Sound and Silence

“Hey, the program for recording sound is on the fritz,” Tom told Chief-slacker.

“Okay, I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Slacker said, hanging up the phone.

Half-an-hour later Slacker arrived and went immediately to work to fix the problem. It took him two-hours and several reboots of the computer to finally get the system to work.

Without waiting to see if the system would remain in operation, Slacker left the radio station saying, “I’m taking my wife and kids to the state fair. Give me a call if you need me.”

Less than 20 minutes after Slacker left, Tom sat at the desk in the newsroom editing sound for the morning news show. Before he could complete a single project involving the recording of two wraparounds and two features, the system went belly-up again.

Once again he dialed Slackers number. Tom explained that the same problem as before was happening.

“Well,” Slacker said, “Keep rebooting the computer. I’m at the fair with my family. Call me if you still can’t get it to work.”

An hour later, the program that recorded and played back audio still would not work. So Tom called Slacker again and told him it was still down.

“Yeah, well I’m still a the fair, Jus’ keep trying,” Slacker said, hanging up on Tom before he could protest.

Reboot after reboot and the program failed to work. At midnight came the shift change.

“What do you mean you don’t have any sound,” the oncoming jock shouted, “You should have had the Engineer down here working on it.”

“I did,” Tom told him, “And he left after it began working and has refused to come back because he’s at the fair with his kids.”

“This is bullshit,” he shouted at Tom, “Then you should have called Mr. Bully and have him deal with it.”

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Tom responded, “And get my ass chewed for disturbing him for something like this.”

“You’re an asshole, Tom. Plain and simple,” he growled.

“No,” Tom shot back as he headed out of the office door, “We work for assholes who don’t do their jobs and we don’t get paid enough to deal with their shit and ours too!”

The following morning Tom got a call at home from Bully, “I understand you didn’t call the Engineer to have the sound problem fixed?”

“Yes, I did,” Tom answered, “But he only came down the one time and then gave me the excuse that he was at the fair with his kids and wife.”

“That’s not what he says,” Bully stated.

“Check his cellphone and you’ll find he’s lying to you,” Tom said.

“Anyway, you left your relief with extra work because there was no sound available,” he continued.

“No,” Tom returned, “Chief-slacker did.”

“I’m gonna have to sort this out,” Bully offered, “Look of an email from me.”

That was the last Tom heard of the situation. However he refused to trust Chief-slacker ever again, something he already knew to do when it came to anything Bully said or did.