I've decided to take a trip through memory lane by reviewing some of sklogs I did about the non-profit radio station where I worked for a while. I'd originally thought to include only the sklogs done while I was actually an employee at the station, but after looking through the sklogs, I discovered that my memory has played tricks on me; I didn't do any sklogs while I worked at the station. I started posting the sklogs more than a year after I'd left the station, and I did all the posted drawings of the radio station's offices and control room and volunteer events as a hanger-on, not even as a proper volunteer. Here's one from a meeting I attended at Brewvies, attended by programming staff and on-air volunteers:
I have no idea what I was doing at this meeting. I never had anything to do with programming as a staff member. I utilized the station CD library - the bitterly contested subject of this meeting- but not for on-air programming, just for...my own enjoyment, basically. It seems a little shameful to admit now. That is the dominant feeling I have, when reviewing these old pictures; shame. And for more than just being an odiously lazy and selfish hanger-on. There were many hangers-on in the station volunteer community, people who just showed up at events and meetings and maybe manned the station's tent-booth at one or two events a year or subbed for a couple shows in that same period, and there were the rare few like myself who did absolutely nothing but make copies of CDs from the library and attended a few meetings. This would make me less ashamed if there hadn't been a core group of extremely diligent and helpful people who subbed for a lot of shows, even the late night shows that the programming director would tear his hair out over. These people went to the meetings too, but they probably had more emotionally invested input than I did, by which I mean they attended the meeting with the idea of discussing a problem which they wished to solve, whereas I attended all the meetings to create an unrecognizable portrait of the people attending the meeting which I would scan and upload to my now defunct web page with as many uninteresting comments as I could fit on the page, thereby destroying whatever tattered scraps of aesthetic value the drawing had been able to hold together from my original doodling. Then I would proudly email all the people who had attended the meeting to let them now I'd created a piece about them, and invite them to follow the provided link to view and enjoy it.
Then over the next day or so I would maintain a close watch on my inbox for any emails pertaining to the sklog. If they contained polite complements, I would print them for future review. If they contained the slightest hint of criticism I would delete them and lock myself in the bathroom for a few hours. If the message from a sklog recipient contained no mention of the sklog but asked how I was doing or what movie I'd seen or what books I'd been reading I would shriek with physical pain, remove the sender from my contacts, pray for immediate death by lightning strike, and lock myself in the bathroom.
It was a pleasant time in my life that I look back to with great fondness. I also drew some sklogs of volunteer DJs in the control room while they did their show.
I drew these while sitting at one of the guest mics in the booth.
There's a mic on a bendy robot arm looking thing that you can move around, and a counter where you can put your notes or laptop or a good book if you like reading. You're facing the DJ, so you can make a signal to them if they're talking too much or slurring their words.
If I were the manager of the radio station I would do all my desk work at one of the two guest mic seats in the booth, and would make occasional comments on the mic, just to let people know I was there. If someone called me I could put them on the air or talk about what they'd said after. And I would do a sklog as I worked, and that would be my only interaction with station staff. They would have to decipher my instructions from random on air comments and the sklog. Unless they wanted a raise. Then they would have to ask me on air, with all the station donors listening
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