To all the Google searches

I know a lot of you land on this site when searching for Master control operator. Let me tell you of my years (8-plus!) of master controlling.

1. Enjoy tedium. Checking network logs, making sure everything is airing correctly. There won't a lot of new things to learn once you settle in, and sometimes, it is a dead end job. (exceptions, of course) If you like MC'ing, this won't be an issue. Some people love this job, and I understand why. It doesn't require an awful lot of brain power (which can be a good thing), as long as your common sense smart, you will have tremendous success in this field. (Please note: there are moments of trouble shooting, live events, and other obstacles that I really can't fit here that do require a good amount of brains, patience, and deep breaths)

2. You are there to ensure if there is failure of a device, automation, content, or a human, to correct the problem instantly, and get the program on air. Black on air = losses of tons and tons of money. And possibly your job.

3. Grabbing satellite signals, so you can record programs for future airing. Some places don't have you do this, sometimes they arrive on tape from distribution centers. Or on hard drives, flash drives, FTP, Aspera, ect. Or if you're lucky, you work at a facility where the ingest department is separate from the master control.

4. enjoy watching tons and tons of TV. It's an odd job for someone like me, but it enables me to do other things in my spare time because you can't take master control home with you. I work with people that do stand-up comedy, musicians, ect.

5. I've never worked at an affiliate station, only for cable networks. I can't speak for them. I work at a multi-network one, so I can only speak for those. We run fully automated on a server, so no more manual takes, or playing tapes. It's all loaded in the computer for air. We only deal with the traffic department at each network.

6. Get used to not getting credit. I at one time did live master control and at the end of the season, they would never put us in the credits. I mean, how did all those breaks roll, and who put them on air? (Sort of like being that old guy in "Wizard of Oz" behind the curtain) I know it's a trivial complaint, but it would've been nice to have a shout out after the 125+ events that required an MCO.

7. Multi-tasking. Some don't require this, but get your octopus arms ready; some require you to take on multiple items at once. Especially ones that have an immediate deadline, and you STILL haven't grabbed that hot pocket out of the microwave, and ran to the restroom yet.

Any questions, comments?