Sunday, July 6, 2008

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.

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