[BC] Ignoring Station Procedures. "I Know Better"

[Rich Wood]

------ At 03:49 PM 8/20/2006, Dave Dunsmoor wrote: -------

>I'm all for people doing their job correctly, but there's more than one way
>to skin a cat, and sending them packing as the first line of 
>instruction won't do it.

I can imagine the reaction if a design engineer designed an array and 
assigned another engineer to construct it. The second engineer 
decides to change some of the design because he thinks he knows 
better or was too lazy to do it the way it was designed. I wonder how 
the original design engineer would respond. There's more than one way 
to skin a cat. The design engineer should be very happy when told his 
design was stupid. I'm sure the construction engineer modified the 
drawings so everyone would know what changes he made. I'm sure the 
FCC would agree that the changes the construction engineer made were 
much better than the ones they approved.

>In any case, there's more to this story, and it's completely irrelevent as
>the case has been closed now probably for decades perhaps.

If you know the additional information you should have provided it. 
If the case was closed decades ago why was it brought up as a grand 
example of how to follow station procedures? This must have been a 
small station. I can't picture something like that happening at ABC 
or at WOR. I'm picturing the reaction the WOR Sales Manager, General 
Manager and Owner would have to anyone refusing to follow a 
production order, particularly when it could foul up commercial 
scheduling, billing, affidavits and the salesperson's relationship 
with the client or agency. At WOR, in the days of carts, all spots 
were on individual carts and were scheduled by number.That allowed us 
to schedule a specific spot, bill for a specific spot and provide 
affidavits that included specific spots. No guessing about which 
spots ran. All of this was backed up with logger tapes if a client 
questioned anything.

An announcer who thought he knew better and didn't record a spot that 
was scheduled would cause a makegood (lost inventory) if the daypart 
was sold out. Many of those spots would also run on the network where 
there's no room for makegoods. Lost network money. In New York that 
could be a lot of money. In a smaller market it would be less in 
dollars but just as important to the bottom line. I realize the 
general consensus is that all salespeople are stupid. However, since 
paychecks seem to arrive regularly I have to assume there must be a 
few bright ones out there. I've met lots of them but, as a 
programmer, I'm also a member of a group considered far less 
brilliant than engineers, so I can empathize with sales.

>I don't know Gary, but in reading his posts over the years, it doesn't
>appear to me that he's a flake that needed to be fired for 
>implementing a pragmatic solution to a stupid
>decision handed over to him.

Since it would have taken a matter of minutes to record the two 
additional spots it doesn't strike me as a pragmatic solution. Record 
the 7 and let others who are paid to do it worry about rotation. 
That's the pragmatic solution. I think it's generally called doing your job.

>And that's what I think of this non-existant problem.

And a fascinating one it was. Watching people justify laziness on the 
job is always an interesting way to pass a few minutes on a quiet 
Sunday. Even he admitted the reason was laziness more than a better 
way to skin cats.

Rich


Rich Wood
Rich Wood Multimedia
Phone: 413-454-3258