I turned 16 in December of 1976 and was ready to look for my
first paying job. You needed a work
permit if you were under 18, so I quickly got one at my high school
office. Getting the first job wasn’t
quite so quick. I don’t remember what I
did between December of 1976 and the summer of 1977; did I apply for jobs? I don’t recall. What I do remember is that when school was
out for the summer, I began in earnest to find a job at a radio station.
I literally hit the pavement. My mother, at the time, worked for Visiting
Nurse Service which was headquartered in downtown Rochester. On several occasions that summer, I would
ride to work with her. Then I would walk
to each radio station’s office to apply for a job.
WNYR and WEZO was an AM/FM combo of radio stations, a
popular arrangement in the 1970’s. There
were federal rules against ownership of multiple stations in one market, which
is the case today. WNYR was at 680 AM
for daytime broadcasts only, and was a country music format. WEZO was at 101.3 FM and featured “beautiful
music,” a very popular format in the late 1970’s. In fact, it was the number one station in
ratings at the time. The stations and
their offices were located upstairs in a small building on East Main Street in
Rochester, across the street from the old Armory.
The first time I walked into WNYR/WEZO, I met Jerry
Warner. He was the voice of WEZO, giving
his smooth delivery of station ID’s, times, and morning announcements. WEZO was a fully automated station. The equipment racks included 4 reel-to-reel
tape decks, 2 carousel cart machines for commercials, two large cart machines
that alternated between the even minutes and odd minutes of every single minute
of the day, and a few more cart machines from which newscasts were played.
Had there been a job opening on my first visit, Jerry would’ve
been the one to hire me. He invited me
to stay and chat a bit. I remember asking
him, “What would my main job be?” His
answer, “To stay awake!” The position
was automation operator; you had to change the reels of tape and the carts in
the carousels, based on what was scheduled in the program log. That, and of course, stay awake while
beautiful music threatened to lull you to sleep.
The computer system was extremely rudimentary. All it did was put the various tape machines
in a sequence. Each of the songs on the
reels of tape had a very low-pitch audio tone at the end of them; the tone was
below the hearing level of the average human ear. When the computer heard this tone, it would trigger
the next tape deck in sequence to start, whether it was another music tape, a
commercial, or one of the carts with Jerry’s ID or time on it. I can still hear him say in a smooth tone, “The
WEZO time is 7:24.”
I think I made about two more rounds of radio stations that
summer. I never got a job then, but on
my last visit to WEZO/WNYR, Jerry introduced me to a new chief engineer, John
H. John was taking over the hiring of automation operators. Not long after school started in September, I
happened to be at WGMC when John called me, offering me a job working weekend
evenings. Wow! I’d get paid to work in radio! Of course I accepted!
My job consisted of running the automation for WEZO, and
transferring commercials from reels of tape to carts for both stations. I got to know the DJ’s who were on WNYR and we'd talk about the business.
Not long after I started working there, John told me he
needed an operator for the overnights. I was still in high school, so it was
not an option for me. I mentioned it to
my friend, Burt, who applied and got the job.
He often arrived early enough so that we could chat for a bit before my
shift ended. We still have a good laugh
every time we remember seeing sidewalk snowplows, one night, on the streets
below. It was like bumper cars out
there; the plows kept knocking into tree planters and mailboxes!
While we were both employed there, the station was building
new offices and studios a couple miles away on East Avenue, in the block of the
111 East Avenue Hotel. I think it was in
January of 1978 that we made the move.
What stands out to me is that I remember another building under construction
one block away. Little did I know that
in another few years, I would end up spending over three decades in that
building, WHEC Channel 10.
My time at WEZO/WNYR was short. In February, 1978, I ended up being fired from
a job for the first time in my life.
They claimed I had made a mistake in carting a commercial, but I’ve
always suspected that there was more to the story than what they told me. There seemed to be a house-cleaning going on
at the time, and it left my friend Burt out of a job, too.
That ended my paid broadcasting jobs while in high
school. More successes came later on in
college. For the record, I spent most of
the rest of high school working at two different nursing homes.
This gives me an opportunity to brag about the shortest job
interview I ever had. My mother had
worked as a Registered Nurse at Lake Shore Nursing Home, on Beach Avenue in
Rochester. By the time I stopped there
in September, 1978 to apply for a job, she had already moved onto Visiting
Nurse Service. So, I walked in the front
door and asked for an application. After
filling it out, I gave it back to the receptionist. She told me to have a seat.
A few moments later, the administrator came out and looked
at the application. He said, “Are you
Dorothy Pakusch’s son?”
I said, “Yes.”
He said, “Can you start today?”
Bang, hired!
I started the next day, in the kitchen. (Thanks, mom, for having a good reputation that got passed on to your son!)
In my next chapter, I will talk about my college radio
experience.
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