Pilot of the Airwaves

A couple of weeks ago, a song title popped into my head: "Pilot of the Airwaves," a minor soft-rock hit from the late '70s. I hadn't actually heard it in 15 or 20 years. So I looked it up on YouTube (where you can hear almost any song for free), and of course it was there.

Though it was nothing like a classic, radio DJs played "Pilot of the Airwaves" for years because, well, it was about them. "Pilot" was supposed to be a request-line message to a late-night radio DJ, left by a lonely woman who listens to him every night.

Pilot of the Airwaves
Here is my request
I don't know if you've got it
but I know you'll do your best
I've been listening to your show on the radio
And you seem like a friend to me

Just the thing to pump up a weary DJ at 10:30 pm on a slow Tuesday night.

Whatever else it does, "Pilot" captures the intimacy of DJ radio: hearing a friendly voice when you're alone at night, listening someone who's far away but seems to be talking directly to you.

No doubt I thought about the song again after all this time because, in a small way, I have become the Pilot of the Airwaves. I am the disembodied voice that dispenses comfort and corny jokes and a little information and maybe makes someone's crappy day a tiny bit better:

I do phone support.

My employer does most of its business on a suite of flaky, home-rolled business software unique to us. If you were to compare software to a building, ours would be the Winchester Mystery House: aged, eccentric, hard to find your way around in.

Doing the logical, intuitively correct thing in the Mystery House System can trap you at the top of a dead-end staircase, or at the threshold of a door opening into thin air three floors above the rose garden. And of course there's no instructional material that you'd ever want to read, or any formal training.

So people get into jams on Mystery House, and they need someone to help guide them out. That someone would be me. It sure isn't their supervisors. And while I don't know the answer to a lot of things -- I know who knows.

Our people are spread between numerous sites across several zip codes, so 90 percent of my support work is by phone. And though support is supposedly only a small part of my job description, when I come back to my desk from a meeting or lunch, my phone's message light is blinking red more often than not.

As a result, I have extensive histories with co-workers who I've never laid eyes on -- or at most maybe once two years ago over plastic sandwiches at an all-hands meeting.

They know me as a voice on the phone, and mostly that's how I know them. As voices. Frustrated voices. Puzzled voices. Self-important voices. Panicky voices. Frightened voices. And Boomer is always there to solve their problems. Or at least to commit to getting someone else to solve it. And sometimes to show a little tough love.

Frustrated:

"Boomer, I'm trying to find Client A's FAX number, and the client data screen doesn't have it. I can't believe we don't keep FAX numbers! "

"We do," I say. "But for reasons beyond the understanding of mere mortals, Mystery House keeps FAX numbers on a different screen that you've probably never heard of. I'll tell you how to get there...."

Puzzled:

"Boomer, why does report A tell me we brought in $50K in San Benito County last month, but report B tells me we only brought in $20K? That doesn't make any sense!"

"It probably makes sense in some alternate universe," I say. " Let me try what you did.... um, um. Yep. You're right. Uh, can I call you back?"

"Yeah. I probably did something stupid."

"There are no stupid people, just stupid software," I recite. It's one of my mantras.

I send out scattershot email to analysts who might know what the hell is going on. One does; good, because the answer isn't written down anywhere. I phone the client.

Self-Important:

"Boomer, the Mystery House data pull utility isn't working! I'm doing the same thing I always do, but it's not returning anything. If these tools can't be made reliable, I'm going to have to raise questions with Mr. BigBoss!"

"I'm so sorry, this is very serious . Of course we'll do our best to get you what you need," I purr. "But let me see if I can recreate the issue. Tell me what you did..."

The procedure works fine. She's made a mistake -- forgiveable -- and panicked and immediately blamed to the software. She has a pattern of doing this. Far be it from me to love Mystery House, but if people start saying Mystery House is broken every time they forget a checkbox, there'll be political hell to pay. I pour on the ooze and help her what she wants without actually pointing out that she goofed up. And she stops talking about broken software.

Panicky:

"Boomer, Mr. Bigboss wants XYZ data on this group of prospects, and I don't know how to do it! He wants it by lunch! What do I do?"

"We'll get him what he wants. And if we can't, we'll tell him why you can't get it for him and I'll see if one of the programmers can code up a query for you. Tell me exactly what he's asking for..... "

Afraid:

"Boomer, can you help me with an Excel question?"

"That's not what I do. I'm not an expert."

"I know, but... I didn't use Excel much before this job and I" -- she hesitates for a good two seconds -- "don't want to keep asking my boss how to do these things." I know her boss. He's demanding, impatient. He's probably started looking at her funny. And she's new, and not young, and needs the job badly.

"Well, let's see if I know the answer. And if I don't, the accountant's a pretty good spreadsheet jockey. I can ask her..."

Panic, fear, puzzlement, frustration; the velvet voice of Boomer rarely fails. Well, not very often. Okay, maybe in mid-afternoon, when my blood sugar crashes.

But honestly: put me on the phone and I go crazy; the words just pour out. But in a group conversation I have almost nothing to say; I'm slow to speak and stumble over my words.

People used to say I should be a DJ, and it might have been a satisfying career. But seeing how the radio industry turned out, I'd probably have ended up in a house trailer near Felton, subsisting on Beefaroni and Lite Beer. Just me and a monster record collection. So no regrets on that score.

I think that the phone -- like radio -- offers a combination of intimacy and distance that's attractive to slow-spoken guys like myself. Voice-only communication allows us to relax and be more ourselves -- or at least more what we'd like to be.

A fireman once told me, "When I meet the public they're never having a good day. But they sure are glad to see me." So are my clients. They know I'll never judge, never snap, always be there at the appointed hour, and always, always -- like a good DJ -- take their requests.