Jason Palladino, aka Jay Sweet, from the Class of 1997, always approaches a new gig with a sense of fearlessness. So it's no surprise that he would be our first alumnus to land a new job because of the WJPZ at 50 podcast. More on that later in the episode.
As a Solvay native, SU was always on Jay's radar. As the first of his immediate family to go to college, he was actually in pre-med, before the media bug bit him thanks to WJPZ. Soon, he took on the roles of assistant music director and morning show co-host, among others.
In fact, with the motto of "I'll sleep when I'm dead," Jay pulled an insane schedule for awhile - doing nights and overnights at WHEN radio, then coming up the Hill to be on Z89's morning show. After awhile, something had to give, and he parted ways with WHEN. So naturally his next move was to pester the program director at (then separately owned) WSYR and see what he could land there. As he got more opportunities there, it seemed the right time to leave WJPZ.
After hitting a ceiling at WSYR, Jay wanted to do more. So he packed up and headed to New York to work in operations for Westwood One. In fact, WJPZ connections helped him easily land the gig. But 9/11 really affected him, and he needed to return home to Central New York. This time it was for television, helping build News 10 Now, the 24 hour news station in Syracuse.
Next, Jay takes us through his career from Albany to Orlando. Next, he'd pack up his wife and five kids for a return to New York, before heading back south to Atlanta.
We had to edit out the part of this podcast where Jay talks about how great his gig is in Atlanta and how he doesn't plan on leaving, because that's just what happened. Jay heard John Ferracane's episode of this podcast, talking about needing help at News Nation, the new 24 hour cable news channel. Jay thought he and John could form a partnership or pipeline for off-air talent. But the next thing you know, Jay was flying to Chicago to interview for an operations manager role. In telling the story, we hear a lesson about finding an employer that knows your value and worth.
To wrap up, we bring it back around to the WJPZ lessons that have served Jay well in his career, and a hilarious morning show prank of our own Neon Dion Summers.
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast Series is produced by Jon Gay, Class of 2002, and his podcast production agency, JAG in Detroit Podcasts.
Want to stay in the loop with WJPZ Alumni events? Subscribe to our newsletter on the right hand side of the page at http://wjpzalumni.org/
JAG: welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. Joined today from the class of 97, Jay Sweet. Jason Palladino. Welcome to the podcast.
Jason: Thank you for having me. Jag in Detroit, the Detroit Rock City podcasting at the at the finest levels.
JAG: We are now at full JPZ Rick Wright mode as we kick this thing off. Start at the beginning. Jay. How'd you end up at Syracuse?
Jason: I'm a townie. I was born and raised in Syracuse, actually. Grew up in a little in the little community of Solvay, the little village of Solvay, known for its own power company and eating cats.
JAG: I'm sorry?
Jason: The rumor is that people in Solvay eat cats.
JAG: You can put that to bed on this podcast though, right?
Jason: We can definitely put that to bed they do not eat cats.
JAG: So Syracuse University was on your radar outta the womb?
Jason: It was. I went to Solvay High School, graduated in 93, started looking at colleges because I was going to be the first member of my family, my immediate family, to go to college. And I was going to be also the first immediate member of my family to be a doctor. I went to Miami, St. John's, Villanova, Penn State, and Syracuse of course, because of the University Hospital right there. Had a great medical program, so I immediate into all the other schools, but I turned down Miami because I figured one, they're Miami. Two, if I was gonna go to Miami, I would not be getting good grades.
I would be spending time on the beach at Coral Gables all the time. And that would not work out for me. So I gladly accepted Syracuse University.
JAG: You also seem like you would've gone on like the Big East tour with those schools you mentioned. I might imagine growing up there would've been hard to go to a rival school.
Jason: Absolutely. It was, my mom. Was a dyed in the wool, Syracuse University fan. We of course picked that up from her. I did stay in the Big East and I did that on purpose, but I knew if I stayed at home, I could save some money on tuition. So I started there. I landed there August of 1993.
Wow. Yeah, it's hard to say that. 30 years. Can you believe that?
JAG: We're celebrating 50 of the stations. So continue.
Jason: I get to campus. I'm going for an obstetrician gynecologist pre-med program.
JAG: Okay. That might be a first for this podcast.
Jason: Right? Here I am on this path. I'm gonna graduate college. I'm gonna be a doctor. Everything's gonna be great. My dad was really happy. And then I met Kelly Wortman. So much like you, I did DJing in high school as well. And I had founded my own company in 1980. At the ripe old age of 12 in the high school I started doing morning announcements as well and I did the weekend dances there through the Key Club.
So I had gotten into this conversation, Kelly, and she said, you know what, you've gotta come with me. and she grabs by hand and we go fly down to the Watson Theater Complex, which I, not any idea was on her radar. And I walked into this dingy, old world radio station that was held together by duct tape and rubber pins, paper clips.
And I'll tell you what magic was happening. And you could feel it right at the minute you walked in the door. I was smitten. From that moment on. I had gotten bit by the bug and I kinda had being in radio on my mind, it was a thing, but it wasn't really an idea of where I wanted to be with my career.
In all honesty, what ended up sparking all of this is I'm a musician. My dad is a musician, and drilled into my head my whole life. My whole young adult life was, you're not gonna make any money at this. Don't be a musician, don't do that. So radio, of course, being an amazingly dynamic medium, it continues to allow you to have that exposure into the music.
So this was a natural outlet for me. It was, all right, I'm gonna go in. At first I thought, all right, I'm gonna go spin records. I'm gonna talk over my favorite musicians and learn new musicians. And as my career progressed, which we could get into later, I met some amazing musicians and became friends with some of them.
It was meant to be. Kelly brought me in. I met Chris Velardi, Christian Quinn. Dion Summers, AC Corales, Andy Lawrence, Adam Love. Whole bunches of famous people. Dan Austin, Jeff Wade, two of my closest friends at the time. We had a great time. I'd be remiss if I didn't call out Governor Redman.
JAG: You were Class of 97, which means you had that amazing class of 95 right ahead of you as well as some of your other 97 classmates.
It's funny because sometimes you talk to Syracuse people and they say, oh, I knew when I set foot on the campus. I knew that's where I was meant to be and I never had that. But when I set foot into WJPZ, I had that feeling. And it sounds like you had that feeling walking into the station the first time as well.
Jason: Absolutely. You immediately realize, I did. I'm sure you did as well, as do most people that walk through those doors. Now with the new studio, I've been back a few times, obviously for banquet and stuff and you've got beautiful facility up there. Now it's very professional, but when in the early nineties it was still a closet?
Yes, for the most part that had been repurposed. With some electronic gear in it that we pushed buttons and things happened. You could hear audible clicks, when you started the tapes that, the, a track carts that we would talk over and I started on two to four shift. Yeah. And then the four to six, of course.
And I told my father look, I don't think I'm gonna do medicine. And of course, supremely disappointing. What happened? You were gonna be the savior of the family. You were supposed to bring balance to the force, not destroy it completely. A kid, obviously he sat me down and said, look, if this is a hundred percent what's gonna make you happy, and this is what you want.
And you understand that you're not gonna make any money at this. This was the big thing. And I said, you know what, dad? I'd rather be happy. And go to work doing something that I have a passion for and not make a million dollars a minute and love what I do. If it's enough to keep my car on the road, keep food on my table and a roof over my head, I'm good to go.
At that point, it had no design on marriage, no design on kids. I was gonna be a lone wolf. This was the path I chose and this is where I was. So my dad being my dad hooked me up with Dave Charles over at WHEN Radio in 1994. And I had my first job. I was making six bucks an hour working overnights at WHEN running the reruns of the G Gordon Liddy Show.
JAG: Oh, wow. Okay. There's a reference.
Jason: Exactly. And then shortly after that, Dan Palomino picked me up as a producer. So I split my overnight on the FM stick over there, Country 108 at the time, which is now Hot 1079. But I was Jay Raven on Country 108, WHEN FM.
JAG: And were you allowed to be at JPZ simultaneously?
Jason: I was, while I was working that four to six shift, of all things to happen. Jeff Daher picked me up. He was on the morning show at the time. The crazy morning crew came in. He said, you wanna be my producer? Yeah, sure. Whatever gets me off the overnights. So I sat with him for a while. So at seven o'clock I would go to WHEN and I would work Palomino' s sports show, sports talk.
Then I would go over to the FM side at midnight, work midnight to six on the country and then jet myself back to Syracuse University and sit down five minutes after the news started. And Jeff and I would do the morning show together. And it was an insane.
JAG: Sleep? Classes? Did they cut factor in there somewhere, Jay?
Jason: No. That's when I adopted the motto I'll sleep when I'm dead. I still was with Marvin Druger, Professor Druger at Syracuse. I was taking chemistry labs. And still, very much pre-med. I tried to transfer into Newhouse and I didn't get in at the time. So at that point I had been working at WHEN for a little while, and what ended up happening was because of the fact that now it's seven o'clock at night, I'm going in and I'm not leaving that station for 12 hours.
And it began to take a toll on, my classwork and my sleep schedule. So on a couple of nights, I would show up late to work because I had overslept and the program director at the time, he said, look, we're just gonna part company here. . And I said, that's fine. I understand that he said, I know you got a lot going on with college and everything else, and I said it would've be fine if it weren't for the fact that you had me working both the AM and the FM.
I'm essentially working full time hours a day, right? Three or four days a week. So you can barely keep me under that that part-time status. I didn't take that as being fired, getting the zig, if you will. He had said, we'll just take a pause here and we'll come back and address this when do you feel like you're ready to come back.
In the interim, I had a couple of friends who were working over at WSYR, the New City cluster at the time. So I would call Steve Delato, the programming director at WSYR, every day. Every day, and I get his voicemail. And I'd leave a message. Steve, Jay Palladino, just looking to see if there's anything I could do at the station, any kind of jobs you need me for.
If you need me to go run cables, whatever the case may be. I'm looking for a gig. Let's let's talk, let's make this happen. I think it was maybe three weeks later, I got a phone call from him and I wasn't home, so he had left a message on my answering machine and it went something like, If I hire you, will you stop calling me?
JAG: There's a lesson in there somewhere, Jay, there's a lesson to be learned there!
Jason: Exactly. So ended up taking that job at WSYR in April of 1995, and I was there for six years. I stayed at WSYR.
JAG: He hired you do more than run cables though, right?
Jason: I was a board op. He had me doing the night shift. On weekends I was doing Art Bell, coast to Coast.
JAG: Another reference.
Jason: There were a couple of overnight like Nightside shows that were running. Jim Bohannon. Great shows. I think it was four or five months later when Cox came in and started talking merger with New City. buyout for New City.
They brought in the great Ken Charles. They brought him in to program the station.. And he pulled me up and said, all right, we're gonna do a morning show. We're gonna rebuild this morning show. With Joe Galuski. Rest in peace, Joe. So I was working with Tara Howard also who passed on, Jim Reith, who's still major in the market.
And Joe Galuski, he built this entire show and I was there in building the formats and helping to figure out, In doing all this stuff outside of what JPZ was doing, I'm still a student, barely 19 years old. Yeah. I think it was six months after that or so was in the summer.
I had gotten a job at a summer camp and I ended up working only weekends in the station and Ken pulled me to his office. He said what I do I gotta do to prevent this from happening again? And I said I don't know. And he goes, how about I make you full-time? Sure! I was made the senior producer at the station at the age of 20.
And I was making pretty decent money for a 20 year old. and at that point some things had started happening internally at WJPZ. I felt that it was better for me to leave college and focus on my career at that point.
JAG: If I may ask, was that the format flip to The Pulse?
Jason: It was a little of everything. So the format flipped to the pulse created. I'm sure you spoke with Dan and Jeff about this as well. I was part of that creative team that helped that flip and there was a lot of push back when that happened. The rhythmic format, the CHR format was very inclusive.
Perceptionally, it was very inclusive and it felt like all people had access to it. When we started talking about flipping over to a hard rock pulse format, people started to feel excluded. And that's for history to decide. I think we did what we needed to do at the time. And Jeff, Dan, myself and a few of the others at the station who put this together, started talking about this.
It's sink or swim time. We were facing real financial problems with the station. We were not selling as much as we should have. I remember shortly before he graduated, Ryan Raffesnsberger was the general manager at the time, and he pulled us all into the Watson Theater in an all staff meeting. Emergency staff meeting.
And he was really emotional, not to dox him, but he had gotten really emotional about the fact that we were in over our heads, financially speaking and trying to keep the station, keep the lights on. So The Pulse was born out of that , where we thought, look, the urban format is fine, but this rock format it's new and it's something that if we pull the trigger on this and strike while the iron is hot.
We could benefit from this. We could absolutely turn this into something that will benefit the station financially.
JAG: And Dan and Jeff got into that in detail in their episode of the podcast as well. But also, you look at the way, top 40 goes in cycles and in the mid nineties there, the cycle was toward rock.
It was away from straight pop and hip hop. And that was part of why the station wasn't making any money because the music just wasn't there.
Jason: That's absolutely right. So in 94, our programming director was the great Melanie Kushnir. Lady M. She had foresight into this business that I didn't understand at the time when I'd gotten there as an 18 year old, but boy did I learn how to respect that real fast. Her father was in the music industry. She had some real great foresight into formats and radio coming from California which is a completely different universe, right? When it comes to music and everything else. The format change of sorts began with her in a lot of ways, and I'm more than willing to give her credit for that.
She introduced artists like Sheryl Crow into the rotation among Notorious BIG, when I was growing up and listening to Z 89 in high school. Was power hits Z89. It was more of a direct line against 93 Q, which growing up in Syracuse, Mark Verone had said recently, knowing how Y94 and 93Q, we were their direct competitors at that time in the early nineties.
And to hear the great voice guys going after them. Like Brian James was an amazing voice voiceover. And again Brian rest in peace. But to hear him say things like, here's another song that Wimp 93 still isn't playing.
JAG: Oh, that's great.
Jason: Just so good. The imaging was top-notch, but tie it back to your point. The music changed and we went to that rhythmic place in the early nineties. And then by the late, early nineties, 95, that music had started to change again and again to Melanie's great credit, pulling in artists like Gin Blossoms.
And Sheryl Crow in throwing them into the mix with your Craig Macks and your Montell Jordans. At first we were kinda like, what is happening here? And then when you're young and you don't know anything and you're This sounds very strange. But then as 94 moved through into 95, it became very obvious that, yeah, this was working.
We gotta push a little bit harder. And again, I have gone on record many times in my life saying, Dan Austin is a genius in radio.
JAG: Agreed.
Jason: He has a brilliant. Beautiful mind about formatting and programming and sales and marketing, and he's what I would've originally considered a triple threat.
He did everything in radio and he did it perfectly. Like he's two years younger than me and I'm, for the most part, I compared my early careers like I gotta be like this guy. He had that presence of mind and he continued right where Melanie left off to really approach the small group of us to say, look, we've gotta do this.
But we gotta do this on the down low so that we don't incite a riot.
JAG: Yeah.
Jason: And unfortunately the human condition being what it is, the word got out and there was some pushback. That's putting it mildly. And then it became a schism right down the front of the station and I think unfortunately 96, 97 was about the time where that really started to make an impact to the staff.
Again, I don't wanna make this into a huge negative, experience thing, but I think at the time we had a bunch of, the executive staff just walked out. They posted all their resignations on this little cork board that we had at the front of the building, and I walked in one day and saw paper just coating that cork board.
I still feel sadness about that. More than three quarters of our executive staff just was like, peace out. I can't do this anymore. This is, this is too much. .
JAG: So it was right at the time for you cuz you had this professional opportunity to turn your focus there.
Jason: Exactly. In 95, 96 I was made the senior producer of the radio station at WSYR, full blow with the morning show with Joe Galuski.
And then I would sit around and board up Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Rush Limbaugh while I was booking guests for the morning show for the next few days. And multitasking before it was cool. And I'll tell you, when we get into about JPZ being such a phenomenal media classroom, it's not even so much the stuff that you learn about radio.
It's even more so the stuff that you learn about the interpersonal interactions. So without that experience, I wouldn't have known what it's like you hear all of us alumni talking about, oh, I would never have been able to figure out how to do more with less. And I'll tell you what, with the state of the industry being what it is that had become the thing to do, your bosses constantly are telling you do more with less.
JAG: So where does your career take you after SYR, Jay?
Jason: Six years in, I had figured that I had gone about as far as I needed to. iHeart at the time was Clear Channel came in and LNA'ed Cox Radio and what, once was a three station cluster became a six station cluster, but at the time I thought, okay, where else can I go?
So I applied for the program director position at WSYR, at the rip old age of 21 . What are you gonna do? And Joel DelMonico was the was the general manager and he said, you know this stuff, but I think I need you where you are. Which was basically him telling me, you're not ready yet. . In retrospect, of course I see that.
So I said, all right, that's fair. But I really am getting frustrated with, where I am, what I'm doing. I wanted to do more. Met up with Bill Bregoli. He was a film critic down at Westwood One in New York. And just on a whim, I asked him, hey Bill, you guys hiring down there?
And he said, you need to talk to Beth Roberts. She's our vice president of operations. I gave her a call, got her voicemail. After a message, she called me back within two hours. And said, yeah, you wanna come down here to New York? That was the quickest I'd ever gotten a job. In my life..
JAG: You went from calling every day from for three weeks to getting a call back in two hours.
Jason: In two hours. I'm gonna tell you it was because of a JPZ connection. Howie Deneroff, was the sports director Westwood One and as well, Conrad Troutman was the chief engineer at S Y R had ended up going down there as the vice president of engineering.
Wow. Because of those two connections, I was able to get that phone call back and get that gig real quick. She wanted me to come down and interview, which was amazing. Like I'm thinking to myself, New York City? Are you kidding? I'm not even 24!
JAG: You grew up in a town that ate cats for Chrissake!
Jason: Exactly! I went down to New York for the interview and I walked into broadcast operations at 524 West 57th, and I looked around and said, yeah, this is it. This is where I'm gonna be. This is the pinnacle of my career. I'm working in New York City. Yeah. They hired me on as a production assistant for $24,000 a year in New York City.
JAG: Yikes.
Jason: In New York City in 1999. Within six months I got promoted to operations supervisor. Okay. I was running the night shift three to eleven. And I was responsible for 52 channels of network programming and engineering and refeeds for all affiliates, for all CBS affiliates and Westwood affiliates.
And all of a sudden 9/11 happens. And, that was a complete shock to the system. And again, I'm gonna turn this on a down note, but my cat and I watched the second plane fly into the building with my own eyes. Walked out of the building. And my friend had called me to, make sure, are you okay? Is everything okay? I said, yeah, why wouldn't everything be okay? I'm a little hung over but.
JAG: On a Tuesday?
Jason: Yeah, on a Tuesday. So I went out and I could look over the river. In Jersey City. I could look across the river and see the World Trade Center from there. And I was sitting there talking to Jodi for a while, and then that second plane came around. And I watched it, Hey. And I said to her, I'm gonna have to call you back.
JAG: Yeah.
Jason: I went into my house and started calling everybody I knew in New York to make sure that, everybody was good. Everybody at work was okay. One of our producers lost his mom. Oh. Just the scene was an absolute nightmare.
And I don't wanna get too deep into detail of that, cuz I still suffer from PTSD for that.
JAG: Sure, I understand. Yeah.
Jason: Planes going overhead., but I thought, okay, this isn't good anymore. I need to go home.. I went back to Beth and to Conrad and said I love you both. I'm very grateful for the opportunities here, but I need to not be here.
So I was there until February of 2002. . And in that time, after 9/11, I was helping with some of the recovery efforts. I had run into a friend of mine Dennis, who was from Syracuse. He was a metal worker. Some of the recovery in terms being down there and just became overwhelming too much and my mom said to me, you need to get out of there.
JAG: I think I speak for everybody listening when I say thank you for your contributions to that. I didn't know that about you, that you were part of that recovery effort. That's just, wow.
Jason: What ended up happening at JAG was I had just been promoted to operations supervisor that week and my hours shifted, so I was off Mondays and Tuesdays.
Had I not gotten that promotion, I would have been directly under the World Trade Center on the PATH when it happened.
JAG: Oh my God.
Jason: But I made it back to Syracuse. I hooked up with Rick Yacobush, general sales manager over there who became ultimately the GM., and I said, look, I'll take a sales job.
He said, Jay, I've known you for eight years. You'd absolutely be miserable at this. And I said, all right, but let me try. He said, no, I'm gonna do you the favor and I'm not gonna hire you. In the same week Ron Lombard at News 10 Now.
JAG: The 24 hour station in Syracuse, right?
Jason: That's right. He was the general manager of this startup, and I thought, all right I did radio for now 10 years. Let's go over to the Evil Empire and see what TV is like. Never did TV before. But he hired me on as master control. And again, this is where that JPZ experience comes me invaluably. That was my first launch. To be part of a launch project of that scope was, Incredible watching the station get built from the ground up out of an old abandoned bus station that was a train station , the hazmat teams that had to come in and clean out their pigeons and the rat...
JAG: Oh geez. Okay.
Jason: Yeah. But having been part of that and building that station and learning automation systems and learning how to do 24 hour news, I couldn't have done it again without the JPZ experience. Without having that. This is how you do things on a shoe string operation and building the airplane while you're in the air.
That experience has become invaluable to me because I went to Albany, I kept a toe in radio. I worked at WGY for a long time while I was out there running, of all things, Syracuse University basketball games. And then I left friend who was the news director at News 10, ended up in Orlando and said, I need you. Okay.
And I got married and we had two kids. And my wife at the time said, I don't like the North anymore. Let's go south and not have snow. So we ended up in Orlando for 10 years. And then I was working at News 13, which was Bright House's sister station to all those 24 hour news channels.
So when I was working with these great people to become a technical director, okay. That's basically where you switched the news and you hit video, Hey, video B, camera one, camera two. and I thought, all right, I'm gonna be a director. Okay. I'm gonna direct live news. That's what I want to do.
And so I applied at the local Fox affiliate in Orlando and got the gig. Okay. And then I promptly got fired. Because I'm not good at it. That's true. I'm really not. I lasted two years there. I am not a director. I'm terrible at it. And that was proven by the fact that for the first time in my career, I got the zig.
And then ended up, believe it or not, I did sales for about three months in credit cards. I did American Express.
JAG: Oh, wow. Okay.
Jason: While I was doing that job, Brennan, my mentor and good friend Brennan Pelko, reached out from New York and said they're looking for an operations supervisor. Got an interview.
I got hired in two weeks. Told my wife, broke down to my wife, said this is what we're gonna do. And she said, I'm gonna go back up north, or we're going to New York. And I'm thinking New York! I was 25. But it was great to live there and everything was moving and it's just so great. We're gonna be fine.
Everything's gonna be fine. And forgotten that after 9/11, everything in New York changed. It became way more expensive to live there. And by this point I have five kids. . We took a house, a big house out in New Jersey and I worked in New York for five years and then I had this opportunity in Atlanta to be part of the startup launch project for Bally Sports Network through Sinclair Media.
And I work for Encompass Digital Media, which is a customer service hub that they do operations hubs for, multiple networks. And boy, I could not turn it down. That opportunity to be part of another launch project. They hired me on as a manager and I've been here since 2020 and it has been amazing.
It's challenging. This is what I figured out is I wasn't very good as a DJ and not so much because I have the voice . It's just that like you get older and the pop music doesn't hold its appeal anymore.
JAG: I somehow stayed in top 40 until I was 36 years old and I haven't listened to it since..
Jason: And now I listen cuz now I have kids, right? And they listen to that stuff and I'm like, what is this garbage? It's too loud.
JAG: Get off my lawn.
Jason: I learned that my place is behind the camera. Doing the operations. Setting up the operational.
JAG: Full disclosure, we've added this segment into the podcast at this point because this is the point where Jay talks about how happy he is in Atlanta and how he's had this amazing gig and is never going anywhere. Yet in the time since we've recorded the podcast, he's getting a new gig and it is a gig that he found because of the WJPZ at 50 podcast. I'll let you tell the story.
Jason: It's unbelievable. Let me start off by saying, Atlanta is a fantastic city and I do love the gig that I currently hold. What I'm about to tell you next is the most unbelievable story of all time, possibly. And Jag is going need at least a 10% finder's fee for this too. So I was listening to WJPZ at 50.
John Ferracane came on, was I believe a friend of yours and now not only my boss, but a friend of mine. He was looking for people for News Nation, which sounded like a similar situation that I was in, knowing that I, as a manager of operations, interview people for master control positions.
Now, what I thought was, I would reach out to John and tell him, hey, look, I screen people for positions every day, and if I find anybody who's worth their salt, I'lll open up a pipeline and you and I can get people up to Chicago who are good people they'll serve you well. Great.
Yeah. He says, great. Send me your. resume.
Hold on. What?
All right, sure. Why not? And next thing I know, I'm on the phone with the chief engineer at WGN in Chicago, having a 20 minute phone call about my experience, my skillset. And then he's throwing out questions like, what kind of numbers do you need to come up to Chicago?
And I said, hold on. My, my wife is not gonna go for this. She's not northern anymore.
JAG: You're not taking her out of the south, back to the north again. We talked about that earlier in the podcast.
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. So I threw out like a lowball number. So he goes okay, we'll be in touch. All right, that was it.
I priced myself out of the gig. So I went and talked to my wife about it and she says if they're talking about giving you more money, you can go and we'll stay here in Atlanta.
JAG: She said that to you?
Jason: Yeah. So I thought okay. The next email I get was from John. And he said, all right, I need you to get in touch with Mark Bluestone, who's the executive director of operations, and I'm gonna have him reach out to you. We really need an operations manager. And you might be it . And this is starting to happen now within a week.
JAG: I remember getting some frantic Facebook messages from you at this time, I believe.
Jason: Yeah. I'm like what have we done? So Mark reaches out and we have a great conversation.
As it turns out, Mark used to run Encompass, which is where I work now. So now I got two connections up there. After that conversation, went downstairs, had a follow up conversation with my wife. I think they're talking about doubling my salary. And she said, wow, okay. That's crazy. It sounds a little too good to be true.
JAG: And God bless your amazing patient wife, Tammy, for dealing with all these cross country moves.
And now you're walking in, saying they may double my salary. Did she say, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, or?
Jason: Pretty much at that point, the next thing that Mark said was, we need to get you on a plane and we need to fly you up. That was on a Thursday. Keep saying to myself, " I don't belong here. This isn't, I'm not supposed to be here today. What is happening?"
JAG: So you had told me this part offline. A week goes by, they check your references, you're having a busy night at work, your phone rings and it's a Chicago number.
Jason: And I was like, I better take this. So I picked up the phone and Mark Bluestone's on the other side. He says, "I have a problem."
I'm thinking he, the paperwork gets gummed up or whatever. I said, how can I help? What do you need? And he said, what I need is for you to quit your job at Encompass and come work for me.
JAG: Wow.
Jason: And I said, "Okay." That's the only thing I can think of to get outta my mouth at that point. At that point, like I'm double plussing.
I don't say that to humble brag. The point that I wanted to make about knowing your value, right? And this is something that WJPZ taught me as well, we've been told for so long Jag, that you're lucky to have a job. Your skillset doesn't necessarily apply to other parts of the workforce, so you know, you're lucky to be employed and it's how they keep your salaries low.
So to find somebody, again within a week, to be able to recognize, Hey, look, you're bringing a lot to the table and this is what we feel that you're worth. That felt amazing to me.
JAG: It's an amazing story. I'm so glad that this podcast has turned into a gig for somebody. Knowing our group. I'm sure it's going to happen again.
And that segues perfectly what you just said into the rest of our podcast that we're gonna go back to now where you talk about what you learned from JPZ. Congratulations on the new gig, Jay.
Jason: Thanks Jag. Checks in the mail.
Without having the experience of being a DJ at Z89 without being the morning show executive producer and eventual host of the morning show at Z89. Being an assistant engineering director, being the assistant music director these were all opportunities that I had, and it was when I was the assistant music director, in serving in that role where I was making things happen behind the scenes where I felt most comfortable, and then I felt most like I was making an impact. So I really am grateful for my time at JPZ and for the people that I met there. The front part of my career was learning how not to do things.
JAG: Yeah. That's true of many of us.
Jason: For good or for bad. You walk into Z89 and it's like, all right, we're making this work, but I don't ever want to do it this way again.
JAG: Jay, before we wrap up, give me a funny story from your time at the radio station.
Jason: I think it was Neon Dion's senior year.
He was about to graduate. Jeff Dahler and myself on the air of the Morning Show and Adam Love, who was in on it as well, called Dion. And Jeff says to him, I'm so-and-so from the Bursar's office.
JAG: Oh no.
Jason: And you had a balance on your account and we've had to go ahead and de-register you for all your classes until you can get the account settled. And then he was like what account?
Dion, we'd woken him up.
JAG: Yeah, you have the element of surprise on your side at that point.
Jason: We'd woken him up. He's at home, not even in Syracuse. What are you talking about? What account what balance?
And Jeff says it's $89.10 on your cable grill. Because of that, we've had to go ahead and de-register you for all your classes. Dion's freaking out. It's what are you talking about? Will I be able to just keep back into those classes and Jeff says, so if you pay that bill today, yeah, we can go ahead and allow you to re-register.
Now, that's not a guarantee. You're gonna be able to get into all those classes cuz you know, now it's three days before we're supposed to make it back to campus.
JAG: Oh my G-d.
Jason: And he's I don't understand how this happened. Dion's going on. I don't understand how this happened. And then how do you de-register me from all my classes and I need these classes to graduate!
And Jeff said, look, all I could tell you sir, is that you owe us 89 dollars and 10 cents. 89.1. And then there's a pause and then we hear Dion say, "This is Jeff." And then we all lost it and that went to air and we had a great time with it. Those were the days.
JAG: I'm picturing that, and again, at the time of this recording, it hasn't released yet, but the episode with Dion was highly entertaining because he's just such a rockstar at everything he does.
Jason: Absolutely.
JAG: I'm picturing this knowing Dion and how amazing he is at everything, and it's really amusing me even more the more I picture it in my mind. Jay Palladino. Jay Sweet. Thank you so much for spending some time with us today and telling us some really compelling stories, and I'm so glad JPZ's had such an impact on you and appreciate you being here with us today.
Jason: Thanks for having me, Jag. Thanks for doing this.