| Topic Name: |
Tampa |
| Message Name: |
My experience with Forrest |
| Date Posted: |
06/01/2005 |
| In Reply To: |
Any details yet? |
| Message: |
You know Forrest, I can remember the day you hired me to come in and report for your operation. You did one hell of a sell job; you talked a good game of having fun and kicking the other stations asses all over the market. That sounded good to a person who was two years out of college and was looking to get out of market 140.
I remember my uncle coming out to visit me and I remember you two meeting each other. The first thing he said to me when we walked out of the newsroom was "watch him."
In the end he turned out to be right.
In my short tenure with you I learned what you really stood for. I eventually found out you liked to hire people in management positions who would not question you or your decisions. You liked employees to rat on each other.
I can recall the long meeting we had together after I refused to come in at 2:00 am on my vacation. I remember you trying to look stern and saying at least 10 times that television journalism is not a 9-5 job. It was all about committment to the profession. Despite the simple fact that I was enjoying my first week off in over a year. I made the mistake of actually answering the phone on my vacation in the middle of the night.
When I finally saw through your act and realized that making fun of the competition over little things was not becoming of a news director. Of all the talks you gave and the books you have authored, or helped to author, I still remember thinking that you still didn't get the management side of the job.
I feel sorry for people like Forrest. A good journalistic mind, but zero people skills. You demand a lot of people, but in the end, those expectations are unreasonable.
I was angry for being fired and having that black mark on my resume, but when I tell others who I worked for, they understand.
It's apparent that you still don't get it.
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