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.