| 2005-02-08 - 9:56 p.m.
Recto Cranial inversion
Yanno how I said in my previous entry that I thought I was getting a good handle on work? Heh. And the fates laughed. Actually, I still feel that way, but the day I had yesterday had me rolling my eyes clean outta my head. OK, so we're all aware of Captain Freezy and his Luddite tendencies. The man refuses to send email. He will READ email, but won't SEND it. That's going to look like one silly assed reason to lose one's job. But I digress. So yesterday, he was working on various technical aspects of his job. Things I, as his supervisor, have pretty much said "You need to do this. Go." Stuff like burning CDs, producing a phoner, some general broadcast 201 stuff. First part of the day is spent with him whining about error messages he's getting while trying to burn CDs. I finally said "yanno, I don't use that equipment, I use my desktop PC. Talk to the engineer, because I have no idea what those messages are, and maybe he can help you". OK. On to the next Moron Moment. He's doing a phoner. For whatever reason, since time immemorial, doing phoners requires calling your interview subject on a phone that is NOT the office phone. That's where the phone interface is hooked up. So he's all set up and then comes whining out of the studio "When I turn the phone patch on, I get a tone". So I heft my ass outta my chair and investigate. I am momentarily flustered, (because phone stuff ALWAYS scares me...who KNOWS how the phone patch will work), then I realize he's trying to patch the OFFICE PHONE through the patch. "Call him back on this phone". "But there's no speaker. How will she hear him? "She talks in the mic and listens through the headphones". Dur. And I say dur because he produces phoners at least every few weeks, and I haven't done one in, oh, a year. OK, fine, another crisis averted. He runs a tape and puts the interview into Pro Tools. (Hard drive recording/editing program) So what do you think the FIRST rule would be when making a recording? Like, what would you do the INSTANT your recording was input into the computer? Yeah. Click FILE and SAVE. Pay attention. This will be important later. He's working away, telling me I "owe him one" because of all the ums and errs he's cutting out. Then I hear a howl. "The computer crashed and it lost my whole damn file!" I went in and said "well, it should be there from your last save point". Wait for it..... "I didn't save it". Blink. I had to turn around and go back to my desk, or else I was going to tell him that he was a special kind of moron who deserved to lose all his work if he couldn't be bothered to fucking click SAVE a time or two during his past NINETY MINUTES of work. So then I hear mumbles about how he will "NEVER trust computers" and how the program should "Save automatically" and "THANK GOD I run a dat backup". For whatever reason, this about set me off. People, take some fucking responsibility. Jesus Hieronymous Christ in Jimmy Choo sandals. I'm running around this world, feeling guilty and feeling responsible for every damn thing that goes wrong any place in my orbit, and he CLEARLY fucked up and finds excuses as to why it isn't his fault. Amazing. Just. Amazing. And his aversion to all things technical isn't amusing any more. It's annoying and pigheaded and ignorant and stupid. Radio has changed more in the ten years I've been doing it than it did in the 25 years before that. And like it or not, you gotta keep up. If he's supposedly an "Operations Assistant", then he needs to step up and not make me the lone ranger of Technoville. Don't get me wrong...I am starting to think I have kind of a talent for what I do. But that doesn't mean everyone else is absolved of learning or THINKING.
To quote Howard Dean...."aaaaaaaagggghhhhhhh"
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