One of the funniest and yet nastiest of types that I've run across in broadcast radio are those listeners and clients that just can't get enough of free stuff...the prize pigs!
These folks will fight over tubes of expired chapstick, nearly useless warped frisbees with old station logos, and t-shirts they will never, ever fit into.
Some become prize groupies, following the station to various events and begging for whatever scraps we have, despite the fact their home is probably full to the rafters with our stuff already.
Once a year, our stations participated in a bash that featured businesses in an out-of-the-way loop off the main business district. Everybody went all out, with lots of specials and giveaways, a free bbq and band, you name it.
This sent the area prize pigs into paroxyms of free-stuff ecstasy!
While attempting to do a live report from the event, a little girl kept tugging on my shirt. After wrapping things up, I asked her not to do that. "But mister", she said, "that lady just walked away with all your shirts!"
I turned to see one of the areas better known prize pig queens marching towards a rusty station wagon with $250 of our custom tees. I barked at her to stop, snatched the shirts from her and ordered her off property. She began to argue, but thought better of it as three burly employees of the diesel repair facility joined me. Seems she tried to rip them off earlier.
The next year the same lady showed up in the food line with a huge purse line with a plastic bag. When she got to the head of the line, she opened the purse with the instructions to "fill 'er up".
She was then banned from the property forever.
Have you any experience in your business with prize pigs or their ilk? Love to hear about 'em!
It should be noted that radio stations almost universally love to give away free stuff to DESERVING listeners. They love it, and it's great PR!!
Also, don't think that someone has to be a welfare case to be a prize pig. I know of one car dealer that shamelessly used to shake us down for free buckets of fried chicken.
I can't take credit for inventing the term Prize Pigs. That belongs to one of the contributors to krud.com. Incidentally, the costumed mascot for their station is a big pink Prize Pig! Most people don't seem to get tbe joke.
Let me say that Jeanne Shaheen later became the first FEMALE governor of NH...
sick of prize pigs(03/10/2009)
I hate prize pigs i have to deal with them everyday. They are rude and think you owe them. When i have a new winner it is a joy but usually they don't win again cos of the prize pigs.Theres one guy who is creepy he brought 10 yr old food items for a food drive so he could get a free cd he is well known we all hate him. We actually had a prize pig working here but she's gone now and we are all happy cos she was rude all the time. Then there is the proffesional she always wants to be your friend ' don't think so' guess she thinks you'll give her stuff. Greedy Greedy people never enough for them. , wish i could tell them to get lost, one day i will.
Tfedhanks
Good piggy!(02/14/2010)
why fight them?
maybe a dying medium such as radio should embrace them instead of trying to shoe them away
JustSayNO(02/23/2010)
I work at a private country club. Our members are the biggest braggarts about what they have and how that makes them better than everyone else. At the same time, they are calling in trying to get everything for free. I've even had one ask that we write off his late fees for a year because it wasn't his fault, we didn't specify that he had to open the bills we sent him.
econobiker(11/15/2011)
I worked trade shows for one company even though I was not marketing or sales- ie the marketing and sales people would work the meat of the show and then abandon the engineers. We had to work the trade show (a huge trucking industry trade show in KY) for the last two days that were open to the literally unwashed public and then work show booth breakdown & clean up.
The last two days of this four day show were always Friday and Saturday. Friday was not so bad as most of the public were directly related to the trucking industry such as small business owners or independent trucking company owners. But Saturday was always the worst redneck, white-trash, meth-head families with one baby or toddler in a child buggy and between 2 and 4 bugger-eating, dirty children orbiting their parents -who would always seem oblivious to the mayhem being caused by the children. The children would grab at anything that even remotely looked like a give-away and try to take way more than one or two. The brats would climb on displays and walk into clearly marked areas that were not supposed to be entered. The father of the kids was always either a 100lb scrawny meth-head looking fool or a 300 to 500lb morbidly obese blob (often riding on an electric my-fat-has-disabled me-enough-not-to-walk scooter). The mothers were most often also morbidly obese and completely ugly wilder-beast looking creatures most often seen in certain -Mart stores.
While I used to dread Saturday afternoon at that show, us remaining lowly engineers would make a go at it. We would tear up scraps of paper, wad them up and then and put them in the give-away basket. The grubbers even took the pieces of paper. One year, while setting up the display, we found a couple of bags of hard candy that had been left in the display crates for the entire year in an unheated warehouse. The bags had been chewed on a little by mice but most of the candy was intact. Instead of throwing it away, the consensus was to hold it back for Saturday. We stashed the crap candy in a hidden part of the booth and then rolled it out mid-day on Saturday - usually when every other booth had been stripped of free stuff. You would have thought we were giving out $100 bills for the response that we got. It was like a mini-mob situation as soon as people started to say "Free candy!" And we laughed as the losers and their dirty-faced spawn started to try and chew the now ultra-aged and super-hard candy with the few teeth left in their untouched-by-modern-dental-care mouths. We also wondered if the mouse droppings gave the candy a special zing... but no one complained. And then we had to clean up the wrapper debris always thrown down on the trade show booth carpet floor- but it was worth it.
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JobSchmobber Community Comments
piggie (08/22/2008)
What is your definition of deserving? Free is good - in fact, that is my personal mantra.
anonymous (08/22/2008)
there are known societal boundaries only human pigs deliberately cross. by setting limits, as in one per person/office/ family/ is the only way to counteract this behavior.
some office managers did walk off with a lot of free stuff but shared it with staff and everyone wound up with a canvas bag, poster or t-shirt. others are hoarders and/or greedy. they hope that the items will go up in value and collectors will buy them years from now.
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