This was my last week at KRON after almost twelve years. It was actually a week of mixed emotions, but not like what you might think. When I arrived at KRON in September of 1998, I felt that I had arrived. Years of toiling in small markets making nothing had finally paid off. I was at a station I could be proud of, and perhaps I could work here the rest of my days and financially be taken care of. Any sense of nostalgia I might have had heading into my final days there had long been killed by years of watching it's demise.
What I was actually feeling was the coming sense of freedom from a job and responsibility I no longer wanted, mixed with a feeling of looking into the abyss of unemployment. It's a little scary not having a job, and the feeling for me is a little like the feeling I had when I was eight-years-old taking swimming lessons at the University of Puget Sound pool. They would send us kids up the ladder to the top of the 12-foot-high diving board, and I would stand alone on the board looking down at the water that seemed like a mile away.
So why did I have the huge smile on my face for the past month? It's more than finally getting away from a job, directing newscasts, that I never wanted in the first place. The smile and the happiness came with it was from having a direction, a plan for after KRON. I thought I knew what I wanted to do and how I would do it. I met with some schools and some professionals, and I thought I knew the career I wanted to pursue and where and how I would pursue it.
Last night before going to bed, I felt the first twinges of fright. Knowing my future gave me a sense of control over my circumstances. Last night all that disappeared. An important first step for me is taking Anatomy at the College of Marin. But while watching Craig Ferguson as I usually do before going to bed, I discovered College of Marin's Summer 2010 class schedule. Neither Anatomy or Physiology was being offered! Add to that, I have heard nothing from anyone about my application to enter the College of Marin. The warning from the COM counselor two weeks ago was that state budget cuts could make entering COM much more difficult, and she encouraged me to apply right then, two weeks ago. And I've heard nothing.
I went to bed last night trying to subdue a real sense of panic. My firm belief that my plan to be a radiation therapist is the key to my having a contented route to my old age. Last night, the plan vanished during Ferguson's show, and I went to bed with a sick feeling in my stomach.
As fast as my plans vanished the night before, a new plan materialized this morning. The first thing I did when I got up this morning was to go back on the computer and confirm that the College of Marin was out. So now what?
In checking my emails, my sister wrote me asking why I was going to school in one of the most expensive places to live? She suggested moving somewhere cheaper. That thought already occurred to me. While looking at Craigslist, it was apparent that things would be much easier for me if I lived in Sonoma County.
Like Santa Rosa?
Santa Rosa Junior College. I was so focused on going to the Kaiser School of Allied Health in Richmond, I had forgotten about SRJC and their radiology program. There are six community colleges in California with just such a program. SRJC was my fallback plan in the event I couldn't get into Kaiser. But I need pre-requisites for Kaiser, and SRJC offers them, including Anatomy this summer. Why not move there and just get into their radiology program? Why am I killing myself to get into Kaiser??
After thoroughly looking through the SRJC program on the internet, I decided to apply and we'll see what happens. As I started to fill out the application, I discovered it was the same application I filled out for College of Marin. All community colleges in California share the same application process. All I did was confirm all of the information was correct, and submit this application to SRJC.
About ten minutes later, while checking my email, I had six emails from SRJC. The first was, "Congratulations! You have been accepted at Santa Rosa Junior College." The others were information for new students.
In the course of ten hours, I went from the demise of plan A, and my subsequent confusion and fear, to an entirely new and real plan, Plan B, and renewed confidence about my future. I'm in! I'm enrolled in a radiology program! And the only way they will get rid of me, will be to graduate me!
I have a plan again, and a new and bigger smile!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
A POSITIVE ATTITUDE
My beloved Cousin Liz praised me this morning for my positive attitude about all that's happening now. And I have to say, with millions of people around my age who are losing jobs and careers after doing something their whole lives, it IS comforting to have a plan. Age discrimination is a subplot for all of us in our fifties seeking our next job, while the main plot remains that there are NOT enough jobs out there to put us all back to work.
Yes, it would be easy to let fear of the unknown future creep in. Yet, here I am with my positive attitude. All the stars seem to be aligning for me. I'll have some money in the bank, protected from daily living expenses by unemployment insurance. I have no debts, except for my daily living expenses, my apartment and utilities costs. Summer school is about to begin in June, and all pre-requisite courses should be completed by application time in January for the Kaiser school in Richmond, where I'll pursue Radiology.
And as the end comes nearer at KRON, I'm realizing just how much I've had to gut it up for several years now. I've been hating my present job for 40 months now, since the day I was laid off from my role in engineering, my first love, and told my only option for staying was to become a director of newscasts in the production department.
Now, if you believe in using canaries in your own personal coal mines, then you'll understand what I'm about to say. Our canaries at KRON were the many talented directors who took one look at the new Ross Overdrive, took the buyout money they were offered and ran for the hills. That was the right move.
The Ross Monster, the piece of equipment KRON installed to reduce the number of people they would have to employ in the control room, would someday be the death of me if I let it. There is no way for anyone to do show after show with the Overdrive and not have bad things happen on the air at least once or twice an hour. Now combine that with news management that never had to operate the Ross Monster themselves demanding that all shows be perfect. I would personally have the same errors all the other operators had, but all of my errors would land me in the news director's office, while the same errors by our top directors would be allowed to pass. Eventually, anyone would succumb to that kind of scrutiny, fair or not.
The end came when I was being asked to do more shows, while being on notice that they wanted to start seeing errorless shows within 30 days, which is impossible for any mortal being. And the pressure of that scrutiny was no longer worth it, I didn't love my job enough to risk a third, stress-related heart attack. We had come to an impasse, and they were willing to pay me a little to go away.
I think most of us are willing and able to gut it up and do whatever it is we need to do, and I'm nothing special in that regard. I thought my salary was necessary to live in the Bay Area and enjoy the many friendships I have here. When I was told I was losing my job in engineering, I was glad to have an option that would keep my salary at KRON. Actually, it was a reduction in salary of nine percent, and an increase in gutting-it-up by 800%.
My first days on the 4am morning shift in the production department doing news shows were some of the most depressing days of my life. I knew from the beginning I was out of my element. This wasn't me! But it was routine, doing it over and over, that dulled the pain over time.
Then came the stress, to add to my depression, and lack of sleep and exercise, when I began directing newscasts. Nobody gave me any slack for having never directed a news show in my life. Every error was pointed out, and criticized, critiqued over and over. No points for a good show, only negativity for any errors. No upside, just criticism, and more stress. And a heart attack 15 months into this awful experiment.
In January 2009, I was moved to the evening shift. I was able to get more sleep, but my situation never got any better on my new shift. I just toughed it out, tried to drown out the sadness and depression. When the weekend news changed to new times, I started to fudge the time I would come into work. I hated the place, and would start coming in an hour or two late. When management found out, I thought I was going to lose my job, but instead I received a three-week suspension. It was during this time that I found out just how serious my depression was.
For the first time since my teen years, I actually thought about ending my life. My job was hateful, and I had been dulling myself of my depression and sorrow for over three years. And when I didn't have that job anymore, I had no feeling for anything anymore. Sports, movies, dating, exercise, nothing. I was a zombie.
All the things I thought I enjoyed about my life were now meaningless. I had no hope for anything in the future, no joy in anything present. And the thought of actually going back to work again to direct more newscasts made me think of all the creative ways I could end my life. My favorite was to sell everything I own, cash out my savings, sail on a around-the-world cruise, and somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, dive off the back of the ship, as Rose nearly did in "Titanic".
That seems a century ago. But if you believe things happen for a reason, then having that suspension was an important moment in my life. Once I was back to work, and hating my daily existence there, I found a way to cope. Hope. Hope is that magic that gives us that reason to go on. We die without it.
I started to spend my down time thinking about what would happen if I didn't have to work at KRON anymore. No more newscasts to direct? Oh yeah! Smile! I had some money saved, and I could tap my 401k plan in an emergency. With unemployment insurance, I wouldn't even have to touch my savings for over a year! I started to look seriously at the other career options I thought about for the past five or so years. I knew what courses I had to take first at the College of Marin. I felt that I had it all planned out, except for one thing. I couldn't quit. Unemployment benefits were crucial to the plan, so I was trapped until there were more layoffs, or God knows what.
So I had a plan, but I was still trapped. Depression set in around Christmas time, and then a bad cold hit, followed by bronchitis that wouldn't go away or ever let me sleep. I gained weight, grew more depressed and despondent. I was lethargic, without energy. My health was deteriorating week by week.
That was when the miracle happened! My news director let it be known that I would have to increase my load of stressful newscasts, and I knew that I had hit a physical and emotional wall. I was done, stick a fork in me. Though I had a plan post-KRON, I wasn't thinking about that at all. I just knew I had hit a wall. Just shoot me, I can't do it anymore. I immediately told everyone in management I was finished. I would do anything they asked, just not that.
Once I was told of a potential last day of April 15th, the sun came out from behind the clouds, the angels sang from heaven, and a future beyond KRON was now possible. HOPE burst from everywhere, and became brighter and stronger with each step I made to make these educational plans reality! I'm losing my job and my career, and I can't stop smiling! My life hasn't had this much meaning in decades!
So at this stage, having a positive attitude is easy, and I think, necessary. The educational part of this journey may be the most important challenge of my life. I'm not taking these classes just to pass. I'm taking them to ACE, taking them to excel, and to demonstrate to the schools I apply to for their Radiology programs that I mean business! This is about making the rest of my life mean something, finally! :)
My Cousin Liz inspired me to write this blog today, but not for all that I've written to this point. It's for what follows. Yes, I'm overwhelmed with a positive attitude, and I'm proud of myself for finding and acquiring it. But I'm a little ashamed for the inspiration behind my rabid enthusiasm. What inspires me is how horrible and awful I've been feeling working at KRON. I love engineering, and I loved working for Craig Porter, the Chief Engineer, and I loved working with all the great and wonderful people in Engineering. And the best part of working in the production department has always been the people you work along side with, both in the mornings and in the evenings. The best thing about KRON has always been the people you get to work with.
And still, I was totally and absolutely miserable in the production department for 40 months, and it could have cost me my life, in more ways than one. Now suddenly, I'm feeling free of all that, and a FLOOD of negative emotion I have repressed for years is coming out. I find myself saying negative things about KRON at every turn, and that's just not right.
I'm happy to be inspired to live, finally. But to really claim that I have a positive attitude, I have to let that part of my history go, and leave KRON alone. Some of the greatest people I'll ever know in my life are people that I either used to work with at KRON or that I work with now, and a good many of them thankfully are friends of mine on Facebook. Out of respect for myself, as well as respect for my friends still at KRON, I'll carry forward a more positive attitude about the place where I've spent the last twelve years of my life.
My FB friends tell me there is a life after KRON! Alrighty then! I'm ready to find mine!
Yes, it would be easy to let fear of the unknown future creep in. Yet, here I am with my positive attitude. All the stars seem to be aligning for me. I'll have some money in the bank, protected from daily living expenses by unemployment insurance. I have no debts, except for my daily living expenses, my apartment and utilities costs. Summer school is about to begin in June, and all pre-requisite courses should be completed by application time in January for the Kaiser school in Richmond, where I'll pursue Radiology.
And as the end comes nearer at KRON, I'm realizing just how much I've had to gut it up for several years now. I've been hating my present job for 40 months now, since the day I was laid off from my role in engineering, my first love, and told my only option for staying was to become a director of newscasts in the production department.
Now, if you believe in using canaries in your own personal coal mines, then you'll understand what I'm about to say. Our canaries at KRON were the many talented directors who took one look at the new Ross Overdrive, took the buyout money they were offered and ran for the hills. That was the right move.
The Ross Monster, the piece of equipment KRON installed to reduce the number of people they would have to employ in the control room, would someday be the death of me if I let it. There is no way for anyone to do show after show with the Overdrive and not have bad things happen on the air at least once or twice an hour. Now combine that with news management that never had to operate the Ross Monster themselves demanding that all shows be perfect. I would personally have the same errors all the other operators had, but all of my errors would land me in the news director's office, while the same errors by our top directors would be allowed to pass. Eventually, anyone would succumb to that kind of scrutiny, fair or not.
The end came when I was being asked to do more shows, while being on notice that they wanted to start seeing errorless shows within 30 days, which is impossible for any mortal being. And the pressure of that scrutiny was no longer worth it, I didn't love my job enough to risk a third, stress-related heart attack. We had come to an impasse, and they were willing to pay me a little to go away.
I think most of us are willing and able to gut it up and do whatever it is we need to do, and I'm nothing special in that regard. I thought my salary was necessary to live in the Bay Area and enjoy the many friendships I have here. When I was told I was losing my job in engineering, I was glad to have an option that would keep my salary at KRON. Actually, it was a reduction in salary of nine percent, and an increase in gutting-it-up by 800%.
My first days on the 4am morning shift in the production department doing news shows were some of the most depressing days of my life. I knew from the beginning I was out of my element. This wasn't me! But it was routine, doing it over and over, that dulled the pain over time.
Then came the stress, to add to my depression, and lack of sleep and exercise, when I began directing newscasts. Nobody gave me any slack for having never directed a news show in my life. Every error was pointed out, and criticized, critiqued over and over. No points for a good show, only negativity for any errors. No upside, just criticism, and more stress. And a heart attack 15 months into this awful experiment.
In January 2009, I was moved to the evening shift. I was able to get more sleep, but my situation never got any better on my new shift. I just toughed it out, tried to drown out the sadness and depression. When the weekend news changed to new times, I started to fudge the time I would come into work. I hated the place, and would start coming in an hour or two late. When management found out, I thought I was going to lose my job, but instead I received a three-week suspension. It was during this time that I found out just how serious my depression was.
For the first time since my teen years, I actually thought about ending my life. My job was hateful, and I had been dulling myself of my depression and sorrow for over three years. And when I didn't have that job anymore, I had no feeling for anything anymore. Sports, movies, dating, exercise, nothing. I was a zombie.
All the things I thought I enjoyed about my life were now meaningless. I had no hope for anything in the future, no joy in anything present. And the thought of actually going back to work again to direct more newscasts made me think of all the creative ways I could end my life. My favorite was to sell everything I own, cash out my savings, sail on a around-the-world cruise, and somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, dive off the back of the ship, as Rose nearly did in "Titanic".
That seems a century ago. But if you believe things happen for a reason, then having that suspension was an important moment in my life. Once I was back to work, and hating my daily existence there, I found a way to cope. Hope. Hope is that magic that gives us that reason to go on. We die without it.
I started to spend my down time thinking about what would happen if I didn't have to work at KRON anymore. No more newscasts to direct? Oh yeah! Smile! I had some money saved, and I could tap my 401k plan in an emergency. With unemployment insurance, I wouldn't even have to touch my savings for over a year! I started to look seriously at the other career options I thought about for the past five or so years. I knew what courses I had to take first at the College of Marin. I felt that I had it all planned out, except for one thing. I couldn't quit. Unemployment benefits were crucial to the plan, so I was trapped until there were more layoffs, or God knows what.
So I had a plan, but I was still trapped. Depression set in around Christmas time, and then a bad cold hit, followed by bronchitis that wouldn't go away or ever let me sleep. I gained weight, grew more depressed and despondent. I was lethargic, without energy. My health was deteriorating week by week.
That was when the miracle happened! My news director let it be known that I would have to increase my load of stressful newscasts, and I knew that I had hit a physical and emotional wall. I was done, stick a fork in me. Though I had a plan post-KRON, I wasn't thinking about that at all. I just knew I had hit a wall. Just shoot me, I can't do it anymore. I immediately told everyone in management I was finished. I would do anything they asked, just not that.
Once I was told of a potential last day of April 15th, the sun came out from behind the clouds, the angels sang from heaven, and a future beyond KRON was now possible. HOPE burst from everywhere, and became brighter and stronger with each step I made to make these educational plans reality! I'm losing my job and my career, and I can't stop smiling! My life hasn't had this much meaning in decades!
So at this stage, having a positive attitude is easy, and I think, necessary. The educational part of this journey may be the most important challenge of my life. I'm not taking these classes just to pass. I'm taking them to ACE, taking them to excel, and to demonstrate to the schools I apply to for their Radiology programs that I mean business! This is about making the rest of my life mean something, finally! :)
My Cousin Liz inspired me to write this blog today, but not for all that I've written to this point. It's for what follows. Yes, I'm overwhelmed with a positive attitude, and I'm proud of myself for finding and acquiring it. But I'm a little ashamed for the inspiration behind my rabid enthusiasm. What inspires me is how horrible and awful I've been feeling working at KRON. I love engineering, and I loved working for Craig Porter, the Chief Engineer, and I loved working with all the great and wonderful people in Engineering. And the best part of working in the production department has always been the people you work along side with, both in the mornings and in the evenings. The best thing about KRON has always been the people you get to work with.
And still, I was totally and absolutely miserable in the production department for 40 months, and it could have cost me my life, in more ways than one. Now suddenly, I'm feeling free of all that, and a FLOOD of negative emotion I have repressed for years is coming out. I find myself saying negative things about KRON at every turn, and that's just not right.
I'm happy to be inspired to live, finally. But to really claim that I have a positive attitude, I have to let that part of my history go, and leave KRON alone. Some of the greatest people I'll ever know in my life are people that I either used to work with at KRON or that I work with now, and a good many of them thankfully are friends of mine on Facebook. Out of respect for myself, as well as respect for my friends still at KRON, I'll carry forward a more positive attitude about the place where I've spent the last twelve years of my life.
My FB friends tell me there is a life after KRON! Alrighty then! I'm ready to find mine!
Friday, April 2, 2010
KAISER ORIENTATION #3
My friends in healthcare, and that's a lot of people it turns out, have been telling me for years now that a good career for me would be as an Ultrasound Technician, also known as Diagnostic Medical Sonography. I've actually talked to sonographers about their jobs, including those who worked on me following my last attack two years ago, and it just may be my next career if I can cross the hurdle of a year of tough classes at the College of Marin.
Thursday, I went to Richmond. Kaiser Permanente Allied School of Healthcare has an orientation every couple of weeks, and this was my third visit. It's a little hard to find, and today as usual, I was having a fight with my car's GPS. Turn here? No, here? What? That was the street? Oh, you meant, turn there?? The blue line to follow on my GPS map always ends up looking like a Rold Gold pretzel. I always give myself an extra half hour each time so I can explore new and different neighborhoods in Richmond. Who needs Hawaii when there are so many wonderful places to see here? *@!!
You must be approved by the staff to enter their program. So, besides doing everything they ask, like get good grades and volunteer at hospitals, I'm also making sure they know who I am, how much I want this, and how hard I'm working for this.
Maybe I should hire a campaign manager?
Thursday, I went to Richmond. Kaiser Permanente Allied School of Healthcare has an orientation every couple of weeks, and this was my third visit. It's a little hard to find, and today as usual, I was having a fight with my car's GPS. Turn here? No, here? What? That was the street? Oh, you meant, turn there?? The blue line to follow on my GPS map always ends up looking like a Rold Gold pretzel. I always give myself an extra half hour each time so I can explore new and different neighborhoods in Richmond. Who needs Hawaii when there are so many wonderful places to see here? *@!!
You must be approved by the staff to enter their program. So, besides doing everything they ask, like get good grades and volunteer at hospitals, I'm also making sure they know who I am, how much I want this, and how hard I'm working for this.
Maybe I should hire a campaign manager?
THINGS CHANGE
Yesterday was April first. But it's no joke. I have two weeks until my job ends. My work in television, I direct newscasts. I never wanted to direct newscasts, but sometimes life throws you curve balls. At Christmastime, 2006, I was struck by a curve ball, and it's been all downhill since. How did I get here??
I am a child of the sixties, and I loved my television. The TV Guide would be in the mailbox on Wednesdays, and by Saturday, I could tell you when The Addams Family or Gilligan's Island would come on, and on what channel! So choosing a career in television was a natural, it's what I knew best.
I'm far more outgoing today than when I was going to college, but then as now, I never wanted to be on the air. The behind the scenes stuff is what excited me. And it was exciting! Live television was thrilling, and I liked being friends with famous people, even if newscasters were only local celebs.
I worked for nothing for most years in the beginning, and it went like this. The beginning for me was a local cable company in Tacoma, where I made $4 an hour for about 18 months. My first television station was in the deserts of eastern Washington State, Kennewick to be exact, also for $4 an hour in 1983. Later that year, a promotion to Reno, Nevada, and at least a place someone's heard of, for $5.25 an hour. Eight months later, I was off to Chico, California for $6.50 an hour.
Chico was where I discovered my limits. I was a technical director, the guy pushing buttons during a live show that determines what you see at home. The pressure turned me into a raving lunatic in just a few months. I was mercifully fired after fourteen of them. The lessons were learned. I'm not a technical director OR a director for that matter. Never again, I thought, but I was wrong.
Monterey was the greatest place I've ever lived, truly a paradise, unless you're poor like I was. I returned to my favorite job in television, master control. Your friendly Master Control Operator is the guy who does all the things that allow you to see your favorite programs when you look for them, and the guy to blame for all the commercials you don't want to see. But to live in Monterey meant having second jobs for all the ten plus years I lived there. Driving an overnight delivery truck, working the overnight shift at your Pacific Grove 7-Eleven, delivering pizzas for Dominos for 30 days in relentless driving rain, selling men's clothes at Mervyn's. Still, I was always poor in Monterey.
For a while, I even lived in my truck, parked under the station's satellite dish farm. That is, until the day the General Manager came up to me and personally asked me to find another place to live. That wasn't too embarrassing at all.
Near the end of my time in Monterey, they made me a technical director, and after four months, I was flat on my seized-up back and immobile for weeks, while sick with a horrible flu. Stress again. They let me stop being a TD, and I went back to master control where I belonged. My health came back. Then came April 24, 1996, and more change.
Out of the many hundreds of desperate resumes I sent everywhere during those over-worked years on the California Central Coast, a station across the country in New Haven, Connecticut, dusted off a year-old version they had lying around and offered me a job. Suddenly I'm making $45,000 a year, and I can begin to breathe a little. No more part time jobs for awhile.
The New Haven job had a price tag. For two years I would work the overnight shift. On a 10pm, off at 7am, with a little 30 minute lunch period at the rousing time of 2:30am each morning. Not a time to risk leaving the barbed-wire enclosed parking lot looking for something to be open for, uh, what? Dinner? Breakfast? What is a meal called at 2:30am?
After two years of that, I had my first heart attack. On the fourth of July, no less. 1998.
While I was away from work rehabbing at the Middletown Hospital, I got the call that I thought would forever change my life. And I guess, in many ways it did, good and bad. The number one station in San Francisco, the NBC affiliate KRON4 came calling! On September 8, 1998, I began working in the master control job I thought they would have to take out of my cold dead hands. My salary almost doubled!!
Dreams don't last, do they? If you don't like the way things are, just hang in there, things will change. If you like things the way they are, start worrying, things will change. The only constant in life is things change.
On December 6, 1999, things changed. After 50 years of ownership, the San Francisco Chronicle decides to put all assets up for sale, including KRON4. From that day forward, some ten-plus years, there would be no such thing as job security for anyone at KRON4.
Young Broadcasting stole the station from the desirous hands of NBC, and was NBC pissed off! KGO then bought KNTV San Jose's ABC affiliation from them, and shortly after, NBC took their ball away and, not going home with it, instead gave it to KNTV, the new home of the Bay Area's NBC. In July 2001, BayTV, our little cable channel 35 experiment morphed into the Food Network. And also disappearing into that good night did our NBC affiliation at the end of the year. That image we all have of the Twin Towers in flames with billows of smoke pouring out on 9/11, was actually a metaphor for KRON4 and it's future.
The Bay Area's News Station, the home of Dr. Phil, hyper, hyper, hyper, local, local, local! Yada yada yada...
Try, bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy.
Every year since 2001, hundreds of good, talented people left KRON4, either by layoffs, or by choice. Do you know that after 12 years, I am STILL the last person hired in Engineering there??? My lack of seniority always made me vulnerable, but always, as the ax was poised above my neck, somebody would leave voluntarily, or change departments. My luck would finally run out.
On December 24, 2006, I was downsized from Engineering at KRON4. The job they were going to have to yank from my cold dead hands simply vanished into the mist.
Things change.
In a cruel irony, the only way that I could stay at KRON was to assume the position I had learned to revile. DIRECTOR. Gulp.
That should have been my cue to leave, and many long-time, talented directors did just that, took a buyout and left. But I was buried in debt, making car payments for the Highlander I loved so much. And I was afraid I might have to leave the Bay Area and the friends I made here that I love so much. So, I sucked it up, and taught myself over time how to operate their horrible little monster called the Ross Overdrive, the tool directors at KRON must use to produce a newscast you see at home. I didn't sleep much, and I tried to live with the incredible stress level I owe so much to the Ross monster.
After fifteen months of operating the Ross Overdrive, I had a major heart attack. Doctors tell me it was a combination of my family history, and stress.
I had a beautiful $13,000 helicopter ride over Lake Tahoe on the way to the hospital while waiting for seven hours for people to get their s--t together, things like, a bed, in what hospital, waiting for which cardiologist to take my case. All the while I was not able to breathe, and had the worst pain in my chest I could ever imagine. Finest healthcare system in the world? Then we're in trouble baby! And I have a damaged heart to show for it.
After a few months of rehab, and a slow return to work, by December 2008 I was back working with the Ross monster again! Oh, the things we do to not have to sleep on the street and keep our bellies full!
What made it manageable for me was that KRON was not asking for too much of me, just a couple of friendly weekend shows each week. And for a year, I actually dealt with it okay, or so I thought. But then came a cold, then a flu, then an endless bout of bronchitis that would not go away. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't relax, and I could not hate operating the Ross Overdrive more.
Ahhhh, sweet blessed change!
Last month, I was told we would all now direct the weekday shows! Yes, all of us. All those manic, crazy, changing live shows we do from 4 to 7p, would now be part of my weekly life. Every week!
You really have to love moments like these! When things get so ridiculous, so absurd, so overwhelming that you feel yourself give in to smiling, to laughter. To resignation.
I knew at that instant, the insanity was over. I could relax now. The Ross monster was dead. And so was my job.
We have a union. It's called IBEW. But it's really just crap. You pay your dues, they negotiate away your benefits at every contract renewal time, then you pay more dues. I finally told my doctor what's been going on for the last three years, and before I was done, he had a letter written that I was NOT to operate the Ross Overdrive again. The company then tells you that you must operate the Overdrive anyway, and you tell them, but I have this letter from my doctor! And the union says, "Do what they tell you to do." My union rep at the station is angry with me! He wants me to save my job, "Do it anyway! Forget the doctor!"
My kingdom for a voice of sanity. Ignore the doctor. Yeah, right.
So, here we are. The Gods of KRON want me to take my little disability and go away. They gave me a little severance and a tentative final day of April 15th. And in doing so, because they couldn't deal with someone not operating the Ross Insanity machine, KRON probably saved my life! And now I'm free to pursue another career and another life.
My television career. Born June 30, 1981 at Cable TV Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington. Death comes at 11:28pm, April 14, 2010.
This blog will be about me trying to recapture my health, and my sanity, and a new life with a new profession.
I am a child of the sixties, and I loved my television. The TV Guide would be in the mailbox on Wednesdays, and by Saturday, I could tell you when The Addams Family or Gilligan's Island would come on, and on what channel! So choosing a career in television was a natural, it's what I knew best.
I'm far more outgoing today than when I was going to college, but then as now, I never wanted to be on the air. The behind the scenes stuff is what excited me. And it was exciting! Live television was thrilling, and I liked being friends with famous people, even if newscasters were only local celebs.
I worked for nothing for most years in the beginning, and it went like this. The beginning for me was a local cable company in Tacoma, where I made $4 an hour for about 18 months. My first television station was in the deserts of eastern Washington State, Kennewick to be exact, also for $4 an hour in 1983. Later that year, a promotion to Reno, Nevada, and at least a place someone's heard of, for $5.25 an hour. Eight months later, I was off to Chico, California for $6.50 an hour.
Chico was where I discovered my limits. I was a technical director, the guy pushing buttons during a live show that determines what you see at home. The pressure turned me into a raving lunatic in just a few months. I was mercifully fired after fourteen of them. The lessons were learned. I'm not a technical director OR a director for that matter. Never again, I thought, but I was wrong.
Monterey was the greatest place I've ever lived, truly a paradise, unless you're poor like I was. I returned to my favorite job in television, master control. Your friendly Master Control Operator is the guy who does all the things that allow you to see your favorite programs when you look for them, and the guy to blame for all the commercials you don't want to see. But to live in Monterey meant having second jobs for all the ten plus years I lived there. Driving an overnight delivery truck, working the overnight shift at your Pacific Grove 7-Eleven, delivering pizzas for Dominos for 30 days in relentless driving rain, selling men's clothes at Mervyn's. Still, I was always poor in Monterey.
For a while, I even lived in my truck, parked under the station's satellite dish farm. That is, until the day the General Manager came up to me and personally asked me to find another place to live. That wasn't too embarrassing at all.
Near the end of my time in Monterey, they made me a technical director, and after four months, I was flat on my seized-up back and immobile for weeks, while sick with a horrible flu. Stress again. They let me stop being a TD, and I went back to master control where I belonged. My health came back. Then came April 24, 1996, and more change.
Out of the many hundreds of desperate resumes I sent everywhere during those over-worked years on the California Central Coast, a station across the country in New Haven, Connecticut, dusted off a year-old version they had lying around and offered me a job. Suddenly I'm making $45,000 a year, and I can begin to breathe a little. No more part time jobs for awhile.
The New Haven job had a price tag. For two years I would work the overnight shift. On a 10pm, off at 7am, with a little 30 minute lunch period at the rousing time of 2:30am each morning. Not a time to risk leaving the barbed-wire enclosed parking lot looking for something to be open for, uh, what? Dinner? Breakfast? What is a meal called at 2:30am?
After two years of that, I had my first heart attack. On the fourth of July, no less. 1998.
While I was away from work rehabbing at the Middletown Hospital, I got the call that I thought would forever change my life. And I guess, in many ways it did, good and bad. The number one station in San Francisco, the NBC affiliate KRON4 came calling! On September 8, 1998, I began working in the master control job I thought they would have to take out of my cold dead hands. My salary almost doubled!!
Dreams don't last, do they? If you don't like the way things are, just hang in there, things will change. If you like things the way they are, start worrying, things will change. The only constant in life is things change.
On December 6, 1999, things changed. After 50 years of ownership, the San Francisco Chronicle decides to put all assets up for sale, including KRON4. From that day forward, some ten-plus years, there would be no such thing as job security for anyone at KRON4.
Young Broadcasting stole the station from the desirous hands of NBC, and was NBC pissed off! KGO then bought KNTV San Jose's ABC affiliation from them, and shortly after, NBC took their ball away and, not going home with it, instead gave it to KNTV, the new home of the Bay Area's NBC. In July 2001, BayTV, our little cable channel 35 experiment morphed into the Food Network. And also disappearing into that good night did our NBC affiliation at the end of the year. That image we all have of the Twin Towers in flames with billows of smoke pouring out on 9/11, was actually a metaphor for KRON4 and it's future.
The Bay Area's News Station, the home of Dr. Phil, hyper, hyper, hyper, local, local, local! Yada yada yada...
Try, bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy.
Every year since 2001, hundreds of good, talented people left KRON4, either by layoffs, or by choice. Do you know that after 12 years, I am STILL the last person hired in Engineering there??? My lack of seniority always made me vulnerable, but always, as the ax was poised above my neck, somebody would leave voluntarily, or change departments. My luck would finally run out.
On December 24, 2006, I was downsized from Engineering at KRON4. The job they were going to have to yank from my cold dead hands simply vanished into the mist.
Things change.
In a cruel irony, the only way that I could stay at KRON was to assume the position I had learned to revile. DIRECTOR. Gulp.
That should have been my cue to leave, and many long-time, talented directors did just that, took a buyout and left. But I was buried in debt, making car payments for the Highlander I loved so much. And I was afraid I might have to leave the Bay Area and the friends I made here that I love so much. So, I sucked it up, and taught myself over time how to operate their horrible little monster called the Ross Overdrive, the tool directors at KRON must use to produce a newscast you see at home. I didn't sleep much, and I tried to live with the incredible stress level I owe so much to the Ross monster.
After fifteen months of operating the Ross Overdrive, I had a major heart attack. Doctors tell me it was a combination of my family history, and stress.
I had a beautiful $13,000 helicopter ride over Lake Tahoe on the way to the hospital while waiting for seven hours for people to get their s--t together, things like, a bed, in what hospital, waiting for which cardiologist to take my case. All the while I was not able to breathe, and had the worst pain in my chest I could ever imagine. Finest healthcare system in the world? Then we're in trouble baby! And I have a damaged heart to show for it.
After a few months of rehab, and a slow return to work, by December 2008 I was back working with the Ross monster again! Oh, the things we do to not have to sleep on the street and keep our bellies full!
What made it manageable for me was that KRON was not asking for too much of me, just a couple of friendly weekend shows each week. And for a year, I actually dealt with it okay, or so I thought. But then came a cold, then a flu, then an endless bout of bronchitis that would not go away. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't relax, and I could not hate operating the Ross Overdrive more.
Ahhhh, sweet blessed change!
Last month, I was told we would all now direct the weekday shows! Yes, all of us. All those manic, crazy, changing live shows we do from 4 to 7p, would now be part of my weekly life. Every week!
You really have to love moments like these! When things get so ridiculous, so absurd, so overwhelming that you feel yourself give in to smiling, to laughter. To resignation.
I knew at that instant, the insanity was over. I could relax now. The Ross monster was dead. And so was my job.
We have a union. It's called IBEW. But it's really just crap. You pay your dues, they negotiate away your benefits at every contract renewal time, then you pay more dues. I finally told my doctor what's been going on for the last three years, and before I was done, he had a letter written that I was NOT to operate the Ross Overdrive again. The company then tells you that you must operate the Overdrive anyway, and you tell them, but I have this letter from my doctor! And the union says, "Do what they tell you to do." My union rep at the station is angry with me! He wants me to save my job, "Do it anyway! Forget the doctor!"
My kingdom for a voice of sanity. Ignore the doctor. Yeah, right.
So, here we are. The Gods of KRON want me to take my little disability and go away. They gave me a little severance and a tentative final day of April 15th. And in doing so, because they couldn't deal with someone not operating the Ross Insanity machine, KRON probably saved my life! And now I'm free to pursue another career and another life.
My television career. Born June 30, 1981 at Cable TV Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington. Death comes at 11:28pm, April 14, 2010.
This blog will be about me trying to recapture my health, and my sanity, and a new life with a new profession.
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