You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Shaking the Chairman of the Board’s hand and taking a picture with the CEO.
I was recently downing beers with high level corporate officers who have the power to fire me with a wink of their eye.
I flew to Richmond Thursday to my company’s corporate HQ.
I was there because I won an award for breaking weather.
I didn’t know that my story had been entered. Nobody told me that I won.
Suddenly my boss sreams: “do you want to go to Richmond for the awards ceremony?”
“Huh?”
Normally I am a tainted, jaded, bag of flesh who trusts no one in this profession of thieves and whores.
Normally I would care about winning an award as much as I care about toe lint in my sock.
But for some reason, I said “Yeah. I’ll go.”
What?
I’m not sure why I decided to go, and I actually thought about rescinding my decision numerous times.
Suddenly I got the airline confirmation and it was too late.
“Damn. I’m screwed,” I thought.
So I’m on a terrible flight to Charlotte.
The pilot circles the airport twice for no explained reason.
We land and miss our flight.
Great.
The taxi ride is 30 dollars to the hotel.
Great.
We dress and walk four blocks to the corporate HQ.
I’m sweating through a dress shirt.
Great.
The corporate HQ is a shiny gem in a downtown that needs serious financial investment.
I am greeted by a high-ranking corporate VP.
He is wearing a dress shirt, no tie, and he has a big smile.
He shakes my hand. He knows my name.
I am surprised.
He is cordial and friendly and suggests I grab a beer at the open bar.
Good idea.
From the beginning, I didn’t want to go.
Then when I went, I was always unclear why I was going.
He will tell me congratulations for my breaking weather coverage.
I think back to the story he is referring to.
I did it months ago. I can barely remember it.
It was a 10 minute gust of wind, a little lightning and a loud tornado siren.
I made a lot of nothing, and now I am going to be rewarded for it in front of the owner of the company and the highest members of the organization.
I feel a lump in my throat like the day I said I do.
I drink that first beer and begin talking to news people from Albuquerque and Providence and Indianapolis.
We are all part of this new gigantic corporation that has infused several different TV groups into one powerful, sea to shining sea broadcast entity.
These people are just like me but with a different zip code and call letters.
We talk about what brought us here and who we know and where we’ve been and how we might get a job in other cities.
It’s cool.
But what’s even cooler is meeting the corporate hierarchy.
I’ve talked to peons all my life.
I don’t often talk to the royalty that makes the rules and controls the flow of capital and life.
We are a publicly traded company. We broadcast to 1/4 of all the households in America.
We have stations from Honolulu to Providence. We have stations from Biloxi to Lansing.
I thought talking to these corporate suits would be awkward.
I figured these guys aren’t regular guys. How could they be?
They don’t stand to pee, I figured. They have golden goblets and piss attendants who wipe them so they don’t have to touch themselves with their own hands.
These guys aren’t like me, I figure. They don’t belch after a beer. They are steely eyed corporate robots who floss with diamonds and shower with champagne.
Why am I here? What could we have in common?
I can’t ask them about the ball game, or can I?
So I am standing in a semi-circle of 5. Me and 3 other award winners and a golden suit.
On the corporate totem pole I am just above the sludge and urination demarkation.
The guy I’m talking to is in charge of dozens of TV stations.
The rest of the corporate officers make hundreds of thousands if not millions a year.
And then there is the Chairman of the Board. His daddy created this whole broadcasting enchilada.
If these guys wanted to, they could snap their fingers and have me killed.
At least fired or moved to Peoria.
So it is weird, and a little intimidating.
It’s like meeting with your boss when you know you hit his car in the parking lot and you lost the big account you were suppose to land.
But you know what?
The corporate guys are pretty regular guys.
I’m pretty sure they stand to pee and shower like the rest of us.
I see no piss attendants.
So there we are, in our semi-circle of discussion, surrounded by marble floors and a ceiling of cathedral-like opulence.
I sip a beer and chew a crab cake.
Not bad, I think.
I find myself engaged in conversation with a guy 5 pay grades above my boss.
And I’m making him laugh.
We are talking about the company and broadcasting and regular stuff.
You know what’s weird? It wasn’t that weird.
In fact, it was illuminating.
I learned about corporate strategies and island fever and why certain stations are struggling while others are flourishing.
At one point, I introduce myself to the CEO of the company.
He is the big Kahuna.
He is unassuming, quiet, polite.
I shake his hand and he says hello.
I tell him that I have been in broadcasting for more than a 1/4 century. I want him to know I am a veteran’s veteran of the news wars.
He tells me he appreciates that.
I tell him I have never felt a part of anything bigger than the station I worked for. Nice job. Now what have you done for me lately.
I told him that’s the way I have always felt. Until now.
I tell this man at the top of the food chain that I appreciate him flying all of us in to Richmond from all over America.
I tell him it is invigorating that this new company is excited to celebrate our journalistic excellence, to talk about stories we cover and find out what makes us tick.
He proceeds to tell me that the company believes in us and wants to support us at the grass-roots level. He says if they invest in us, then the product will be good and will make money for stock holders.
A win win he will tell me.
And that’s the difference, I tell him.
I feel like I am suddenly connected to something bigger than myself, something to be proud of.
The message I’m getting is this is an organization that wants to keep good people in the company.
It is interesting to talk to reporters and producers and anchors and cameramen from Providence, and Hartford and Portland and Albuquerque.
We are all different, but we are all the same.
We all want to win. We all want to be appreciated.
We are all surprised that a billionaire and a bunch of millionaires would stop what they were doing for 24 hours and cater to us at the journalistic sub atomic level.
Wow
They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
But sometimes an old dog can find a new bone, a new reason to mark his territory, a reason to howl at the moon.
31 hours.
4 planes.
2 days.
1 brand new outlook on a profession that my favorite author, Hunter S. Thompson, once described my profession thusly:
The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.
It was a nice trip. It was invigorating.
But you know how you feel after a week of vacation. You come back to work, and it takes about 4 hours before you are as sick and tired as you were when you left.
Guess we’ll see.
Life’s Crazy™