Our Last Christmas In Hume House.

It's true, we are on the verge of vacating what has been the home of Dublin's Hit Music Station FM104 since March 1997! Some are sad at the thoughts of leaving the building that has housed the station for the best period of it's 19 year history, some are absolutely delighted to be getting out of the place and into a fresh new building. I'm in the middle to be honest. I have a lot of memories from the Hume House period, some nice and some not so nice. And of course there have been some really funny stories from a company that is never dull or boring to work for.

This morning a story came back to me as I was looking at the bags of wine we always get from management every christmas. As always we are grateful for anything we get but there was one year that we weren't so grateful! Gather round you sad anoraks for a weh ehh story from the walls of the 3rd floor of Hume House, Ballsbridge Dublin 4....

Back in christmas 1999 a rumour began to spread through FM104 that a rival radio station had given each of their staff 1,000 punts of a christmas bonus. Now christmas bonuses are a serious bone of contention within Irish companies - some give, some don't. Back then, for whatever reason, we didn't get a christmas bonus. It didn't bother me to be honest but I can't deny that when I heard that those w*****s in **FM were getting a grand in cash for their bonus, I was a little bit pissed off. As you would be.

It seemed that I wasn't alone in my anger, many of the on air staff felt the same way and we wondered why that when we were the number 1 station in Dublin, the same gratitude wasn't being extended to us? So the rebel came out in us and we decided to take drastic action in order to demonstrate our indignation to management ; we were going to refuse to accept the wine that mangement had put aside for us!!! What upstarts we were!:)

I should add at this point that I was not the ringleader in this plot, nor was I the one who came up with the idea. The ringleader, who no longer works for the company shall remain nameless throughout this story. And as much as I would dearly love to embarrass him, I won't.

So the 'ringleader' gathered the troops and put his idea to us all and we all agreed to go along with it. Our CEO was incensed by this action and regarded it as a personal insult to him - and believe me, you didn't want to get on the wrong side of him! Mr. Hanrahan stormed down to the prep room where we all gather to prepare for our shows and confronted Adrian Kennedy as to why he was refusing to accept his wine. Adrian was upfront and honest as to why he and the rest of us refused to take the wine, leaving Dermot Hanrahan even more angry than he already was. "Sure I'm not the only one" replied Adrian to Dermot and he proceeded to list the names of us who were boycotting Mr. H's gesture, including the name of the 'ringleader'. "Oh on the contrary" was DH's reply to Adrian as he produced a christmas card from his shirt pocket which contained a letter addressed to himself thanking him for his gift of wine and thanking him for all he had done for him throughout the year! Yes, this was the same guy who had cadjoled us into refusing the wine!!!

Upon hearing this we all waved a white flag and duly collected our wine from Dermot's office. The wine was lovely but it didn't wash away the bitter taste in my mouth and the anger at how downright deceitful and sneaky the 'ringleader' was. Unfortunately this business brings out the worst in people sometimes and my relationship with said (or unsaid as the case here is) was never the same afterwards. Oh well.

I'll be posting some more funnies and perhaps some more disturbing stories from the walls of Hume House in the coming weeks - if the boss doesn't put a stop to it in the meantime!:)

Andy