We knew we were headed for disaster. It was one of those "OK, we've only got ten fingers, how many holes are there in the dike?" kind of days.
Yet somehow we pulled it off. We walked the tightrope without falling off. Insurmountable problems were...well, for lack of a better word...surmounted! Obstacles were cleared. The Marines would have been proud: we improvised, we adapted, we overcame!
And when it was all over I went to the General Manager with a suggestion: How about a memo to the staff recognizing the achievement and thanking them for the effort.
The guy had a reputation as being both disinterested and uninterested in the news. The talk around the station was that he didn't even know the names of most of the staff, and I believe it. I never gave him a quiz, but I saw him many times when the situation called for a "Hi, Tom" (Or "Dick" or "Harry" or "Harriet") and he gave it a "Hiya" instead.
Anyway, I thought a pat-on-the-back note would be not just appropriate, but also an important display of leadership.
And he said: "We don't thank people for doing their jobs."
Want to guess where that poor, dumb sumbitch is today?
(Hint: he's not in broadcasting, and we're all better for it.)
Over the years, I've been accused of being insincere. My cheerleading is over the top at times. I'll admit it. My highs are very high, my lows are very low. Maybe I'm manic-depressive, don't know. But that bastard idled along in neutral for all the time I knew him, and he stripped a lot of the fun away from what we were doing.
He made working for him a job. My best bosses have made working for them a shared adventure.
