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.