The Pledge Drive

Well, it's October and the Red Sox are NOT in the post season.
WGBH is in the midst of its Fall Radio Pledge and they are beating the bushes.

Tonight has been up and down. There was a flurry of activity as the Matching Pledge Challenge wound down. We are half way into our 25 call goal for this program.

Eric Jackson has been spinning some great music-right now he is playing something from nice from Shirley Horn.

We have one volunteer who is one of those bordering on obnoxious missionary Caucasoids who work with "minority" children and talk about "saving them" while flaunting their education. This one works for the BELL-a great organization that does great work. A donor called into pledge and she was chatting him up to donate to the foundation, which while technically not terrible was a bit of bad form by my way of thinking, since she was doing the soft press. I cringed at bits because she sounded so condescending when she spoke about the children.

She accidentally cut him off but then took time off the phones to call directory assistance to locate a T. J. in Lincoln, Massachusetts because she felt bad that she lost him while she was making her pitch to get them money. She got the guy's voicemail and did a great spiel about WGBH and customer service and then left her contact info at BELL.

A first-Radio Pledge did not have dinner or soda for the evening volunteers. Thankfully, I decided to eat before I came. That never happens though. Well it did not happen until tonight. I would be lying if I said that 1/4 th of the reason for my participating had to do with sampling some great food from good places. I have gone to those places on occasion.

There are four of us. Besides the missionary, there is borderline weird warehouse guy (Schwan Foods, Boston Globe and volunteers at Old Sturbridge Village) who has been here before and the older guy who loves jazz and runs the things.

Now missionary woman, F., is speaking in "slang." Apparently she is famous at WGBH and a little beyond for having met a guy that she dated at one of the pledge drives. She did testimonials about this and apparently she feels the need to run on about it.

Oh well.

I decided that it did not make sense to pay for premium service at Xanga. I will do the basic service and it has served me well.

Now she and the warehouse guy are talking about his volunteer time and dating.

I still work for the nonprofit...I have decided to stay until the end of the year.

The nervy, tidy woman has not shown herself yet. I imagine that if I show up on the weekend, she will be there.

Besides updating this blog, I have been cranking out correspondence and applying online at Borders Books for seasonal work. I want to build a little nestegg for the next year.

Now they are discussing the Evil Eye and how it's not Jamaican that do it. Painful is listening to them feebly discuss Black hair. Archie Bunker would cringe.

F. the Missionary is slowly leaving.

Oh great, she came back. She wanted to fill out the membership form that WGBH offers to volunteers. Little does she know that it is only for new memberships. No good on renewals. Warehouse guy was speaking to a donor and mispronounced 'dyslexia.' F. corrects him and tells him that he is dyslexic because he pronounced things incorrectly this evening. She followed it up by interjecting a bit further down that "there was something wrong with his head." I am sure that she thought that she was being cute and funny and was not being the least bit offensive. He didn't seem to think so.

Now she is GONE.

By the way, I met a guy on Myspace and he is nice. We are not dating but he makes me feel quite young-too young at times...

Meanwhile, I hope that everyone supports 89.7FM WGBH.