Telephone Sam
Some people think that working in radio is not a physically demanding job. They imagine presenters and producers sitting around for hours on comfy chairs in dimly-lit studios. They imagine it as the kind of job where the hardest thing you have to do is choose between the various mouth-watering desserts in the ´óÏó´«Ã½ canteen.
But that's enough about my job...spare a thought for Sam Brennan. Sam is someone I used to think had been cloned three times over because I see her working in various departments at Pacific Quay. I often meet her coming in to work first thing in the morning or leaving last thing at night. Mainly I see her while I'm sitting at my desk outside the radio studios. She walks past me about fifty times a night, always in a hurry and always on her way to or from the big office printer.
Sam, you see, is the person who takes the calls and sorts the e-mailed requests for Bryan Burnett's Get It On Show. She answers the phones in a little editing studio next door to where Bryan is presenting the show. The printer, because it's noisy, is located at the far end of the office outside the studios. It's not the most efficient set-up and I reckon Sam must walk two or three miles every night. Just watching her is exhausting. Ironically, tonight's show is themed around songs that have a "physical effect" on the listener. In Sam's case, that's every one that's suggested.
Sometimes, in my role as supportive manager, I offer her little words of encouragement like "walk faster" or "the show will be over before you get that request into the studio" or "are you being filmed in slow motion?"
But sometimes I don't say anything at all. Sometimes I just go to the canteen to make big, important decisions.
Apple crumble or trifle? Tricky.
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