Dan Misener dot com

Today was my second day on the picket line, and my first full 8 hour shift. I don’t think I’ve ever drank more water. Or worn more SPF 45 sunscreen. I arrived at 9:00 AM, and smiled when a colleague piped up, “I saw Dan Misener’s blog last night.”

The morning passed quickly. I got a chance to walk and talk with some people I hadn’t seen in a while, including the not-back-from-vacation-but-here-for-support Tony Doucette. Also chatted about Flickr and del.icio.us with Sue Braiden. For the most part, conversations were still CBC and lockout-related. But hey, when you’re walking around the CBC building with your CBC co-workers during a CBC lockout, it’s hard to focus on much else.

Other local unions dropped by with treats (iced cappuccino!), including CAW Local 195 and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association. Thanks!

I consider myself lucky. I’m young, and I’m portable, and I can live cheap. Most of what I own here fits in a couple of large Rubbermaid totes. I don’t have a spouse, kids, car payments, or a mortgage. Our strike pay is pretty good, and if the lockout continues, I’ll be able to eke out a humble existence. I’m not so worried about myself or those close to retirement — we’ll be OK. It’s my colleagues and friends with spouses, kids, cars, and mortgages that I’m worried about. My fingers are crossed.

And finally, before I go to bed to rest for what is sure to be another thrilling day on the picket line, here’s a non-lockout related post.

Via the del.icio.us “radio” tag feed comes a recent Columbia Journalism Review interview with Ira Glass, one of my radio heroes. It’s called Ira Glass on Working in Television, Public Radio’s Struggle For Innovation, and Hanging Up On People.

Read. Enjoy. Think about making great radio.

Just stumbled across Jennifer’s blog. She touches on an interesting phenomenon, one that a colleague and I discussed earlier today:

… eventually a few of us hang our signs in the trees to throw around a Frisbee. I feel guilty after about half an hour, so I put my sign back on to do the long boring walk some more.

There seem to be unwritten rules and expectations on the picket line. But where do these feelings of obligation come from? Besides serving as a public display, what the is function of picketing? Why do I feel guilty when I stop to sit down or have a drink?

I don’t, but close to thirty thousand Canadians do. From the wires, an interesting story about how the lockout is affecting northern audiences:

“If you’re a unilingual Inuktitut speaker, you can’t even get information on why you can’t get information.”

Joshua at Torontoist has a few suggestions for what to do during the “projected 6-week work stoppage” (I don’t know where this figure came from).

Following the discussion on Darryl’s blog led me to an Anglican priest’s take on the lockout:

As a member of the clergy I am extremely concerned for the welfare of our public institutions because I see the need for and the benefit of them. We need to be kept informed of what is going on in this world of ours and that is something the CBC did very well. I pray that this situation will be resolved quickly and for the benefit of all.

I just got home after my first shift picketing outside CBC Windsor.

I arrived at the lunch hour, and though spirits seemed lifted by the barbecue lunch, it was clear that many of my colleagues were dead tired. To collect strike pay, CMG members must picket 20 hours per week, and for some, this was their third day in a row spent outside in the hot Windsor sun. I chose to pile my 20 hours at the end of the week, so I picketed 4 hours today, and will picket for 8 hours each tomorrow and Friday.

Windsor is an interesting city for job action. It is Canada’s automotive capitol, and the CAW is omnipresent in daily life for many. It’s a union city, and the support I saw today certainly confirmed that. Along Riverside Drive, we got many honks and waves from drivers-by, which was nice. Also, some kind folks dropped by to chat, and brought with them water and fresh fruit.

The act of picketing itself is mind-numbing. You walk from one edge of of the property to another, then back again, then repeat. No matter who you talk to, the topic of discussion always seems to be the lockout.

Looking on the bright side of things, though, today I learned how to play petanque.

It’s nice to know that the CBC continues to post job openings.

I applied for a campus/community radio job at CHRY earlier this week.

Alternatively, if you’re looking for work (media or otherwise), here are a few more sites to check out, courtesy of Liz “Please See Attached” Gesicki:

• mediajobsearchcanada.com

• jeffgaulin.com
• careerclick.com
• ca.hotjobs.yahoo.com
• jobbank.gc.ca
• jobboom.com
• jobbus.com
• canadajobs.com
• jobbus.com/joblinks/Job_Posting_Sites
• monster.ca
• workopolis.com
• campus.workopolis.com
• forces.gc.ca
• careerowl.ca
• jobpostings.ca
• jobs.gc.ca

Please feel free to add to the list via comments.

And, via the aforementioned cbcwatch, a CBC lockout editorial from the Ottawa Sun called When nobody looks.

Though it might be easy to shrug it off and say, “Those conservatives just don’t get Canadian public broadcasting,” much of the editorial rings troublingly true to my ears.

Over the past few days, I’ve really enjoyed finding and reading blogs by other CBC employees. It’s nice to come across sites like Mind the Gap — they serve as a reminder that there are other young public broadcasters who feel the same way I do.

Working at a station full of veterans, it’s sometimes easy to forget there are other people in the same boat: young, interested in a career, and worried.