You're Fired!

          This reading definitely resonated with me as a member of WPRK for three years. Our director staff and our DJ staff are both made up of volunteers, however, we still have the problem of "firing" or letting go of the volunteers who do not do their jobs, or are hard to communicate with. Especially in regard to DJs, who sometimes feel that they have more of a right to have a volunteer position than Director Staff.
          While I do not have as much experience with hiring and firing DJs, I was part of an effort to "fire" a DJ that posted our WPRK logo on a Rachel's (strip club) flyer, and put these flyers down in our station. From the reading, I believe this would fall under "poor work ethics." The DJ, however, appealed to OSIL, saying that there is nothing in the constitution that says he cannot do this. The DJ was reinstated by OSIL, and Clark, Rob, Casey and I set up a meeting with Sara about how this hurts our power as Director Staff. It was definitely an important experience, where I felt that WPRK Director Staff was able to confront OSIL about how this type of conflict weakens our ability to direct the DJ staff.
          In terms of firing Director Staff, this has also often posed a problem (past and present). Because students are not paid, there is little incentive on our part to "fire" a student (because this student will have to be replace) unless you are a in a director position that needs this student to be doing there job in order to completely do your job. I feel that the new departmentalized staff does make it easier to let go off and re-hire staff; however, I think we still could use more guidelines about this - especially because now that we are in departments not all positions have met the other positions.
        The author also mentions having DJs take a test on FCC guidelines and other rules; I feel that this would be extremely helpful, and we have talked about doing it before... We just need someone dedicated enough, and with enough balls (excuse my language) to re-test all the DJs we have already hired. I also liked the idea of evaluating student staff member, however, I feel like this would be more viable for us if these positions were paid, instead of volunteer positions. WPRK also needs to work on our communication to students when we feel that they are not sufficiently doing their jobs. Unfortunately, we tend to fall back onto gossip and back-talking about how these people are not responding or doing anything, instead of confronting these students.