[SBE] In Need of Mentoring

[Adrienne Abbott]

Clay wrote:

> Old broadcast engineers don't retire - they just fade away

(borrowing heavily from someone famous I think)

Do you know any engineers who are really retired? I mean, retired as in
sitting in a rocking chair or gone fishing retired? One engineer I know has
been trying to "sit-in-a-rocking-chair retire" for years but his station
won't let him go because there's no one to take his place. And he won't
leave the station until there's someone who can handle the job. 

Several other guys in our area have "retired" as in layoffs and cutbacks and
now they're doing only contract work. Are they getting rich? No, It's still
broadcasting and while contract work is nothing new in this business, these
guys are  working harder now than when they were full-time employees because
they are responsible for so many stations. 

They may be making a little more money than before because they have tax
advantages they didn't have as full-time employees. But they also tend to
get more respect from station managers who seem to realize that they better
be nice to the guy they have to call out in the middle of holiday weekend or
a blizzard because if they aren't, they guy might not answer the phone next
time. They also get mileage and extra pay when they are called out on
weekends and holidays and to a certain extent, they can pick their employers
and their hours. In spite of all the cutbacks they are doing well right now
because there's more contract work than contract workers in this area and
it's less expensive for a station to have a contract engineer than to
employee one full time. 

What it comes to is that fewer than two dozen guys keep the 400+ radio and
TV stations in this state on the air. Again, we can spend a lot of time
arguing whether or not this situation is better for the industry, but it's a
fact of life here that's probably not going to change anytime soon. 
Adrienne