My Stint in Radio

…and the time of most of my embarrassing moments, life changing events and serious learning experiences!

My “dream job” interview was located in downtown Salt Lake City on South Temple in the afternoon on a beautiful, warm weekday. I was a bundle of nerves, parking was interesting and it seemed like I was going to be late if I waited any longer for the elevator. The seventh floor didn’t seem like that long of a trek up the stairs, but I soon realized that there were two flights of thirteen for each floor.

I was out of breath, gasping for air as I pounded on the locked seventh floor door at the back of some office filled with cubicles. A nice lady opened the door, and I croaked out, “I. (exaggerated inhale) Have. (inhale) An. (inhale) Interview. (exaggerated inhale).”

She showed me the way to the lobby, where I sat trying to catch my breath and gazed as the elevator opened up to fresh smiling faces sizing up my near faint, exhausted display. I just knew that this was the worst interview impression ever in recorded history!

A few days later, knowing that I embarrassingly bombed the interview, I sent a Thank You Letter and swallowed my lump of hopefulness.

To my amazement, I got the job!

Later my boss told me that it was the Thank You Letter that won her over. Wow. Who would have known?

From the day of my very awkward interview to the last day that I spent with Simmons Radio Group, strange, but unique to say the least, events took place.

On a sunny Thursday in April 1999, a gunman walked into the Family History Library kiddie-corner from our office building and started shooting people. The buildings within two city blocks were in lock-down mode. So, we all plastered ourselves in the windows of our high rise office building and watched as the armed SWAT Team crept along the rooftops in black ant formation. We heard of a suspicious truck parked down the street that was being investigated for a having bomb inside. We watched as the wounded were loaded into awaiting ambulances and later as a field trip of elementary school aged children (my niece being among them) were escorted out of the building to an awaiting school bus. Not much work was accomplished that day.

Four days later (which happened to be my boss’s birthday), we listened to CNN’s account of the horrible Columbine High School Shootings. Our emotions were still raw from our own too close for comfort shootings across the street. Again, it wasn’t a real productive workday.

For several years there was construction along South Temple for TRAX, a new commuter train to prepare for the extra visitors coming for the 2002 Winter Olympics. In 1999, construction was complete and TRAX was up and running. Since I had to park at a hotel down the block, I had to across the street at the corner of West Temple and South Temple. On a summer afternoon, my ankle twisted out from under me and I went down…face first…right in the middle of that intersection! In pain and embarrassed as the cars stopped at the red light had front row seats to my graceful performance. An elderly lady helped me up and cursed the construction as I hobbled to the sidewalk. When I looked around it donned on me that the construction was over! There wasn’t any in sight! It was like cursing the ice in the summer time!

We dubbed Monday as “Bride Day”. Temple Square was right across the street from our office building and as we walked along the street, we ogled in awe of all the beautiful brides on Monday mornings about to take the plunge into eternity.

Working with Nevah, my boss, was an experience that I can only explain by saying that I was spoiled rotten! She made work fun and I learned more about myself than I ever had before. Of course, the radio environment was exciting and I’m sure deep in my heart that I was meant to work there. Learning the radio lingo was a delight and each day was a new challenge, so it was never boring! I met some interesting people and some semi-famous people too. It was a job that will forever be marked in my memory as the one that I wish I had forever!

One rule that Nevah had was never to talk to her while she was on the phone. I usually respected this rule, except for one day in August 1999! A management meeting was going on in the northwest corner office on our floor and I was filling in for the receptionist as she took her lunch break. All of a sudden, a man burst out of the meeting, running up and down the hall, screaming for everyone to get away from the windows!

“Tornado, everyone get away from the windows!”

I left the receptionist desk to warn my boss who was on the phone. “Nevah, we need to get out of here, there’s a tornado coming!” I whispered to her. She only glanced at me so I said it again.

She replied in a hushed voice, “Kate, I’m on the phone!!”

I could already see the debris circling around in the sky and I was so scared that I just said, “I’ll be in the stairwell if you need me.”

Once there, I started thinking about how I needed to get to the bottom floor. I started running down the stairs, pulling each door shut that was open. When I arrived on the main floor, I heard the storm approaching and I stayed where I was until I heard it pass. Then I watched as it seemed to bounce over the Temple.

In disbelief and a mess of nerves, I rode the elevator back to my office. Nevah was sitting at her desk quietly working and I was afraid to ask her if she stayed there during the storm. So, I just sat down and tried to concentrate on some paperwork. Soon she looked over at me and said, “I can’t believe that I didn’t take that tornado more seriously!”

I was speechless.

A couple of years later our offices moved to Trolley Corners. The commute was just a little different with the freeway construction over and the 2002 Winter Olympics coming up within a year. We missed the Monday Brides, but welcomed better eating establishments at Trolley Square and the much needed parking in the back of the building! All the entertainment of the down town shady characters were replaced with the busy 700 East and BMWs. Nevah was in her element! She was so chic and comfortable in new posh surroundings.

Most everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing on the morning of September 11, 2001. The two hour time difference promised that we were all at home when we first learned that something had happened. Nevah is from the DC area so that was her “home” and she took the news hard!

At work, we sat in the downstairs lobby most of the day, glued to the television set and learned together that this had been on purpose. In the following days, Simmons Radio Group held a radio-a-thon and listened to others pour their hearts out on air. It seemed like everyone in the country needed a grief counselor. My most profound memory of that week was that the cast and crew of 'Touched by an Angel' brought in their payroll checks and handed them right over to support our country!

I was in awe of the down right 'good' in people those few days and weeks after 9/11. It made me so grateful to be there to witness it.

I never would have thought that the event would have an intense impact on me personally, but I was laid off due to the budge cuts and economic pressures that it placed on our business. Nevah was expecting her third child and she was quitting anyway. I was so sad to say goodbye! I’ve always felt I happened onto that job too early in my life. How was I supposed to get a different one after already having had my dream job?

No one in the Salt Lake Valley was hiring after September 11^th! I tried and tried to find a job. Just months before being laid off, I had gotten divorced and moved back in with my parents. I thought that I could save some money to get my own place to live, but those plans changed.

I ended up working at a bakery in Reams Grocery Store. I went from a wearing a suit and pumps to work everyday to jeans, ratty old t-shirts and black comfort fit shoes….but that’s an other story for another post!