When cash is king
The RTE saga continues to rumble.
When I did my third level electronics course the ultimate aim of all my classmates was to get a job in RTE. It was considered the pinnacle of achievement. Alas I didn’t make the cut and looked on in envy at the few who made it as I headed off into lesser employment.
As chance [or luck] would have it, after a few years I achieved my ambition – a job in RTE. It was a temporary job and was told I would be laid off after six months. No matter. At least I could say I once worked there.
The six months came and went. They actually became nearly forty years but that’s by the by.
I loved working there. At the time the place was run by the engineers and programme makers and had the atmosphere of a happy if somewhat large family. If we had to work a few extra hours of an evening to get a job done, we did it purely out of a sense of pride in the job. Timekeeping was very flexible and no one gave a toss provided things ran smoothly.
Then the accountants took over.
Suddenly timekeeping became more important than the quality of work. It became a place of quantity over quality. At the same time, some presenters became greedy and started demanding silly salaries. Those salaries were paid not on the talent of the presenter but on the basis of advertising revenue that a particular programme generated.
There was a palpable change in atmosphere. The accountants and bureaucrats were now the rulers and meetings and conferences were more important than the job itself. Morale took a plunge.
I left in ’01. I was glad to get out of the place to be honest. Instead of an ambition to work in RTE my ambition was to get out of it. Things apparently have not improved since.
And then the shit hit the fan.
I think one headline this week hit the spot as to why staff are so angry at management – There were 725,000 people on pandemic supports when Tubridy was assured his pay would not drop. Staff were ordered to take a cut in their wages when money was freely available for partying, membership of an exclusive London club and even flip-flops for fucks sake.
I can only look on in wonder and disgust as the revelations are dragged out. I am disgusted but not surprised.
Thank God I am out of the place.
But do you think that “Lessons will be learned.”?
And then business as usual, but with more care taken to conceal the fuck-ups.
Who or what finances RTE? And how?
I have seen a picture of Tubridy. I can only think that he is an ex alter boy who has kept a diary. Which he keeps updating. Up dating, nudge nudge, wink, wink.
How else would he have risen from the bottom up?
No doubt there is a whole clique around him who are now shitting themselves via their well dilated arseholes.
Is anybody running a book on Tubridy’s longevity?
In fairness, the new boss seems to be shaking things up a bit [he only started work today] and has already suspended the entire board. There have also been two “resignations” at top level – did they jump or were they pushed?
I never had much time for Tubridy. As a presenter he can be quite painful to watch. I always get the impression he loads up with a few more lines of coke each commercial break. He is certainly not worth half a million a year or even a fraction of that. I can’t see him ever recovering from the current mess and his only real option is to leave. What’s more I can’t imagine him ever getting a job in the Meeja again and certainly not at his current salary.
“How else would he have risen from the bottom up?”
Because shit always floats to the surface.