Folgers' Crystals

Many have wondered where I've been these last several days. Well, with the holiday season upon us, it seems as though someone is off just about every day. Since most of our news seems to happen during the day, they have been pulling me off nights to cover the daysiders' shifts. But then, since Wendy wants material for her late show also, I end up working well into the nightside as well.

My apologies to my readers. With several twelve hour days (and one sixteen hour day) over the last week, I haven't had much time to blog. However, I did want to log in and relate this one interesting story.

Last Monday one of our photogs, a guy named Al, called in sick. I got a call from the desk asking me to come in and cover for him. I was happy to oblige, but only after I had taken a shower, which my news director seemed to think would take too long. I think I've been accommodating, so I didn't think showering was too much to ask.

Anyway, Sunday night there had been a big (at least for our area) prostitution bust. We're a small town, yet there's still an area where a guy with $40 can pick up a girl on the street and get it on in his car. Apparently the guys would pick up the girls and simply drive around the corner to a street with a bunch of abandoned houses, then circle back around to let the girls out when they were done.

In the first half of their operation, the cops picked up several women who usually worked that stretch of street. Then they secretly replaced them with imitation prostitutes and recorded what happened with hidden cameras. It was like those old instant coffee commercials, but with whores.

None of the news outlets in the market knew about the sweep until the cops announced the results that Monday morning. They had arrested six prostitutes and fifteen Johns. Except that one of the Johns wasn't a John, but an Al. The same Al who called in sick Monday morning after spending most of the night in booking, wishing he hadn't chosen Folgers' Crystals. Our crime reporter didn't even look at the names the cops gave us, and nobody here would have noticed if the newspaper hadn't printed them.

Interestingly enough, nothing has been said. Al was in his own car on his own time and wasn't identified with the station in any way, so the managers are pretty much acting like it's none of their business.

Maybe they're just in the holiday spirit.

Heat

If you've been reading since the beginning, you might remember that my personal truck stranded me shortly after I started working here by pouring copious amounts of coolant on the ground and threatening to overheat. The coolant seemed to be coming from the back of the engine. I don't claim to be any kind of mechanic whatsoever, but the first place that came to mind as a source for the leak was one of the gaskets on top of the engine. My understanding is that a blown gasket leaking green fluid from the top of the engine is generally a really bad $ign.

Lucky for me, after climbing over, under and through the engine compartment, I traced the source of the leak to the heater core. Apparently this heater core device has nothing to do with the engine itself, but instead takes hot liquid that has passed through the engine and uses it to blow hot air inside my truck. I learned this from the wonderfully illustrated manual I bought at AutoZone.

I called my friend Littlefield from back in school to get his advice. It occurs to me that I don't even know Littlefield's first name. We all just called him Littlefield. He's a wizard under the hood, so I called him up, told him what I saw and asked him how much he thought it would cost to fix it.

"Just bypass it," he said. "Coupl'a bucks."

"Bypass it?" I asked. "Don't I need it?"

"Not really." Littlefield then proceeded to explain to me how to bypass it. It was really quite easy. One hose delivers hot liquid into the heater from the engine. Another hose returns the liquid to the engine after the heater core is done with it. To bypass the heater, you just pull the hoses off and connect them together.

Tools: Flat head screwdriver.

Time: Five minutes.

Cost: $2.78 for the hose connector.

That was a great relief, because at $6.25 per hour, $225 per month for rent, an $87 per month charge for my health insurance, $78 per month for my truck insurance, etc., I have NO MONEY to replace a heater core or any other expensive automobile part. I'm barely making ends meet as it is. I didn't even try to find out how much that thing would cost, because I know it just isn't going to happen.

Now for the catch. There had to be a catch.

Sure the truck doesn't need the heater core. It works just fine without it. The problem is that without hot water running to the heater, there's no heat in the truck. And it's cold as hell here right now. I heard our Weather Nerd (his words, not mine) say we're running about 15 degrees below average right now. Luckily I have the Hate Van to drive to and from work, but we're not allowed to drive station vehicles off the clock. If I want to go anywhere--to the store, to a bookstore, to simply explore the area, etc.--I have to take my truck and freeze my balls off. Once frozen off, they don't reattach easily.

Further, when I've been driving the truck for a little while, my own body heat brings the temperature inside up slightly. It's not enough to make it any more comfortable, but it IS enough, with the moisture from my breath, to fog up my windshield. I have to run the defroster to be able to see where I'm going. But the defroster only blows freezing air, making the truck cabin feel that much colder.

I drive as long as I can with the defroster off, until I can only make out shapes shifting around behind the opaque screen of glass in front of me. Then I turn the defroster on full blast until the glass is clear, only to repeat the cycle.

It's not fun being poor.

Reprimanded!

I recently related an event that happened last Thursday in which I was called out on my day off to shoot a "Pedex," what our station calls a pedestrian accident. You may recall that our on-call system has all the photographers on-call all the time, except on our off days. When we're off, they're supposed to leave us alone. Since I was off Thursday, I theoretically shouldn't have been called, so I reminded the producer of that policy. She told me she needed me to shoot it anyway, and I did.

This morning I was back on dayside again for live truck training. Again it didn't happen, because the van is still in the shop. After the morning meeting, my news director called me into his office.

"I'm a little concerned about what I'm being told about you shooting spot news," he said.

"What's the problem?"

"Wendy said you refused to shoot the Pedex Thursday night."

"Uh, no," I said. "I did shoot it."

"But she said you gave her attitude about coming in," he said.

"No, I didn't give her any attitude, I--"

"Did you tell her you didn't have to shoot it because it was your off day?" he interrupted.

"No, I didn't put it like that. I just reminded her it was my off day. I didn't refuse to shoot anything. I didn't say I didn't have to--"

"Look," he said. "If we call you out to shoot something, we expect you to shoot it."

"I DID shoot it," I said.

"What I mean is that we expect you to shoot it without giving us any attitude about it. I don't care if it turns out to be nothing, you go when you're called."

"I didn't give her any--"

"I don't think you're listening to me," he said. So I was quiet. He continued, slowly and deliberately, as if talking to a child or an idiot: "You're new here. It might take some time for you to get used to the way we do things. I expect that. I just want to make sure you're not getting off on the wrong foot. This is a 24 hour business. Sometimes we're going to ask you to make sacrifices. We won't ask that often; but when we call you out, we expect you to jump, even if it's your day off. Do you understand?"

"Yes, but the way Rick explained things to me was that the station didn't call people out on their days off," I said, making an effort to stay calm. "I figured Wendy forgot it was my day off, so all I did was remind her."

"It's not your place to tell her who to call," he said. "That's my job. If Wendy calls you out, you go. If you have a problem with being called out, you tell me, and I'll deal with Wendy. But I'm telling you right now that sometimes we're going to need you to go above and beyond. If you have a problem with that, we need to get it out in the open right now so this doesn't become an issue later on."

"No," I said. "There's no problem."

"Okay. Just so we're clear. I expect good things from you, and I just didn't want you to get a bad reputation around here this early in the game."

A bad reputation? Refusing to go on a call? Giving attitude? What the hell?

I have to say that I was REALLY pissed off. But what am I going to do? I have no power in this situation, so I just have to bend over and take it.

I am, however, glad to have learned what an evil skank fuckwhore piece-of-shit bitch this Wendy is before she had a chance to REALLY fuck me over. Why the hell would she run off and tattle on me for something like that? What did I do to her to deserve this?

I try not to hold grudges, but I don't always succeed. I know now to be careful. I wonder if she does.

Live Truck Training

I was back on dayside today for live truck training. Since I'm the only nightside photographer three days per week, the news director wanted me up to speed on setting up remotes so that we can go live in the late shows. I was instructed to report to the parking lot after the morning meeting to get acquainted with our microwave van.

There was only one problem. The van broke down Friday night and was still in the shop today. There's no word on when it will be back.

Oh, well.

Gimme a Break Already!

As I have explained about our on-call system, there isn't one. All the photogs are "on call" all the time. We have our addresses marked on a map in the newsroom, and when something happens the closest photographer is supposed to be called.

What I failed to mention earlier is that we're not supposed to be called on our days off unless its a true emergency. That means that since I'm the only photog on weekends, I will usually be the only one called out on weekends. It also means that on Thursday and Friday, my days off, I'm not supposed to be called out, especially since the rest of the photog staff work those days.

That didn't stop our producer, Wendy, from paging me tonight for a "Pedex" with a child involved. "Pedex" is what our newsroom calls an accident in which a pedestrian is struck by a car. I don't know where they got that name, because the cops don't call it that.

When I called in, I told Wendy that it was my day off after seventeen days straight. She didn't care. She asked me to go do it anyway.

"You're closest, and I don't have anybody else available," she said. I can't help but wonder if she actually called anyone else. But I got my gear together and went.

When I got there, there was nothing. Not a thing. No cops. No kid in the road. Nobody around. I double checked the location. I was in the right spot.

"Drive around that area and see if you see anything," Wendy instructed me when I called in. So I drove around. I still didn't find anything.

A few streets over there was a convenience store, so I stopped there and asked inside if the clerk had heard anything. In fact, she had. One of her customers had told her a teenager walked out in the road and got clipped by a car, but that he was okay and went home. She said that conversation had happened more than an hour earlier.

"Spray it and come back," Wendy said, when I told her what I had discovered. "I'll get the info from dispatch." So I "sprayed it," meaning that I quickly shot video of the scene where Wendy believed the accident had taken place, and went back to the station to edit.

"Oh, don't bother with that," she said when I came into the newsroom. "It turned out to be nothing. Some teenager got bumped by a car, but he didn't even go to the hospital."

Now I'm back home, and I can't help but feel a little irritated. She called me out on my day off, after I worked seventeen straight days through the holiday, for something that was at least an hour old when I was contacted and turned out to be nothing. On the other hand, I feel guilty for being irritated, because I know this job requires personal sacrifice. Still, I'm wondering if this job is going to stay like this. I'm enjoying it, but sometimes I really start to think maybe I should have listened to the naysayers when I first took this job.

I Have Survived

I FINALLY have reached a day off after seventeen straight days on the job. I am weary.

And how do I spend this time?

I slept until 1pm. Now I'm doing laundry. I'd like to go do something, but I have no money. My roommates are both working tonight, so I have the house to myself for the most part.

Television and cheese curls are my companions for the evening. I'm a happening dude. Cutting edge, you know.

I go back Saturday, then they have me on day shifts Monday and Tuesday for live truck training. I'm looking forward to learning the truck

I would post more, but my brain is now produce. Melon pulp, I think.