It’s safe to say that the world totally changed after March 13th, 2020. School wasn’t going back to in person learning after spring break, big concerts and events were getting cancelled and all of a sudden, we couldn’t meet up with a bunch of friends and family. Oh, and people were travelling out of the country. It was crazy.
For the past 21 months, I have worked for Pattison Media in Prince George. I’m their FunChaser – my job is to promote events that are happening in the surrounding area. Yeah… you can imagine what that was like when everything got cancelled.
So, what happened at the radio/news station?
On March 14th we were supposed to welcome the world for the World Women’s Curling Championships. They got cancelled so I had the weekend off. On Monday, I came in to do my reception shift and there were talks about “shutting down.” Not actually shutting down, but getting the majority of people to work from home. Ultimately, if you didn’t have to be in the building, you weren’t to be in the building. The doors were getting locked, so the public could not come in, and we had to keep our distance from each other.
At the end of the day, Kevin, our General Manager, looked at me and said “Okay Sylvia. We won’t see you until everything is back to normal. You aren’t an essential worker.” I was a little sad to be walking away from work not knowing when I would be back, but I was also excited to spend time at home and do nothing.
Psych.
I woke up the next day to an email, a missed call, a voicemail and a text from Kevin. He wanted me back in the station to cover reception. They only had Janet in there and phones were ringing off the hook with clients cancelling orders right, left, and centre. She couldn’t keep up and needed someone there to help with calls, emails, and doing logs. Our other receptionist/traffic person had to stay home and take care of her kids. I was becoming an essential worker.
So, off I went to work. I was excited to be able to have a routine during the pandemic and most of all, I was going to be working full time. Oh, and I wasn’t going to drive my family up the wall. I’m REALLY good at that.
I got to work and I walked into a quiet building. Chatter, laughter, sales reps walking around are all common. It was eery. I got to reception and helped Janet.
Because businesses were closing for a period of time, people were staying at home, and money was tight for many, lots of clients were pulling their ads. That means contracts needed to be cancelled, reimbursements needed to be made, and it felt like a lot of work when it seemed like every client was doing it.
Advertisement spots were getting filled with more and more promos and fewer and fewer paid ads. It was really disheartening seeing all this money being lost right before our eyes.
Everything had to get satanized before and after use; you couldn’t have too many people in a room at once; we weren’t accepting food drops from clients; and there were only, like, 15 people in the building. It was scary.
Reporters would only come in to do their voice overs, and do their stories from home. Many on-air jocks and producers were doing production at home and only came into the building for their show. Most of the creative and sales departments were working from home. Managers were spending more time at home. Toward the end of the day, I would be the only person on the second floor. We all had our little spaces in the office, and we would stay there.
We were talking to coworkers in the building over the phone and email. There were many people I hadn’t seen in weeks. It was crazy.
If clients wanted to let people know that they were open, and do an ad, they had to call and record their ad over the phone. You could tell it was done over the phone, too. But, we had to do what was best for everyone’s health.
COVID was consuming everyone. It seemed that that was all everyone could talk about.
And then something really cool happened. It lifted a lot of spirits in town. Bailey Grose, a local mom, reached out on a local Facebook page and asked if people could put hearts in their windows for kids to count while they go out for walks with their parents.
It.
Blew.
Up.
It went international.
I saw this as an opportunity to have some fun at the station because we were all feeling pretty blue, and went and bought A TON of card stock paper and started cutting hearts.
Here’s a video I made. I asked people who were at the station that day how many hearts they thought I put up. It was great. A lot of them are still up, which I think is SO cool.
Also, during that time, birthday parades exploded in Prince George. They were happening every day; and at 7PM honking at the hospital in support of nurses, doctors, and medical staff was happening too. We took part in many of them at the station, which helped me a lot because they were events that I could attend.
The months went by. People were still working from home, we only had a 30-minute newscast with only our anchor on air; our sports reporter and weather person couldn’t be in studio at the same time. I was still working full time reception and I was not chasing a lot of fun. It was not ideal.
As spring progressed, things started to slowly open. Clients were buying advertisements again, I was going out on weekends because some events were happening, my coworkers started coming back to work in the office. It was great, but it wasn’t quite the same.
But with that, we had to change some policy. And policy has changed A LOT since everyone came back to work.
We have plexiglass EVERYWHERE – dividing work stations, desks, on-air booths, you name it. We also have to wear a mask the moment we leave our work station. Our doors are still locked to the public, but we do allow clients to come in to record ads now.
It seems like business is back to normal. We’re almost there, but not quite yet.
Working at a radio station during a pandemic is wild. Especially when it seems that everything is shut down. We are fortunate that we could stay open and continue to play music, and share the news, and be a part of the community. It has been a long haul and I can’t wait for things to go back to normal, and see everyone’s smiling faces walking around the building!