[BC] Re: Just for fun - a little serious too.

[Alan Peterson]

Managers and owners I've worked with over the years have traded zingers with me on many occasions,on many topics. But the first guy I worked for hit me with two that I was - at the time - unable to fire off any kind of comebacks. The station was in upstate NY, built inside two double-wide mobile homes shoved together with a connecting tunnel, and looked like a large upper-case "H" when viewed from the air.

First had to do with cassettes. I had suggested we obtain a cassette deck for the production room to bring demos and spec-spots to our clients, and to dub PSAs and weekend shows that had started to arrive in this format. This was in 1981. He refused, as "cassettes were still in the developmental stage and not ready for general use yet." Never mind the CD was just 2 years away from a world rollout.

The second had to do with his decision in 1983 to gut the control room to change out the main console from a transistorized Gatesway 80 to a much older tube-based model he bought used. The reason? "Tubes have about 70 years of service behind them. Transistors have - what? - maybe 15? I'm going with the experience."  Yeah, and the hum, the heat, the distortion...

I have not often been left speechless by a manager's suggestion of how to proceed and what to buy or not to buy. But this was early on in my career and I wasn't ready to deal with plain old stubbornness. This guy remains the champ today.

-ap