Home Microwave Repair...

I am an incredibly impatient person.

I am, as we 'speak', typing furiously so a crazy person who looks like an einstein on crack will stop talking at me about repairing his ancient microwave
at home
by himeself

with an only $28 part....

Oh good he left.  That took FOREVER!!

For the record, can't you buy a whole microwave for about $28 or so these days and not have to spend any time fixing an old one, and in the case of this guy, most likely putting it back together in a way that is going to cause radiation poisoning or blow up his kitchen or something?

This is the JOY that is my job.

Earlier today a 3 year old walked into my office, calling me Alisha repeatedly (which is not even close to my name), and demanding candy.  DEMANDING.

I, for the record, do not have children and am, in general, terrified of them.  They're like small drunks who are also sticky, smell funny, and are likely to accidentally kick you in the uterus (I got kicked there a lot when I taught children to swim at my first job).

I don't happen to have any candy, at the moment.

So said 3 year old, still unattended by any adult as far as I can see, sat on my floor and started fake crying and screaming at me about how he was really depressed and might die from the shock of arriving in my office without finding the expected candy.

TWENTY SEVEN minutes later his grandfather came in and thanked me for watching him.  As if I'd agreed to do it.  And his grandfather isn't even a crazy public access producer, he's my coworker.

I just get ALL of the luck.

All of it.

UPDATE:  crackhead Einstein is back!!!  And demanding that I explain to him exactly why sometimes there is a dud dvd in a spindle.  And basically insinuating that I'm just a big fat liar and that this doesn't REALLY happen, but I just TELL him some of his dvd's are bad dvd's.
To censor him.

Because that's me, you know.  I've been informed several times since working here that I am "the man" and am hiding the truth and making things difficult and discriminating against older, privilaged, retired white men for one reason or another.

I swear there is no amount of typing or quite the right combination of concentration facial expression elements I can muster into one face that will make this guy stop talking.

Maybe I'll pretend to answer the phone....

I told him it was on vibrate (my desk phone, not a cell phone) one time and he believed me...



UPDATE:
Picking up the phone and talking to the dial tone did not help.  Crackhead Einstein just talked louder and included a lot of gestures, like the thought he was signing to me, but not even remotely close to sign language.

I'm going to just pretend I have to pee now. 
And then hide in there for a long time.

I never get to say the fun stuff.

Sometimes I feel like I really AM the man, and am, in fact, trying to keep everyone down.

I never get to say the fun stuff!!

It's always "no, you may not bring your horse into the studio, even if he is an anthropomorphized recurring character on your show."

or "I'm sorry, but checking out all of our available HD cameras over the weekend to set them up at various points in your backyard to film a time lapse of the sun continuously for 3 days just isn't going to work out."

"No, you are not allowed to take the camera to Korea for 3 weeks."

"Yes, we would have noticed if this camera was shattered and filled with sand when you checked it out, we therefore CAN in fact be serious, and you are financially responsible for the damages."

It's a lot more "no" than "yes." Although all of it seems to get equally incredulous responses on the part of the producers.

It's no wonder I can't take a vacation! If I had to deal with these crazy people all day every day for a week I'd.... oh wait.... (facepalm) I've been doing it for the last 6 years!! Well when a small staff gets used to someone like me acting as buffer for the crazy for 6 years, it gets harder and harder for that buffer to take her dream "Biggest Loser Staycation" and spend a week dieting and spending 5 hours a day at the gym in lead up to the season finale. Life just isn't fair!!

I asked for the necessary week off a whole month in advance. I did not use the usual staff method of leaving, and then leaving a voicemail that I wont be back for said number of weeks. I wanted people to be prepared!

"But who will do the programming and deal with the producers for a whole week?" Asked my boss, all in a kerfuffle over it. That's right, the boss who takes a 3 week Buddhist retreat every June in the mountains of Colorado every June and is "unreachable" throughout. (And extremely angry when you get in touch with him over the phone while he's there anyway and than hangs up on you and leaves you stranded on the other side of the country). The boss who still manages to take at least 2 other weeks off during the year for various music festivals, and suffers from an undiagnosable 'illness' that keeps him out for another 3-5.

But me? The lowest paid member of staff (because I am, after all, a 'woman,' and 'young'), a WHOLE week? In a row? Impossible.

"But you said I have to take 150 hours of vacation this year, and I've only managed 25, and June is next month. You said I can't cash it in or keep it."

"Well, why can't you just take a bunch of half days between now and then?"

And yes, he was serious.

So I did what any logical person would do. I suddenly had vacation plans and the tickets were already purchased! Oh darn... And, why yes, I did already go behind your back and find people to cover for a lot of what I do before you had a chance to say they were too busy.

You're welcome.

You Can't Argue with Crazy

I've heard it a million times, and even though I know better, sometimes I can't help myself! It never fails that the most frustrating days at work are the days that I argue with crazy... and in this place there is no shortage of crazy!

For example, a few months back, the famous "Duck Lady" was in the ready set down the hall to film a new episode. She had already received all of the on demand on the instant staff assistance to set up the equipment to begin filming for about the 5,437th time since I started working here. In the first 30 minutes after that she came to my office to demand answers to questions she's asked before or other immediate action on my part at least 8 times. I couldn't get anything done!!

After she came back for the 9th time, asking that I please give her the air times for a show she'd turned in a day or two previously (which would normally take AT LEAST one week to process), I said sure, I can have it done by the end of the day.

15 minutes later she came by asking if I'd done it yet. Does "by the end of the day" usually mean in 15 minutes when said at 11 in the morning?

15 minutes later she came by again asking if I'd done it yet. (No, that is not a typo, she is that impatient.) So I explained again that the end of the day means the END of the day, not right away, and then fled out of the building on the pretense of eating lunch.

When I came back from lunch I crept quietly the long way around the building to my office, so as not to be seen and asked why I hadn't done as she asked yet despite being out of the building since the last time she asked (inevitable). When I snuck in I quickly shut the door behind me and e-mailed all of my coworkers to let them know I was in my office, but hiding with the door locked because I can't get anything accomplished with her walking in every 10 to 15 minutes.

Within 5 minutes I hear her wandering around the building, calling my name, asking every person she sees if they have seen me. This becomes CONSTANT. The person with the office next to mine flees the building, I hear her stomping up and down the stairs repeatedly yelling for me and loudly asking the people upstairs where I am and insisting that I was supposed to help her with something right away.... So they give up, in no time my boss is down knocking on my door and letting her know, out loud, that I was hiding in there. It had only been about half an hour.

Gee thanks, guys.

So I get annoyed and it makes me brave. I get honest and tell her I was forced to hide behind a locked door because whenever she's in the building she demands entirely too much of my time and I can't get anything done. I explain that when I said I'd do it by the end of the day I MEANT the end of the day, which means 5. I also explain that she should be grateful that I'm agreeing to do it that day AT ALL as it was at least 5 days early and was a FAVOR and that I am not especially inclined to do favors for people when they are rude and demanding of them.

So she flips out, insists that her show is too popular to be held to our general rules, etc. And I disagreed with her. In other words: I argued with crazy.

The day quickly became impossible.

Any time she heard me talking to someone else in my office she stormed down the hall, into my office, interrupted the conversation and demanded to know,

"Is this a business meeting? Because it sounds like socializing."

The first was during what was obviously a work related conversation with a coworker about an upcoming production. I explained to her that not only was it a business meeting, but also that it was none of her business what I was talking about or who with, that whatever happens in my office is none of her concern, and that working the type of production we are trying to figure out is what pays for me, the channels, everything she is able to use.

She doesn't get it, obviously. All she knows is that she's not getting what she wants exactly when she wants it, so there's more flipping out. You also can't rationalize with crazy, obviously.

What was I thinking?

The whole rest of the afternoon goes this way, with much screaming and crying, until she finally leaves the building around 3:30. Literally every time I was about to do what she asked me to she stormed into my office being rude and demanding it, even after I explained again and again that it was a favor. She kept insisting that I could have taken whatever time I spent "socializing" with other people doing what she asked, I kept insisting I'd never get to it if she took up 20 minutes of every 40 arguing with me about it (which of course had absolutely no effect on her, again - arguing with crazy)....

So once she leaves I can finally get some work done, and get to what she asked me to do about 4 (an hour before the end of the day, thank you). I call and leave her a voicemail with all the information she asked for (she doesn't have a phone of her own, as those will poison her with microwaves, only a voicemail box) and move on.

The next morning I have a lovely voicemail back thanking me for all that I do, and telling me I'm so helpful, and she's so grateful, and sometimes we "friends" just have to have these moments and it's all just part of life... Meanwhile my boss' take on the situation is that I should have just done what she wanted when she wanted it so we all didn't have to hear her all day...

OF COURSE! Because his noodliness knows that if I did that for all of our difficult producers things would just turn out dandy and quiet, right? But can I really be frustrated with them in this situation? They are just acting as they always act. The center of the universe and the avoider of all unpleasant conversation.

I was the one that tried to make them behave like logical grown ups. I had to rock the boat and argue with their crazy....

Obviously my fault.

Adventures in TV Land

Okay, I'm officially neglecting this blog.

Stuff happens at the tv station every day, I'm just generally so caught up in the moment that I forget to look back on the situation and laugh. And what good is working without laughing at my job? No fun in that.

I've mentioned before that our station features several weekly series, that play on the same days at the same times; just like real tv... only of a public access persuasion. Every six months we have what is called "series renewal". This is the time when I look over our current series and see if producers have met their minimum requirements to maintain a series spot, find out if anyone would like to change the times for their series, and encourage people to begin new series.

Most of our series have been on the channel for several years, and have gone through this every 6 months all along. It still never fails that only a small percentage of our producers manage to 1)know what's going on when they get a letter from me; 2) manage to respond to it in a timely manner 3) dont need any further assistance.

I think the letter I send out is pretty straight forward, it states why I'm sending a letter, covers what the minimum requirements for a series are, and then tells them whether or not they have met them. I give directions on what to do if they would like to continue their series both if they have met the requirements and if they have not. I include all necessary forms in the envelope. I include a deadline.

In the past I'll give people a couple of weeks to bring back the forms, hoping to keep things convenient... I averaged about one fifth of forms returned by the deadline, and about a quarter to a third of them turned in before I started calling and asking people to fill out the forms.

About half of the producers also give back my letter with the forms. I have no explanation for why people think this is logical. When responding to mail do you generally include the original message with your response? I would think this would make having a pen pal rather taxing as far as postage goes.... but when people get mail from me, some of them like to return it.

I then spend about two months getting the rest of the producers to fill out the paper work. Technically I can just stop running their series, but who does that help? so I cal and call and call and call and eventually they respond and act as if it's all news to them, why have I started this new policy?

So this time I tried a new tactic: send them the letter, but only give them a few days for the deadline. That way they have no room for procrastination! It did work better, I got a much better return rate than on any previous series renewal. It's only a week and 3 days since the deadline and I have about half of the forms! A whole 50%! Too bad that's still an F. Maybe I can grade myself on a curve...

Ramblings....

Okay, I've been neglecting the blog.

My job is really quite exasperating, in a comical sort of way, on a nearly daily basis... the exasperating part just sometimes makes it hard to decide what, if anything, is noteworthy enough to write down here...

Like hearing "what would I do without you?". Sometimes I really appreciate it when this phrase leaks from some one's mouth. They genuinely needed help, they came to me with patience and a determination to learn how to do better in the future or stay on track, and are really happy to have received the necessary help. Or they just want to thank me for what I do.

Unfortunately, that's not usually the case. Usually it's the result of someone being too lazy to do something by themselves, someone knowing they dont follow the rules and trying to make me feel better about trying to bend them to what's possible, or a variety creepy old guys being inappropriate.

Okay, it's not fair to leave out the people who are being funny about me unlocking a door or pointing out that they're trying to operate a microphone with no batteries... those are quite amusing.


Or, my personal favorite, "it worked on my stuff at home!". They look so offended, they take it so PERSONALLY. Lets face it, we're a non profit, we dont have the fanciest DVD players or VCRs to encode peoples content onto our server.
And seriously, how do they think that's going to help? If i say the tape or dvd wont play correctly on our equipment, it wont play correctly on our equipment. I need a new one to air your show. What do they think I'm going to say?

"oh that's fabulous, I was just lying to you."
"oh I must be mistaken, those squiggly lines / frozen screen / pixelation / static / lack of audio are on PURPOSE, cause it plays on your equipment at home so it MUST be the same on ours."
"well I'll play it again, and it will magically work this time now that I know you think nothing's wrong with it."


I have the delightful experience of people thinking I'm going to do things for them at a moments notice. If you ask for some dates when a production is possible, and I give them to you, that doesn't mean show up on that day and expect a production. You have to CONFIRM these things people!!

I'm pretty sure that's going to happen to me again tomorrow morning.



Now this one's always funny: "oh the duck lady!" I think she's our most recognizable producer. She's a very nice lady who's a true environmentalist and advocate for our earth and all of its creatures, first of all. BUT, she's really hard to deal with. She tries to get us to do as much of the work as possible rather than retaining the knowledge to operate our equipment... she brought in a lady who is infested with tiny spiders without thinking about how they may spread to the building and / or staff... or even warning us beforehand. She has a pet duck, which looks very cute when it rides on her bicycle, but it's not so cute when she sneaks it into the building where it poops, and then she doesn't clean up after it. She demands entirely too much staff time in general, including marching into staff meetings or conversations with other producers demanding our immediate assistance or attention. A lot of her tapes are old and have been recorded over too many times and look TERRIBLE going out over the air. She tends to turn in about a hundred of them at a time and then get frustrated when I get confused... when something goes wrong with her show she thinks we are censoring her...

But when I talk about public access to people who dont know about it... they know about the duck lady!

some people hate her show... some of the episodes can be pretty graphic... but we get just as many people calling in to thank us for the information.

It's a show and a producer in the true spirit of public access television.



Maybe I'm just missing the boat. I like the people who come in and learn, get excited, need a little help with equipment trouble shooting or policies they're confused about along the way, but stay motivated, make their shows, chat and check in, and are generally pleasant to deal with. I'll trade the einsteins, duck ladies, loud whistlers, self-inflicted technotards, and older men with poor boundaries for a few more of those instead. Please.

The Woman Who Knew Too Little...

Caller: "The parent of a child who was once in a play I put on several years ago said they saw her on tv sometime within the last several weeks; can you tell me if a video of my play aired on your station?"

It seems like a simple question. If i worked at a commercial tv station I'm sure it would have been, but I dont, and it wasn't.

L: "We are a public access station; we do not produce anything you see on that station, nor do we assign producers to film certain things or pay the people who put them on. People make their own tv shows at their own discretion and we provide them with an outlet to share them with you and the rest of the community. If you can tell me the day and approximate time it aired I can try and tell you if any of the titles sound like your play, but people can title the shows however they please and it may not help."

Seems simple right? I think I was being as helpful as I could be given the amount of information I had, and expected a polite response... or often a surprised one, most people dont know about public access....

Caller: "Well I dont know when it played; sometime in the last week, or two weeks, or three or even four weeks. Oh and I'm not actually sure it played on your station, it could have been any station in the channel number vicinity of yours, and I'm not even totally sure it played on tv. I just ran into the parents of a child who used to be in a play I once put on who said they saw her on tv in costume."

Her tone is increasingly annoyed. No polite responses from this woman. At least she's not demanding to know why "The View" didn't come on at it's normal time on whatever station it happens to air on and insisting i must know and having very hurt feelings about my refusal to tell her (oh yes, that happened, and somehow they always dial MY extension for some unknown reason...).

L: "Well I'm afraid that with that little information I cant help you; it certainly doesn't sound familiar to me. I can tell you who runs the other local access stations in the channel vicinity of ours, and maybe they will know."

I mean, the woman doesn't even know if it was on our channels... and the numbers she was naming to me I KNEW it couldn't possibly have played on; those being government and bulletin channels.

Caller: "Are you saying that you guys just have no idea what's playing on your station and no way to look it up? It was a play, why cant you just look for it?"

Such simple logic no? I mean.... how hard can it be?

L: "Of course we have an idea of what's playing, but none of us sit and watch every show from beginning to end, our producers sign contracts saying they are following the rules, and we believe them. We'll see bits and pieces of a show while we process it, but no one has turned in a show about a play anytime in the last week or so, and that's about as far back as I can remember specific shows. And as for it being a play, plays are a very popular thing for people to film and turn in, and we'll often run them in empty spaces for years after they're initially turned in. If i had a specific day to work with I could go through the titles and see if any of them sound like they might be of a play, but even if i went and looked through a list of all 24 hours of programming for the last month, chances are I wouldn't recognize the title of the show your play may or may not have been in... if it was indeed played on our channel."

It goes on... and on.... and on and on and on and on... but mostly it's repetitive. The woman tells me in a new way that a show with her in it may or may not have aired and wants specific information; I tell her why I cant give it to her and make several suggestions of how she can look online at what we have played and see if any of it sounds familiar. She gets very pissy, rude, condescending and upset about it.

Then, always my favorite, "give me the contact information for those other stations and who I should talk to."

So matter of fact, so sure that I have the answers. Complimentary, I guess it should be, that people somehow assume me omniscient in all things cable and / or television related; but mostly I find it to be an extreme lack of logical thought on their part.

L: "Those are completely different tv stations, we dont work with them in any way, they are their own separate companies."

Makes sense right? If you were talking to the teller at the bank, would you ask them, with all confidence that they have the answer, 'give me the contact information for a credit union 3 states over; you all work with people's money'? No. Of course not. That wouldn't make sense.

People dont seem to see the connection (or should I say lack of connections?) when it comes to television. Oh no, she wasn't the first.

Caller: "But they're right next to you on cable, and you're all local tv stations."

Totally oblivious

L: "We dont have any of their information, they are a different company."

I think this job makes me entirely too patient in repeating myself as if it will make since on a second, third, or fourth utterance.

Caller: "Well where do I find the, like, database online for all of the local Monterey channels."

The internet. Of course! They've thought of everything on the internet!

L: "There isn't one that I know of."

******Gasp******

At this point the caller decides that I must be a complete idiot. And so she impatiently asks me all the same questions yet again in about 10 different ways, and remains displeased with my answers.

Do I get to say "Dont you have any idea if you've been filmed by someone who wants to put you on a tv station?" Or: "Well you were in a play, dont you know about all of the plays that air on tv?"

No.

I dont get to be as sarcastic as these people deserve. I have to be nice and attempt to continue to be helpful until they hang up and get off the phone!

I have decided: whenever an illogical and agitated person calls comcast and wants to know the answer to a question that any normal person would know they cant answer, there's a simple conclusion that comes to mind...

"I'm speaking to an illogical weirdo... better give them the phone number to the public access station."

I cant even be mad about it; I'm sure that 2/3 of the times that happens... they're probably right!

But how do they get MY extension? Why does it have to be ME?

Did I cut off one of the workers at comcast in traffic? Perhaps unknowingly take the seat they were eyeing at the movie theater? Or the best looking onion in the produce department just before they got to that display?

If so I'm deeply sorry and will apologise given the opportunity, and provide them with the extension for our general voice mail. The callers will still be crazy: the message will be forwarded to my inbox. But then I can try to call at an odd time of day and leave them a brief message and then screen my calls in case they call back. Like a normal person.

Strangest Place in All the Land...

I have decided there is no place in all the land as strange as a peg access facility. For those that dont know that's "public education and government" and is an abbreviation for local access non-comercial television media centers. Most countys in CA have one, and all the large cities across the nation. They're pretty neat... you know "Wayne's World, party time, excelent," that was a fake public access show (i got to write about Wayne's World in my thesis, how tight is that?)

Anyway, I manage the P of the PEG, so I interact on a daily basis with local people who believe everyone in the county wants to see them or what they want to film on television. Often they are sorely mistaken, but kudos to them for doing it anyway.

Occasionally we get something awesome. We had a girl make a documentary on the local competitive laser tag community. I didn't even know that existed, and they were grown ups (20s-30s, but grown ups none the less!).

Or at this very moment there is a woman comandeering our studio for her show "World of dance Theatre" one of the biggest in-house productions anyone puts on around here, it even includes live snakes and I got to touch one!

Then we have the weirdos... There is a producer who looks like a balding einstein who is a constant plauge of haughtiness and near senility to anyone he can find. You can't escape a 25-30 minute conversation with him. You can answer the phone and look as intently at your monitor while furiously typing nothing in particular as long as you please and he will pay no mind. He has 5 weekly series. They are of the worst possible production value of anything we put on the channel (and remember this is public access, so that's REALLY saying a lot... ) He likes to film things along the lines of public meetings and try to tell everyone at the meeting how and where they should talk and behave to make his show best.

And then i get to hear all about it!
All the time.

So often he is filming a chalk board with no one in front of it with terrible audio that he feels the need to split between right and left channels in unecessary illogical ways, and he'll complain if we try to fix it for him. I have to hear all about his every idea and generally he doesn't like the way we do anything around here, we should, of course, do things the way he does. The way which makes no sense.

Mostly it's fun. I get to help people learn creative skills, put their show on the channel, and they get to tell their family and friends when their show is on tv. We play a few cool things like Democracy Now and the local battle of the blues bands, but mostly I never watch the channel I work for. At the moment I'm watching Ninja Warrior on the monitor that's supposed to play our channels at all times in case something goes wrong...

Sometimes I get to do the technical directing for live multi-cam set up shoots from a control room and look around myself and realize that it all looks very impressive to the untrained eye; really I'm typing and playing with 4 cameras attached to an Atari-style joystick in a small closet with no air flow and a gazillion AV machines blowing hot air.

I like PEG, it's easy (as long as you know how to deal with crazy), I work with people every day, I get to do creative things, and I'm not making money for "the man" off in some distant mansion on a coast somewhere who ownes a company I don't even know about that ownes the company that ownes the company that I work for. Most people who hear about or see what I do sound impressed... so why do I feel like my job is a joke? Is it really?

Maybe I like being a joke and doing nothing but sitting at my desk among the weirdos and then migrating to my couch.

Is that so wrong?