things you can do in radio and not get fired

no im serious

The thing about the radio industry in my day was you could do almost anything and not get fired. Here is a list of things I’ve witnessed that people in radio have done and not gotten fired.

1-Moon a co-worker. It’s perfectly normal in radio, rock radio especially to torment your co-workers while they’re trying to do a live break. So even I have been mooned straight up in my face while talking to a microphone. It’s fine, no one gives a shit. Thanks for the ass in my face.

2-Drink at work. I’ve worked at more than one station that absolutely didn’t give a shit or bought us beer or tequila or had margarita parties on holidays. At my station in Chico we had Free Beer Fridays and someone always provided. The day that MCA (Adam Yauch) from the Beastie Boys died, we got wrecked. Like straight up tequila shots and beers and I have no idea how any of the staff got home. We were absolutely blitzed by 5pm, though.

3-Wreck a station vehicle. You’d think wrecking a car belonging to the radio station would get you in trouble. No, not really. I did it. My engineer back in the day rolled an Earth Mover we rented. Never once did any of us get in trouble. It was just sort of one of those “oh you crazy kids!” moments every time it happened. One radio group I was in the GM used to send out emails before he went on vacation asking us to please not wreck anything while he was out of town.

4-Get arrested. It almost doesn’t matter what you got arrested for, but most radio dj arrests revolve around drinking. I was actually dispatched the county jail to pick up one of my jocks from his trip to the drunk tank one morning when I walked into work. Not a big deal, totally happy to do it and buy him some french fries and tuck him into the couch in an office. It’s not even a thing, you get arrested, you call your program director and we figure it out.

5-Smoke pot. Almost everyone in radio has smoked pot in the parking lot. Or in a studio.

6-Fall asleep on the air. Happened to me a few times because I worked overnights and mornings for years before I was a programmer. The best was when my boss at that station came in the studio and told me we were off the air. I had been to a concert the night before in another city and construction messed up my trip home. I fell asleep during a commercial break and hadn’t pushed the button to run the next element. My boss came in and was telling me this and I sat up and pushed the button and said “Well now we aren’t.” Still not fired.

7-Lose or damage equipment. Trust me, you can lose a 6 thousand dollar piece of equipment and you’re not going to get fired. It’s like wrecking a station vehicle, everyone just goes “oh you silly infants,” and moves on.

8-Sleep with a co-worker. This goes triple for the sales department. Do it at the station for extra I’m never going to get fired energy.

9-Steal things from the prize closet. If you know where the keys are, the things in the prize closet are yours. They are all of ours. We’re all broke and the prize closet is where they keep the food coupons or Christmas presents or actual food and also clean clothes. If you know someone who worked in radio they have 1000 tshirts because if you spill something on yourself at work, or your clothes get damaged in some radio stunt, it’s fine we have more shirts.

10-Letting random people be on the radio with you. I’ve had the cleaning crew on the air before, the sales department when they walked in while the light was on and then there was this poor pizza guy. I used to be a co-host of a punk show I co-created and on certain nights we did this show live. One of my other hosts ordered pizza and the dude wanted to see our studios, so my friend brought him in. The pizza guy wanted to shot gun a beer on the air… I mean we’re not his bosses so we let him. He forgot they were listening to him back at the store and got fired right when he got back to the store. He wanted to come back and hang out with us afterwards.

When I talk to my former co-workers we often wonder how in the hell we’re still alive.