Story #7: Sick on the Overnight Shift!

I worked at a country station in a small city north of Houston, and began there on the midnight shift (12-6). Thankfully I eventually got moved up to 7-midnight. The 3-7 guy used to say to me every night when he gave me the board at 7: "It's all urine, pee-pee!"

One night on the midnight shift, I had a virus. I was pretty poor in those days, and the company that owned the station didn't give us sick days -- so I came in to work. I'd start a song, run down the hall as fast as I could, use the restroom, wash my hands, and RUN as fast as I could back to the studio! (this was before everybody started using automation) I'd get back in there just as the song was fading out, and barely got another one started before the last one played all the way outI When I ran back and opened the mike, I tried to talk, but many times that night I was all out of breath from running.

After 3 hours of this, I gave up -- I broke format. At a couple of minutes before 3am, I opened the mike, told my audience I was sick and had been running up and down the hall to the restroom all night, and that I was about to throw on the new Brooks and Dunn cd: and let it play all the way through!

That helped a lot! Thankfully, my boss was very understanding, and told me if I was ever that sick again to let him know, they'd have a fill-in for me, and I'd still get paid. "Great, I thought -- wish I'd known that yesterday.....!" He was a great boss, too -- but he wasn't as understanding when he was up at 3 am another night to change his kid's diaper and heard me playing Lynard Skynard's "Free Bird" on the air. :)


Fr. Francis