of TV don't like it when their favorite show moves to a different day or hour. It's funny, I sit at work right now and it's the first Saturday of new programs and already I've had around 10 callers ask me when a certain show is going to be on and what happened to the old show that was on this time slot. It's almost funny to hear these people in a state of panic about what happened to the old show. Then again I feel the same way with my TV and the Simpsons get moved around.

Getting Fired

Not literally, I think.
Slowly but surely I have become more and more selective in calls that get through which is labeling me as a bad guy by many of the callers. Not every call is bad though, some may be not relevant or some might just be something I don't agree with. Today was an interesting example of all types of bad calls because of the topic, "Language". It basically boiled down to people not learning the American language despite living in the country (I personally think that if you live here, at least make an attempt because I for one would learn a new language if I moved to a different country that doesn't speak English). It brings out the worst in people and sometimes the best. From what I remember (there's a lot of calls) most of them were racist and one person I distinctly remember saying, "The owners of the big guys radio stations (i.e. Rush, Hannity, etc.) are all Zionists." Funny part about that one was he had a really, really good point before that about something that I currently can't remember, but the Zionist comment stopped all of that getting on the air.
At times callers can be long winded when trying to give me the gist of their point, which incorporated with the phones ringing, listening for possibly having to hit the delay button, and paying attention to the host getting ready for breaks puts a strain on my attention. There was a particular woman who said something that wasn't going to get her through plus her taking forever to make her point that I said thank you and hung up on her. She must have went ballistic in her car because she called for about 20 minutes asking me why I wouldn't put her on with the host. Thank god for caller ID despite her having her number show up as "unknown". As a colleague of mine named Tom said to me the other wee, "You develop a 6th sense for bad callers." I assume this applies for when they block their number also. I mistakingly picked up the phone because I have to make sure at some point that it was or was not her calling me back which led to her arguing that she should be allowed on but I was past that point of any reconciliation of giving her air time. She (the caller) then told me that I was "sexist" and she was "going to get me fired" because I didn't let her on plus it's my hosts "job to decide which calls are bad", not mine. I can only reiterate that yes it is my job not the hosts. Hosts have enough to worry about during their show to not have to deal with idiot callers, no matter how long you've been listening and calling in to the station (according to her, she's been calling for 5 years and always gets on).
Funny thing is, I've probably let her on before and she's probably made some good points, just not today.

Being Selective

I've only been working at a major station, and by major I mean top 10 in the area, for about 8 months. About 4 months ago my assistant Program Director called me and a fellow co-worker into his office to discuss how to be better at screening callers. Things like being more selective, not putting on bad calls no matter how dead the calls are, etc. I've put this into effect, but only last night did I really stick to what was told to me. We had the Chief of Police on for his monthly call in show with another host. I get such jems like, "Why don't police ever wave to me when they drive through my neighborhood?" or "What's up with cops on their cell phones?". I generally let on almost anyone if they sound like they have half of a brain, but last night I really exercised my ability of cutting off any caller that I didn't think would be good for the show. It was fun telling people no they couldn't come on and ask their question, and it was also a wake up to me that I can be more selective without hurting the flow of the show.

Waiting

I am currently running a Best Of segment of a show, who knows when it ran, there's no date on the CD. I hate answering calls during Best Of's because its always the same:
"Yeah I'd like to make a comment."
"We're running a previously recorded show."
"Oh, well I had a really good comment."

I left a person calling just to see how long they would last...5 minutes, of straight ringing. Thank heaven for the mute button on our phones.

Doing our jobs

Surprisingly, when I came up with the idea for this blog, I was getting rampant calls from irate listeners about all kinds of inane things. Even though its slowed down somewhat I got a good call the other day. Just to explain before what happened, all radio stations have more than 1 call in line, my station has 12 lines that can be simultaneously ringing at once. Yes, it has happened, especially during PM drive time. Our way to solve this problem is to pick up and tell callers to please hold on. Sometimes its nice because people hang up, not that we don't want you call, but its less work for us to have to do. I put 3 people on hold the other week as they all called in at the same time, put all 3 of them on hold, and went back to the top and took their information (name, cell phone?, what do you want to say). I get to the third caller and she lovingly expressed her displeasure with me not getting to her on time saying, "You people need to do your fucking jobs." I can only assume it's because I didn't get to her fast enough so she can say whatever idiotic comment she had. I was not mad, I just merely laughed about it. People don't realize how many calls can come in at once, we do try to get to everyone as fast as we can, but there's always hiccups.

UPDATES!!!!

There has not been a good enough call worth documenting lately, mostly when people call me to yell about something it's not juicy enough. Today a woman, presumably at least 80, called to tell me how one host said something that contradicted himself blah blah blah. I put her on speaker and just let her ramble for a good minute until she hung up.
Also a record number of people called in asking to speak to Sean Hannity, who by the way is syndicated on the station I work for, unbeknownst to them he gives out his toll free number about every 20 minutes or so...and these people always seemed to call in right before had to take traffic, start a news cast, or get out of dead rolls (radio lingo).
As I write this I'm beginning to think that I just jinxed myself.

Yellow Back

All callers have to be questioned about what they're going to say on the air. It works 99% of the time to make sure the crazies don't get on the air. Yesterday I asked a guy what he wanted to say in regards to a certain topic. He wanted to know why I needed to know that. I already have a short temper so I cut him off, and politely thanked him at the same time. About 5 minutes later I received another call from the same person, who said this:

"You're a fucking coward for not putting me on."

How that makes sense, I don't even know.

Classic comment #1

Before I started this little blog I had lots of people give me juicy little soundbites while asking them what they're going to say on the air. As I've stated I work for a large political talk show station, and it just so happens that we have an nationally known sports talk show station a floor below us in the same building. When the Giants won the Superbowl I got this gem of a phone call as our host began talking about Clinton and Obama's campaign (this may or may not give away where I work):

"What's your name and what do you want to say."

"Yeah, how come Eli Manning can win a Superbowl and Donovam Mcnabb still can't win a Superbowl...this city is doomed."

"Sir you've called the wrong station."

"No I didn't, I want to come on and talk about this."



What made it even better was my host wanted to talk to him before I hung up on him. Callers, please stay on topic. Idiots.

Oh, racism.

One of the cool things about working for a 50,000 watt station is that on good days we have the ability to reach 38 states and Canada. I personally have fielded calls from people as far out as Wisconsin that are picking up our signal loud and clear. Technology is an amazing thing.
Unfortunately, I sometimes am forced to deal with lovely angry people that are not as racially tolerable as others in my area. I should say that I do not care about a persons color, sex, age, and so on, only that they have good, intelligent comments to get put on the air. Hence my job. A lovely man from the South (I believe he said Tennessee) decided it would be a good idea to utter these words to me:

"I can't believe your station actually lets n*ggers on the air."

Good job Midwest America, way to live up to your racist stereotypes.

Beating your kids

"WAH WAH WAH WAH! You hear how your host is whining? This is what happens when parents dont beat their kids, the end up like your whiney little host."

Awesome.

These people make me want to blow my brains out:

"You are censoring people from what they can and cannot say on your station."

You're right, it's called Call Screening.

Race

I hate hate hate when race is brought up into a topic. It generally brings out the worst in my callers. A woman just tried for about 30 seconds (which is a long time in my job) to explain about how murders in her area are racially driven.

"A guy in my area had his brains blown out by a black guy and this IS a race issue."

I hung up on her. I just can't take it sometimes. At least she didn't say blowed out (re: emmit smith).

She did however call back and call me racist for hanging up on her.

Note To Self...

Don't ever tell caller that the host will get to them, or even that they are 3rd in line to be taken. A guy waited on hold for 20 minutes last night after I told him that he will be taken. He then hung up and called right back.

"Look you told me that I was going to get on and I know I had a good comment about the topic. You lied to me, thanks asshole. I'll never call this station again."

Whatever will we do...Oh, thats right, answer the other 1,000 people that call in every day. Thanks for sticking it to us by never calling again.

I need that Interview

We have important people come on my one radio station I work for...very important people. I'm talking politicians, celebrities, and sports stars just to name a few types without going deep into names. I write this entry because our morning show has an interview with a very, very, very well known politician and most other news stations and major television networks want an audio copy of the interview...the day before it airs. I hate this. Technically I'm not allowed to release it, and I don't because I like my job. I get a call from a lovely major network news assistant asking for me to give him a copy because he already has the transcript (probably a lie). So I don't give him the interview (plus I have no idea even how to over the phone). He gets increasingly angry with me, which leads to this lovely exchange at the end"

Him: "Give me your name."

Me: "Sir, I'm not giving you my name"

Him: "Then give me your Boss's name."

Me: (Insert boss's name here)

Him: "Thanks for your help tonight asshole."

Me: "Your welcome, good-bye."

Him: "Die."


I laughed so hard at that. I love angry people, especially when my hands are tied. PLUS he called in on my call in line, not my stations main number. People are angry idiots.

Gun control

Two of my sunday night hosts decided to bring up a recent article on gun control

"Your hosts are total PC fucking pussies that only want to help their television image rather than address the real issues at hand like..."

I cut her off, gun control topics usually give me lots of idiot callers. Plus I've already been yelled at a lot tonight.

Why?

I love my job. I work for a couple radio stations as a producer/call screener/board operator. It's fun. What makes it even better is when I get yelled at by callers. Hopefully you find it as funny as i do.