I’m not a fan of anyone ever losing their gig in TV and radio, but there are certainly times when a colleague’s sudden disappearance makes it easier to come into work.
 
I was reminded of this in a post last week about how five on-air radio hosts were arrested for various offences. The biggest name was one Craig Carton, mainly because he worked at high profile WFAN, the all-sports station in New York City. He’s accused of starting a multi-million ticket fraud scheme to pay off his ever-growing gambling debts.

And now a former co-worker has come forth to stomp all over the guy, revealing he was a complete creep to him while they worked together at another station. It’s an interesting read, and it puts me in mind of two people I can think of whose unexpected absence from the workplace set off what I can only call paroxyms of joy.

The first came at one of Toronto’s top radio stations in the 80s, where a guy who worked in the newsroom was almost universally hated. And sad to say, he earned it. This reporter was constantly tattling to management about every infraction someone else made, no matter how small or insignificant. If a report went over its specified length by even a second and a half, he’d issue a secret memo to the news director. He’d also listen to everyone’s pre-taped reports, desperately searching for even the slightest problem and then gleefully head straight to the ND’s door.
 
Ironically, even the news director hated this guy, but unfortunately, he did his job OK, so there were no real grounds to fire him. But God, he was a royal pain-in-the-drain. And then one day, out of the blue, he announced he was quitting to take over his family’s business.
 
Well, the entire newsroom went into party mode. People were laughing, smiling, trying to keep their glee from him, but quietly counting down the two weeks until his final departure. And it was a much, much happier newsroom once he’d gone, with everyone breathing a sigh of relief that this cancer had been cut out of their lives.
 
The other instance happened at a local TV station, where a news director ran the place like a dictator. He had a few favourite employees, but everyone else was yelled at, humiliated in front of others and generally treated like garbage. This was in the days before HR was a factor in how employees could be addressed.
 
When the company was taken over, it took a few months, but they eventually ousted the guy, giving him a huge payout to leave since he’d been there for years. One of the people I worked with was a female producer who was forced to regularly meet with this cretin, and in fact had an appointment with him the day he was canned.
 
I remember seeing her walk into the newsroom that day, her face a mass of tension thinking about what was to come. I’ll never forget her reaction when I broke the news to her that her nemesis was gone forever. Her hand went up to her mouth in stunned surprise, stayed there for a few seconds, after which she shouted “You’re kidding!”
 
And then she broke out in the biggest smile I have ever seen on a human being. In fact, she kept smiling for the rest of that day. For all I know, that grin may still be on her face all these years later.  
 
So while I hate to see anyone lose their jobs, sometimes their loss is everyone else’s gain.