Hello Hello Bloggers!
Well once again another day at the brilliant Absolute is over, and once again the time has flown by. No pictures today, due to me literally not having a free minute (Well, apart from my hour lunch break) so hopefully in this entry I won't waffle on and on and on and on and.... like I have in the past two :)
SO ANYWAY
Another 5.45am wake up, and drive to the station. It was cold and dark, but the train was half empty so it was all good. After sleeping through the majority of the journey I arrived in a sunny, blue skied London. If you read the papers, or watch the news, chances are you know about the strikes that were due to take place today. I was quite worried it would cause disruption to my walk to Absolute, as I walk past many of Londons landmarks... To my surprise the "Protest" I walked past consisted of 5 people holding signs. They gave me a leaflet. They seemed friendly. I read their leaflet, then stuffed it in my pocket. It's probably still there.
So anyway I got to the Absolute, and sorted the post. Easy enough, though quite awkward when people walk in to get their post and I haven't sorted it yet. It didn't take to long, and then Adam on reception gave me a schedule of what I would be doing over the next two weeks. I had meetings with people from Scheduling, Programming and Communications as well as chances to sit in with Christian on the breakfast show, and Geoff on drive... Though not till next week... Damn.
We were then given a list of meetings we had to make tea and coffee for. The first was at 10.45... 15 minutes before our meeting with Eric from Scheduling. It was only 10 so I decided to stock up the fridges and to clean up the Zoo.
So nothing of note happened there. Time came to get the "Meeting" tray together, with coffee, teabags sugar etc and take it to the meeting. Then came our meeting with Eric from Scheduling. Like everyone else at Absolute, he was an incredibly nice guy, who was very modest about how far he had come and what he'd achieved. He had wanted to become a Presenter or Producer in his teenage years. Like me, he had started on a media based university course, and had tried to get experience anywhere he could.
His first dose of work experience was at BBC Radio 1Xtra, where he became more of a studio assistant than work experience person. Then, through an agency, he was told of an opening at Absolute. He applied and got it. He admitted Scheduling wasn't the most glamours part of radio, but for a commercial station it was one of the most important departments. It was his job, along with his team, to make sure adverts were played in the right place, and didn't clash. For example, Sky and Virgin wouldn't ever be in the same ad break. Basically, he sorted when and where the adverts would be played.
A real unsung hero, and he also admitted still interviewing people and recording his own content in his own time, just because he loved doing it. He gave me good advice. His advice, summed up was "Make a nuisance of yourself" always ask questions and don't let anyone forget you. Get in the way basically. O and just as a side notes, hes good friends with Ed Sheeran and Reggie Yates. Standard.
After getting his contact details, I made my way to floor one to see Gregg (The breakfast producer... See my last blog "Day Two") as he had told me in passing that he had a job for me... I ran to him like an excited puppy expecting another trip to Tesco to pick up more weird food items.... Alas no. He had something completely different in mind. Christian O'Connells breakfast show had an annual event called the "Beer and Cake" festival. He opened a spreadsheet, which had a list of names and their contact details. My job was to go on Christian's facebook, and fill in whether they were a friend of his or not. If they weren't I had to find them, and add them. If I couldn't find them I just left it. Ones who were already friends got a Green colour, the ones where a friend request had been sent got an orange and ones I couldn't find got a red.
Half way through I was summoned to reception (Absolute has a PA system throughout the building) Whenever there is something to celebrate, Alcohol is delivered to the station and sent to each floor. For some reason no delivery had been made for today, so me and Adam had to go to Tesco Metro to get beer and wine. It was in celebration of the start of Absolute 70's. Money was given to us from the finance department and off we went to get the goods. Unfortunately I do not like beer (I'm a cider man) and wine is too higher class for the likes of me. Once we returned, we had to put the beers in the fridges, which were stuffed with soft drinks. So the soft drinks were removed to make way.
MY FIRST LESSON WAS LEARNT
Don't put Red Wine in the fridge... for some reason people frown upon it.
A band was coming into the zoo to do a live session. I did not know the band, and can't for the life of me remember their name. It was my job to clear the room of chairs, xmas decorations and other junk, so the room was free for the session guys to set up. Turns out it was all in vein as the band didn't turn up, due to protests causing havoc throughout London.
I then returned to my station to continue the "facebook" stalking and then have a late lunch break (It had gone 2) Once I returned, Gregg asked me to look through the people that Christian had as a friend already and find "funny" pictures of them, so that the breakfast show could make fun of them in the next few shows. Extremely slow due to facebook constantly crashing.
Apart from gate crashing a meeting with a jug of hot water and teabags, I continued the facebook stalk until half 5.
Through the day I met more people, including the head of communications, a person who worked in the music department, and a guy who had started with work experience but now worked at Absolute on the Drive show.
Today may have seemed boring written down, but believe me it was fun. The little jobs are never dull to me, as I just remember where I am and who I'm doing them for. It seems that half the building began their radio careers with work experience, which bodes well for me :)
Till tomorrowwww
Colin
(Twitter: ColinJByrne)
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