(It’s the day after the NHL trade deadline, and I get a phone call from a listener.)

Caller: “Yeah, I want to know why you didn’t have any coverage yesterday on the trades done by [Local NHL Team].”

Me: “Well, that’s a question for our news department. Let me transfer your call.”

(I tell our news reporter about the call. Since the reporter loves pawning off complaints on me, I decided to leave the door open a crack and finally see how our reporter deals with complaints.)

Reporter: “Hello… Yes… Well, we don’t broadcast [NHL Team]’s games anymore, so covering them just gives free advertising to our competition.”

Caller: *muffled yelling*

Reporter: “Well, we have a very small news department, and no one dedicated to the sports beat, so there was no one available to do live updates yesterday afternoon.”

Caller: *more muffled yelling*

Reporter: “IT’S BECAUSE [Local NHL Team] SUCKS! GO [Rival Team]!”

(And at that, he slammed the phone down.)

(I work the midday shift at a radio station, and we’re doing a “call to win” contest.)

Me: “Hello, [Station]!”

Caller: “What caller am I?”

Me: “You’re number two.”

Caller: “What caller wins?”

Me: “Number seven.”

Caller: “You giving away anything good?”

(I tell them the prize.)

Caller: “Well, f*** that! Who wants that?”

Me: “Someone who doesn’t gripe when getting something for free.”

(I am in my car listening to a local Sacramento AM radio talk show. The two hosts talk about many political and popular issues. For some reason that I can’t recall, they got on the topic of unusual piercings and are looking at pictures of some.)

Host #1: “Wow, the woman has a clitoral piercing.”

Host #2: “No way!” *looks at picture* “Oh, my god! That’s terrifying. Doesn’t that hurt like h***?”

Host #1: “I would think so… Apparently clitoral piercings are a growing trend.”

Host #2: “Hey, I’m just looking at our FCC guidelines, and apparently, we aren’t allowed to say, ‘clitoris.'”

Host #1: “Really? But we can say ‘penis,’ right?”

Host #2: “Um…” *papers rustling* “No. No, we can’t.”

Host #1: “Oh…”

(Pause.)

Host #2: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be our last show. Thank you very much for your years of loyal listenership.”

(I’m not sure if they ever faced any consequences from the Federal Communication Committee, but that was 12 years ago, and they are still on the air.)

(Each year we hire a student half-time reporter through a scholarship program. In addition to sending the position info to various departments on campus, we also post fliers in areas like the Student Center to try and attract as many candidates as possible. Please note that this takes place approximately six weeks into the football season.)

Student: *wanders past the front desk and into my office unannounced* “Hello?”

Me: *startled* “Yes, can I help you?”

Student: “Sorry. I’m just so tired. I haven’t slept at all in like three days.”

Me: “What?”

Student: *pulls creased and folded, obviously stolen, flier out of his pocket* “I’ll take this job.”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Student: “This halftime reporter job. I’ll take it.”

Me: “I’m sorry; we hired someone almost two months ago. Football season has been going for over six weeks.”

Student: “But I have the flier! You’re making a big mistake! I’d be perfect for this!”

Me: “Ignoring the fact that you obviously removed a flier from a public bulletin board and that the job is already filled, barging into my office and demanding I hire you isn’t the best way to start this conversation.”

Student: “Fine! But you’re making a big mistake!”

(For a couple years, I have worked full time at a radio station as a graphic designer, with a web developer, and a manager (Boss #1) who oversees all of our projects. It is a really good arrangement: we each have our own offices next to each other in the same hallway. All of our projects exceed expectations, we always finish them all ahead of schedule, and we all work so well together that we consider each other friends more than co-workers. One day, one of our higher-ups (Boss #2) calls Boss #1 into his office. He tells us about the conversation afterwards:)

Boss #2: “So, we just got the manager reviews back from everyone, and it turns out you got the highest score in the entire building!”

Boss #1: “Yeah, we all work really well together as a team. We’re really lucky to have found a way to collaborate that works well for everyone.”

Boss #2: “It’s so good, actually, that we’re a little worried.”

Boss #1: “Really? Why?”

Boss #2: “We think you’re being overprotective of your employees – they don’t really mingle with any other departments and we want everyone to have relationships with each other.”

Boss #1: “Okay, I can see where you’re coming from. I’ll try to see what I can do to make our department a little more open to others in the building.”

(Our boss tells us about the situation and we all agree to try and start socializing with our other co-workers a little more. We do a great job for a couple of weeks until one day Boss #2 calls us all into Boss #1’s office.)

Boss #2: “So, I have an idea I want to throw past you guys. What if we moved all of you out of your offices and put you into one large shared space, like they have at Google?”

Me: “That sounds like it could be a cool environment, but we already work really well just by having our own offices.”

Boss #1: “Not to mention, didn’t you just pay a lot of money for those personality evaluations? Each one of ours said that we work better if we have our own space to retreat to.”

Coworker: “Can we have some time to think about it?”

Boss #2: “…ctually, I was talking about it to [Owner of the Company], and he wants to make it happen. Construction starts in two weeks.”

(All of us were shocked. True to his word, a construction crew came in to start renovating for our new office… a week earlier than we were told. I came back from vacation to find my office completely empty: my personal items, desk, and even the photos on the wall had all been taken down and moved without my knowledge. In a few days they had moved all of us to opposite corners of the building, isolating us from each other, without any prior notification or really caring about our feedback. It turned out that Boss #2 didn’t like how tight-knit we all were. Within two weeks our morale nosedived, the construction took twice as long as was promised, my coworker quit and found a better job, and eventually Boss #1 was replaced by someone who didn’t know the first thing about what we were supposed to be doing. Our department fell apart. To this day Boss #2 still scratches his head and wonders “what went wrong.”)