Malcontents Can Lower Staff Morale

Team chemistry is sometimes overlooked and undervalued in the current state of radio. A few bad apples with narcissistic tendencies can ruin a station's ratings, revenue base and morale. These types usually have had some success, allowing them enough credibility to complain to those with the ear or ears of the in-house power structure.

These apples can keep a station in a funk while maintaining the look of innocence. I remember a former employee who insisted he knew what the audience wanted regardless of how many of our perceptual research studies we allowed him to see. When the ratings were up, he insisted what could be done to make them even higher. Those times our ratings were flat or down a few tenths of a point, he would begin his eve of destruction campaign by telling as many as would listen that he knew the cure for low ratings.

Hush Payments for Paid Remotes...

It's been my experience that every format and every station has one or two of these on staff. Having all the facts is never enough for these smiling malcontents. Usually, the reality is that he or she once ruled the roost in their time slot. I once had a personality with a thing for constantly spreading false rumors about fellow personalities, resisting critique sessions, and had a kickback scheme with two salespersons involving paid remotes. (Any of this sound familiar?)

I fixed the kickback scheme by implementing a new paid remote system that stressed equal distribution among the air staff. His response was to send baseless memos to management stating I was pure evil. This gentleman is still in radio and I recently found out from his boss that he is still using the same tactics; apparently, his days are numbered with the employer.

Street Hit-Ola

I once had a personality who loved doing van hits or so I thought. Regardless of the scheduled places, he would veer off schedule for brief unscheduled stops. One of the street team told me how fun it was to be out in the van with this gentleman. By accident, one day I ran into him, getting out of the van with his dry cleaning over his shoulder. As I was talking to him, I noticed the name of the cleaners on the plastic covering his clothes was the same as the place he gave away tickets that day.

My intuition told me to do some checking and so I checked the logger for the previous week and then spoke to promotions and the designated street team captain. The street team had eaten free food and never figured out his clever deception. He would make brief stops at places he frequented and was getting freebies because he would cleverly mention the place as a point of reference for listeners to stop by and get prizes and meet him.

For the next week, I checked the logger for the names of places he used to steer listeners to for his live street hit locations. One day I played detective and followed the van from a safe distance to a couple of his stops and it became clear what had been going on. This jock had been doing free mentions in exchange for free services. I suspended him and he started doing the blame game and passed around that the other personalities were jealous and were out to destroy his reputation. I later dismissed him for another, non-related, plugola issue.

Sometimes Unifying Efforts Fall Short ...

One of my favorite stories involved two personalities who were staff mates of mine back in the day. Since I was not the PD, I got a chance to observe the divisive ways they tried to get each other fired. Everything was always just a bit unhinged with even simple on-air contests. Things got so bad, upper management suspended their usual open door policy and gently ordered the PD to get the on-air staff involved in an activity to promote unity. It was decided softball would be the chosen gateway to staff harmony. It was just these two knuckleheads who were the problem and one of us (me) suggested the two should box and the loser should voluntarily resign.

Game On...

We had a couple of practices and surprisingly everyone got along, including our two malcontents. All was good until the first official league game. Long story short, we were winning and our two narcissists got in a fight over an upcoming paid remote; the fight spilled over into the game and during a fly ball to the outfield, the bickering personalities, in disguise as center and left fielders, did not communicate and the ball dropped in for a two-run double and cost us the game in the last inning. Well, that's when all hell broke loose; those two were yelling at each other, several of us started yelling at them, and one of us decided a baseball bat could be a deciding factor in eliminating both of our malcontent office problems.

Thankfully, no lasting injuries were sustained, and the PD finally told management we needed to get rid of both personalities; the PM-driver had great ratings and held on to his job and the in-house rival got the boot.

Conclusion...

Don't pay any attention to the problem children on staff and concentrate on what you are supposed to be doing.