The DJ Simulator

You wake up to another day of being a morning show DJ on a local Country radio station. You didn't particularly like country music when you first got here, but your market didn't have a Heavy Metal station, so you took what you could get and learned to love it. Now you're a boots-wearing, twang-talking, full-blooded country and western superfan. You rub your eyes and look at the clock that's screeching a horrible buzzing sound beside your bed. It's 3:45 in the morning. Time to get your day started. [[Get out of bed, have a shower, brush your teeth, pick out professional attire, eat a healthy breakfast, and head off to work in a timely manner]] [[Glare at the clock, hit snooze, then wake up an hour late and rush out the door wearing whatever smells the least awful in the pile of clothes over in the corner.]]

Who are you kidding? This is a DJ simulator. You smash the snooze button like an enraged gorilla, then fall back asleep. An hour later, you wake up late for work, skip breakfast, and barely make it to the studio in time to start your show. [[See if there's any coffee in the break room before you start your show.]] [[Start your show.]]

You smash the snooze button like an enraged gorilla, then fall back asleep. An hour later, you wake up late for work, skip breakfast, and barely make it to the studio in time to start your show. [[See if there's any coffee in the break room before you start your show.]] [[Start your show.]]

Okay, seriously. THIS IS A DJ SIMULATOR. You have a MORNING show. Nobody else is even in the building when you get here, even when you're late. If you want coffee, you're gonna have to make it yourself. Like some kind of grown-up. [[Make coffee.]] [[Start your show.]]

You close the door to your studio, and flip a bunch of switches on your board like a robot because you've done this a thousand times before. Clearing your throat, you reach over and smack the button to turn on your microphone. The On-Air light goes on above the studio door. [[Fake enthusiasm and pretend to be excited about this morning's traffic update.]] [[With newfound energy and a grin on your face, grab the mic and wake your listeners up with positive vibes.]]

You stumble into the break room, still half-asleep because you stayed up way too late last night as if you had a normal person's job. You open up the cabinets and find nothing but empty containers nobody bothered to throw out. There is no coffee here. [[Start your show.]]

You start talking... [[Begin with a traditional opener, pretend the miserable weather outside is actually nice, and make a guess about traffic because you weren't really paying much attention to the road when you drove into work a half hour behind schedule this morning.]] [[Tell your listeners good morning, compliment another beautiful day, and inform your audience of current traffic conditions, which you carefully observed and noted on your way into work this morning.]]

You've clearly never worked in radio, have you? You stayed up too late, overslept, and you've had no coffee. Good luck! You start talking... [[Begin with a traditional opener, pretend the miserable weather outside is actually nice, and make a guess about traffic because you weren't really paying much attention to the road when you drove into work a half hour behind schedule this morning.]] [[Tell your listeners good morning, compliment another beautiful day, and inform your audience of current traffic conditions, which you carefully observed and noted on your way into work this morning.]]

Continuing your downward spiral of faking it until you make it, you muster up just enough enthusiasm to be believable to people who aren't really paying much attention. You make up some stuff about traffic that sounds good and is probably true, but who's gonna notice if it's not? [[Intro your first song and queue up a few more, so you have time to run over to the gas station and grab some coffee. You desperately need the caffeine.]] [[Intro your first song, and queue up a few more, so people can enjoy a few minutes of uninterrupted music to get them up and moving for the day.]]

You clear your throat and launch into your morning show with an enthusiastic greeting that welcomes and invigorates your audience. Your positivity is infectious, and the phone lines start lighting up with listeners calling just to say thank you for being such an upbeat, energetic presence in their lives. [[Intro your first song, and queue up a few more, so people can enjoy a few minutes of uninterrupted music to get them up and moving for the day. You love everything about your job.]]

You manage to make it to the gas station, grab an overpriced cup of burnt coffee, and get back to the studio before the last song is over. Good job, you! The caffeine starts to kick in, and can feel your body beginning to come back online. You'll probably be able to stop faking your enthusiasm soon. [[Stop faking your enthusiasm now.]] [[Wait a few more minutes.]]

As the songs play, you answer calls from listeners who want shout-outs to their friends and relatives on their birthdays. You make notes, and schedule the shout-outs into your next break. The last bars of an autotuned warble-song fade out, and you grab the mic. [[Read the birthday shout-outs.]] [[Don't read the birthday shout-outs.]]

Without warning, the phone lines start buzzing. At first, you think maybe there's a malfunction, and you're about to call the studio's engineer when you realize what's happening. The world starts to go fuzzy and dark. The buzzing persists. It grows louder. [[Investigate the source of the mysterious buzzing sound.]]

[[You rub your eyes and look around. You're no longer in the studio.->Home]]

Bad idea. You try going legit with your listeners prematurely, and end up releasing the Burp Kraken while your mic is live. Embarrassed, you accidentally say a Word Your Should Not Say. The phone lines immediately light up with complaints from listeners. Your cell phone beeps. It's the General Manager. He wants a word with you when he gets in. [[Take out the Flux Capacitor every radio station secretly owns, set the time circuits to 5 minutes ago, and try this all again.->Intro your first song and queue up a few more, so you have time to run over to the gas station and grab some coffee. You desperately need the caffeine.]]

You have chosen...wisely. You queue up a few more songs while the caffeine works its magic. As the songs play, you answer calls from listeners who want shout-outs to their friends and relatives on their birthdays. You make notes, and schedule the shout-outs into your next break. The last bars of an autotuned warble-song fade out, and you grab the mic. [[Read the birthday shout-outs.]] [[Don't read the birthday shout-outs.]]

You make a bunch of people's days by giving them an enthusiastic shout-out on their birthdays and anniversaries. You're really getting back into the groove now, and you're even starting to remember why you love this job so much. [[Take it old school and play some classic country.]] [[Play the latest hit single with a hip hop baseline, a pop melody, and autotuned lyrics.]]

The phone lines light up. [[Respond to listeners who hate classic country.]] [[Respond to listeners who love classic country, and thank you for mixing up the playlist.->Respond to listeners who hate classic country.]]

The phone lines light up. [[Respond to listeners who love modern country.->Respond to listeners who hate classic country.]] [[Respond to listeners who hate modern country, and want to gripe at you for never playing any "real" music.->Respond to listeners who hate classic country.]]

You're fully awake and motivated now, so you field every call like the professional DJ you are. Some listeners are angry. Some are happy. Realizing you can't please everyone all the time, you put your game face on and make sure every single listener feels like their voice was truly heard and that their opinions matter. It's 8:00 now. The rest of the people who work here start filing in. Karen from Accounting stops by and asks if you're working hard, or hardly working. Nobody likes Karen. [[Think about not liking Karen.]]

You stew for a minute or two about just how awful Karen is, but that'll get you nowhere. She does good work, and you wouldn't get your paychecks without her. Putting up with her aggressively cheerful personality is just part of the job. [[Laugh at Karen's comment, and tell her good morning.]] [[Smile, then quickly switch on you mic while you point at the On-Air light flashing above the studio door.->Laugh at Karen's comment, and tell her good morning.]]

Turning your attention back to the show, you keep the rhythm going for the next couple of hours before wrapping things up and passing the torch to the afternoon guy. [[Go to your office and check your email.]]

Since you're not feeling particularly creative just yet, you decide to check your email before trying to tackle today's posts to the website. There are four priority emails in your Inbox. [[Read the first email.->Read the meeting invitation.]]

You settle in and get ready to write your first post of the day. You're required to write at least two, because your Digital Managing Editor is a jerk. [[Go the lazy route and look through your show prep material for something you can write about that probably nobody will read, but at least your DME won't gripe at you for missing your post requirement.]]

It's an invitation to a meeting that was scheduled for yesterday afternoon, hours after your shift ended. [[Send a polite email expressing your regret at having missed the meeting.]] [[Shrug your shoulders and delete the invitation.]]

This email is just letting you know about another meeting. It's cool, though. This is now the 32nd time its been rescheduled. You doubt it'll ever happen. There are three priority emails in your Inbox. [[Read the next email.->Read the invitation to a meeting via conference call.]]

This meeting started two minutes ago! [[Quickly dial into the conference call.]]

This last email is from Karen in Accounting. She wants everyone in the building to know that your mother doesn't work here, and somebody left their dirty dishes in the break room sink again. Was it you, Rhonda? WAS IT?! You find a non-committal meme online that manages to comment on the situation while being funny without being offensive. Karen likes memes. [[It's time to start writing posts for your station's website now. You're required to write two each day, so get going!->Go to your office and start writing your first post of the day on your station's website.]]

You shoot off a quick email, letting the sender know you were unable to attend the meeting. There are three priority emails in your Inbox. [[Read the next email.->Read the other meeting invitation.]]

You ignore the email. Your name was probably just in whatever mass group email the invitation was sent to, so you're pretty sure nobody expected you to attend anyway. There are three priority emails in your Inbox. [[Read the next email.->Read the other meeting invitation.]]

You spend a lot of time researching an in-depth story on a controversial local issue plaguing your area: drainage. The roads seem to flood every time a mosquito sweats too much, and people are tired of it. You have no real solutions to offer or even a firm grasp of all the issues at play, but it's a topic people care about, so you do your best to find all the information and resources you can. You then add that info to your post, with each factoid cited and sourced. Feeling pretty proud of yourself, you put it online and congratulate yourself on a job well done. You've written both of your required posts, and are pretty much done for the day. [[Head home.]] [[Before you leave, you get a great idea for a funny post based on a Snapchat story one of your friends shared earlier this morning. You've already met your post requirement for the day, but this one should only take a minute to write up.->You're in a pretty good mood this morning, and a great idea for a funny post about the state of country music pops into your head. You start writing.]]

A friend of yours shared a funny Snapchat story earlier this morning. After thinking about it, you decided your listeners might like it too, so you type up a couple of sentences, and embed it into a quick and easy post. It goes viral, and becomes the most popular post of the year in the entire company. Good job, you! Your post is eventually seen by the major TV talk shows, who all book you as a guest. Your popularity increases after you dropped what would become your catch-phrase during an interview. Someone online made it into an autotuned country song, which they released on iTunes, where it quickly became the top downloaded single for 18 straight weeks in a row. A few years later, you decide to write a tell-all memoire that goes on to top the bestseller list for over a year before being made into an online game called The DJ Simulator. CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE WON THE GAME! [[Play again->Home]]

You frantically dial into the conference call, screwing up the number twice before finally getting it right. The phone rings, then there's a little beep, followed by a voice you recognize as Derrick from corporate. [[Sit quietly and listen.->Meeting option 1]] [[Clear your throat until Derrick stops talking, so you can let everyone know you're on the call.->Meeting option 2]]

You sit and patiently listen as Derrick throws around words like synergy and ROI. He's always SUPER EXCITED to be on the call, and it shows. [[Wait.]]

Don't be stupid. You're already late to the call, and you think it's a good a idea to draw attention to yourself? No. We're not going to let you do that to your career. [[Sit quietly and listen.->Meeting option 1]]

Time passes... Derrick is now talking about a new initiative designed to maximize profit share for yadda yadda, blah blah blah. [[Start playing Minesweeper while you half-listen to the rest of the call.]] [[Pay attention.]]

You manage to blow yourself up 57 times before you finally hear Derrick start winding down the call. You close Minesweeper and take your phone off mute. [[Say goodbye, and thank Derrick for the meeting.]] [[Say nothing, and hang up.]]

You listen intently and take notes. You don't really have any idea what Derrick is going on about, but it could be important later. (Spoilers: It won't be.) Derrick starts winding down the call, and people begin unmuting their phones to sign off. [[Say goodbye, and thank Derrick for the meeting.]] [[Say nothing, and hang up.]]

It doesn't really matter if you chose to say anything or not. Nobody would've been able to make out your lone voice amidst the cacophony of sign-offs, anyway. Good job if you did, though. But we're not tracking your choice either way, because the universe just doesn't care. [[Read the last email.->Read the email from Karen.]]

You find a funny national story about a photo that went viral 2 years ago, but you never saw it, so it's new to you. You write up a quick post about pizza rat nobody who was alive in 2015 will bother reading about again today, then move on to your next post. [[Spend some time thinking of clever ideas before settling on writing an interesting, informative article about a controversial local issue.]]

You decide not to bother with that last website post, which is a shame because writing it is how you win this game. You spend the rest of your day taking care of chores around town and back at the house, before receiving a call from your friend who posted the Snapchat video. He says another friend of his who works for the competition wrote a post about it for their website, and it went viral. (That DJ would eventually go on to national syndication and a movie deal after his tell-all autobiography hit the bestseller list five years later.) Meanwhile, you spend your days working and staying up too late, regretting your life choices. [[Go to bed.->Home]]

You have to read the birthday shout-outs. [[Read the birthday shout-outs.]]