Behind the scenes at PBS

Okay. I'm watching this really great program on PBS tonight, really enjoying it, you know?

Then it gets interrupted. It's the damn pledge drive! Now, I have to wade through twenty minutes of guilt-inducing announcements before the really great programming resumes.

Damn! I hate it when that happens.

PBS and NPR would get a lot more money if after you donated, you'd be given a code that could override the pledge drive segments. I'd donate right away just for that.

It reminded me of the time that my previous employer decided to participate in the pledge drive at the local PBS station.

So there we were in the PBS studio, each of us behind a telephone in our Bank One T-shirts. Every 30 minutes or so, we'd be live on the air with the phones incessantly ringing, smiling and taking pledges. Just like you see on TV when the good programs are interrupted.

But do you know what's really going on?

That's just each of us calling each other over and over. We were told to do that while on the air to make it sound like all these dedicated viewers were calling in.

Most of the time, we were telling dirty jokes to each other. Thus the smiles.