No Cold, but a Cost HIGHER than the Temperature...
ASSISTANT NEWS DIRECTOR
October '90 to Christmas '91
Sheri and I talked long and hard, after getting the call from Sarasota. As a half year ago, the station again had an opening for the Assistant News Director job. You can't believe how that image of the iceberg floating in Lake Huron on July 4th seemed to cloud our ability to think rationally. We decided I should fly down to Florida and check it out again.
If nothing else, Linda DesMarais knows how to get the most for her money, and she certainly knows the skills of negotiating in her favor. She pointed out that the job opening would mean far less line producing - just one half hour program a day. It would also open the door to more and more management related duties. And of course, it NEVER snows in Sarasota. Bingo! She tapped the three issues important to me. Before me was the promise of all three things I wanted:
- LESS TIME IN THE CONTROL ROOM
- MORE MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES
- NO IMPACT FROM SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER
As soon as the Station Manager knew she had me hooked, she began her clever technique of getting what she wanted for what she wanted to pay - or less. She pointed out the cost of living was lower, primarily because of lower fuel bills. [Actually, it cost more to pay for the air conditioning than the heat up north. And rent? Sarasota is a very snooty village. Unless you live in the ghetto, expect to pay as much as you might in San Francisco.] Sarasota is a much smaller market than Saginaw/Flint/Bay City/Midland (never mind that it's really the Tampa market - which is 37 notches higher than the Michigan market) so their pay scale starts lower. Since I would have less work producing, I should expect less compensation for that too. I assumed managers down here should not expect more money - because they really don't work, right?
By the time DesMarais got done with all of her "Because's..." and "Since's"... she figured I was softened up sufficiently and would not notice her shocking summary: Taking the job would mean a pay cut of $12,000 for me. She was wrong, it was still a shock... a very big shock. She knew it was as soon as she said the pay was $25,000 a year.
I think I turned pale. She then started a pitch like one of those "multi- level- marketing" gurus with nothing to lose but another schtoop: "But that's just the start. We're a fast growing company [soon - but not soon enough - I discovered: That was a Major League falsehood.] We're negotiating to buy a station in the Florida Panhandle and then one on the east coast after that... and we'll want our own people moved there to run things... so you can expect to either become News Director there or here... and that pays 40-thousand. And that's way more (only $3,000 more) than you're making now!"
Right! I see. Yea, you're right... losing 12-grand now is a small sacrifice if you consider the big picture. Damn, she was good. Damn, I was stupid. I'm sure some people get rich via Amway. Some people beat cancer by eating Apricot pits. Some people walk on water. Some people know where to step on the rocks in the river, too. I had to go home and think about it. Was it worth it?
While in Florida for the interview, a fuel tanker exploded in the shipping channel to Saginaw Bay. After my trip to WWSB, I got off the plane in Michigan and went straight to work at News-5, because the boat was still burning - threatening lives and property: GREAT T-V! I finally got home more than a day later, I should not have rested before deciding to accept the job "offer."
Once I started working at WWSB, I had total responsibility for the development of a new 5:30PM Newscast to better utilize resources after staff cuts. The program earned a 24-share in its first rating test, with no degredation of the 43-share of the continuing 6PM Show.
The promise to include me in managerial activities was not kept. When I complained, the station manager said it was punishment for "spilling the beans" about staff cuts before they were officially announced. There was only one problem: I did NOT spill any beans. Ultimately, I discovered the secret plans were actually revealed to the staff by the promotion manager, who is still the very close friend of the Station Manager.
If the human carnivores were not enough, the station was on the outskirts of town in what seemed to be a wild life preserve. The birds I enjoyed. The little lizards I could tolerate. The snakes had me worried. But nothing gave me a scare like the six foot long alligator I found hiding under my car one day.
Supremely frustrated, and feeling like the complete schmuck kopf, I started job hunting again. I really was getting too old to serve as a line producer, but what else would my credentials allow me to do? A friend in San Francisco called to say there was a great opening at KGO-TV, a job I could get without any trouble. I applied, and nothing happened.
Well something happened: Someone else got the job. I called my friend to ask what happened. She said, "Your boss at WWSB nuked you, Duff! According to what I heard... 'you are a very creative writer and one of the most talented producers in the country ... but also a loud, trouble making, pain in the ass.'"
Mother often said, "Say nothing if you can't say something nice."
So...................... Uh, I learned many ________ lessons at WWSB.
Sorry Mom... the world has a right to know about the ill mannered, mean spirited, unethical, purely rotten people in the world who are best avoided. At the top of that list put people like the WWSB News Director. We'll call him Dave Collins. Remarkably, he was able to hold on to his job until 1996. I pitty the people who end up working with this miserable excuse for humanity in the future. I feel even more sorry for anyone who has to work for this low life. If you ever wind up in that unenviable positon, NEVER turn your back toward him or you will surely feel a blade between your fifth and sixth ribs extending through to your chest. All the while, he'll tell you what a great friend he is and how his bosses are clueless and don't know a damn thing.
He'll keep going until you agree, if only by a nod. Then he runs upstairs and tells the big shots *YOU* were saying bad things about them! Guess who winds up with a red face and on the carpet?
Also, learn quicker than I did: Don't ever start covering for him (in fixing his screw-ups or doing stuff that are his to do or explaining his frequent absences to his wife or the Station Manager or so many others. Once you start, your day will get longer and longer and longer - doing YOUR job AND his. Come to think of it, by the time I left there was only one task Dave still DID: Vacation and work schedules. And 95% of the time, those were botched up! He was good at one thing: The computer games he played five of the six hours a day he was on the job.
Once the pattern of carrying the load for these teflon coated managers starts, it NEVER ends... not even when the employment stops. I felt like sending a bill to WWSB after spending hundreds of hours on the phone with former collegues who would call with unsolved problems... problems created by the N.D. after my departure. Many called frequently in tears and unloaded their complaints on me. They were all friends, so I listened (and still do nearly four years later!) like a high paid shrink. One poor lad who followed in my footsteps still calls two years after HE got canned!
Like I, Colin Moore is devoutly loyal to the core to his superiors - until that moment when there is the realization: "I'm a sucker for believing promises which are really lies." At that point, we react with indignation and scream, "This is not Fair!" At that point, you find yourself accused of wrongs which you didn't commit or for which you had no responsibility. The pattern continues with increasing frequency until either you quit or the axe falls.
Meanwhile, the person really behind the problems survived. In Dave's case, he certainly deserves the "Teflon Man of the Decade" award... surviving not one, not two, not three... but FOUR /three/ top level management changes at WWSB - PTL: The last one got him! Finally, his luck expired and justice released the guillotine. It was a moment dozens of us waited for.
A word of warning to anyone coming to Florida as a worker bee: Generally, labor laws here do NOT favor the work force!
I discovered meeting tough challenges (ones which no one with their sanity entact would tackle) doesn't count for anything at NEWS-40 in Sarasota. I bitched about it in the wrong place: in public - the eight foot by eight foot station lunch room. Word got back to the BIG boss. I was called upstairs and fired. Then to add agony to the insult, managers at WWSB managed to block my effort to collect unemployment, and STILL were able to enforce the non-compete clause of my contract!?! They obviously wanted me to starve, sitting "on the beach."
I DID get hungry. But thanks to my wife's upward moving career, we were able to eat. I thank god for the moment Sheri and I met! Find out what happened when my non-compete clause expired by clicking the LOGO.
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