Better Know the Baysox - Charlene Fewer
How did you end up with the Baysox?
Well, I've been here a long time. This is actually going to be my ninth season, believe it or not. This is kind of a second career for me at this point. For years I worked in the broadcast industry literally across the country. I started in New Orleans and then did Colorado and I worked in San Francisco for a while and then I needed a change so I came back this way. I applied for a brigade position because I was here for the summer and I figured I should do something to change things up. For better or worse, they had just had a position open because a gentleman they had hired was in the Reserve and had gotten called up into service in the middle of April so suddenly they had a position open. I signed on as an intern, probably the oldest intern they've ever had, and ever will have at the rate we're going. So, I came in with a little more experience than most people as an intern, did it for the summer, it was actually kind of fun, I had a great time. At the end of the summer, they asked me if I would consider moving to the box office and my first response to them was, 'well, you guys know I can't add right?' and they were like, 'oh yeah, we know you can't add.' So I was like well OK it's a challenge, I might as well try it, so I did that for the first year and actually ended up doing it for a couple years and I got elevated to Director of Fan Services, which is really a fancy way of saying I ran the box office.
About three and half years ago now the gentleman that was doing ticket operations at the time decided to go back and teach school, which is great for him, so they asked me in the middle of the season if I could kind of keep an eye on the group sales department. I said, 'sure, it's not like I'm running the box office, it's fine.' I was kind of doing both sides at the end of the season and they came to me and asked if I would mind continuing to keep an eye on the group sales side, and I was like, 'alright, but what about the box office,' and they said, 'well we want you to keep an eye on that too.' I told them I still couldn't add, but they said that they knew that already, so long story short, I took over as Director of Ticket Operations and I'm in charge of both departments and my responsibility is to keep both sides running and keep tickets flowing.
Is keeping track of both departments hard work?
It depends on the day. Sometimes it seems to flow really easily and some days it's more of a challenge. The good thing is the two departments are kind of polar opposites in the sense that the group sales department starts gearing things up in October. That's when we get all the preparation work done for the upcoming season, and then our heavy selling season starts January 1 and so we're pushing things through. Then usually by July, most everything has been booked and then we are just maintaining things after that.
It's the polar opposite with the box office because obviously their busy time is getting things open right at the beginning of the season, but for the most part the day to day pretty much flows smoothly because our bigger crowds are coming out for the summer. So, our heavy time in the box office is June, July, August, and September for close-out, so while one is peaking the other is kind of on another cycle. For me the negative with it is I never get a break because you are kind of rolling from one to the other, but it definitely keeps things interesting on a day to day basis around here.
What is your relationship like with the people you manage in both departments?
They are all great. [Assistant Director of Ticket Operations] Vince [Riggs] and [Box Office Manager] Adam [Hornish] are a huge help in keeping the day to day operations going and keeping me sane. Both the Group Sales and the Box Office staffs in general are the ones who take everything we do to our clients and fans directly. Without all of them, my job wouldn't be possible, or needed.
What is the best part about working here?
The best part is the people on all sides. I have done this for nine seasons now and I can honestly say it's one of the most unique places I have ever worked, which is saying something coming from a radio world. What's neat is that we have had incredible staffs come through, even though a lot of the ones that I started with have gone on to different things, I'm still really close friends with them and talk to them on pretty much a daily basis. We have some fans that have been with us, well for the whole time that I have been here, and because of the fact that we are running 71 games a year, we see over and over and over. It's just some of the most amazing people that you will meet, whether it's our game day staff, who have become a second family, to some of our full season ticket holders and some of our mini-plan holders. They are coming up and they are just really positive; every time you get to the point where you're like, 'I'm tired, I don't know how many games I can do this week, I need a break,' one of these people will walk up and just say something and it just totally turns your world around. I love the fact that on any given day, you don't know what you're walking into. For better or worse, I don't think I could work a nine to five job. I tell my guys, on the group side and on the box office side, 'No matter how high today is or how low today is, tomorrow is a brand new day.' There are days however, I have to tell you, that I wouldn't mind sleeping in, but for the most part there's always something new going on - how could you not love it. It's a lifestyle.
What is the biggest challenge to working here for you?
I think probably the hardest part is trying to balance everything. For five months out of the year, everything you do you have to put on hold. You get to a point on a personal life where you are dealing with everyone through one and two line e-mails as opposed to being able to sit down and have a conversation or go to dinner, or have that aspect of it. Most of my friends these days are either currently in the industry or have been in the industry, or have known me long enough that they know what it's like. My family is the same way. For my niece's birthday party, my sister-in-law calls me and gives me the five days they are looking at and asks what my schedule is. Everybody kind of has to conform to me because they know for five months out of the year, I'm completely out of the picture. In fact, it's a running joke in my family - when we get our magnet schedules out, everybody gets one and everybody puts it on their refrigerator and they know if they want to find me they check the schedule. And they know if anything is in orange on the schedule, then I'm not available that day. I guess that part is kind of hard because you literally, for that five month period and usually a month on either side of it, put every idea of a normal existence on hold. But on the other side there are a lot of benefits; I get to do things that people would never have an opportunity to do. Can you imagine walking out every day and your office window is looking out onto a field? I get to sit here and dress up at work as a fairy tale princess, how many people get to do that? So you balance things out. The biggest thing is taking today for what it's worth and enjoying it for the moment because that moment's not going to be there again.
What is something about your job that you think the average person doesn't realize?
The question I get over, and over, and over is, 'now that the season is over what do you do? It must be boring.' This is very much a year round job. People don't realize that just because the team goes out of town, that doesn't mean that what we do stops. We are sitting there planning for what is coming up next. Come September people always say I must be happy that the season is over and yeah it's nice that I get a little bit of a break in there, but I'm already planning for next year - I'm already designing next year's tickets, we're already working on next year's promotions. We are still working with things like our Haunted House and booking meeting spaces and office parties. People have this really strong misconception that since the gates open at 5 p.m., that it must be really great only working from five until the game is over. I would love to work a job like that. I think the other thing that we get a lot of misconception about is when people say that it must be great watching a baseball game every day. I can honestly tell you if I have seen a total of nine innings in the last three years, that's an exaggeration. I would love to see baseball every day. I'm a huge baseball fan. It used to be my happiest day of the year when opening day came, now I have to go home and watch it on Sportscenter.
Talk about what a typical game day is like?
Most game days, depending on the day, I'm usually in probably between 8:00 and 8:30, which gives me a quiet time before the rest of the office comes in to get through my emails and get things at least somewhat organized. By 9:00 a.m. on a game day, my whole staff has checked in and by 9:15 we have our game day meeting where we go through what's coming up for that game - like any special promotions or anything unique going on. That usually lasts about 15 minutes and from then until about 3:00 my day is spent doing everything logistics. I answer a lot of questions; I constantly have a line of people at my door. It's making sure that things are running in the box office correctly, helping if there's any problems that they need taken care of, if we're updating the ticket system, or putting in new ticket codes, or there are new promotions coming up. It's liaisoning with our marketing department if they have new ideas, new promotions coming up, you know talking it out, figuring out how we do this operationally to get things working. It's also dealing with my Groups staff and the needs of their clients. I am helping to organize and relay information to our various departments on everything from catering and field use to working with outside vendors on finding balloon twisting clowns who can also do magic tricks. I spend a lot of time liaisoning with Ovations [our catering company], which actually has to be one of the more fun parts of my day because it's a side of the business I never thought of. I'm dealing with our operations department if we have any special logistics needs. I spend a lot of time doing a lot of talking, but I talk a lot so it works out well, trying to get the logistics on how we are going to do this together.
By 3 p.m. we start turning over for that day's game, which means different things to different departments. For the box office it means us going ahead and shutting down all of the operations we've done in the early part of the day and basically restarting our day. From the group side, it's making sure we've got everything set up, whether it's tables, whether it's chairs, getting things cleaned and organized for fan assistance. By that point I also have the staffing out; I'm responsible for putting everybody's staffing together. By about 4:30 or 5 p.m. my gameday staff starts arriving - our box office has people that come in just for games - so it's getting all the information out to them as far as what they need to do, what's coming up as a special promotion for that day's game. More or less it's relaying all the information that we've collected to them and getting them organized - it's a combination of about 10 retirees and teachers that work for us - it's the most awesome staff you've ever met. We get that going and then the gates open by 6 p.m. and at that point it's making sure that some of the details are taken care of. And then there is a whole game in there. During the game I answer radios if there's a problem here or a problem there, anything that needs fixing to ensure the game goes smoothly. By the time the game's over, the groups people can go once everything is cleaned up, but I'm still working with the box office and getting as much preplanning done as I can for the next game. It makes for some very long days, but like I said, it's never dull. On any given day you don't know what you're walking into, which is great.
What is the most interesting fan or group experience you've ever had?
There are a lot of different groups and they stand out for different reasons. Some stand out because they pull at your heartstrings. We do a lot of non-game day events, and one of them is the DC Veterans Affairs hospital does a military muster every year where they bring around 1,500 soldiers out that are just out of the military to introduce them to the benefits that are available to them. Last year they had parachutists coming in and it was a very moving event. We also do a lot of work with the Wounded Warriors, which when you think about what these people have sacrificed, it gets to you sometimes. Unfortunately, over the years we've had some season ticket holders that we've lost, and even this year it's going to be very weird walking into the stadium and not seeing them. Then you have the other side of things, when you do something like a fairy tale night and you can see kids light up when they see Snow White walking by. It's just fun because you are dealing with so many different types of people.
What is your favorite promotion that you've been part of?
That's hard because I've been here nine years, but every year there is something unique. To me the Star Wars night is awesome. I grew up watching the movies; I can remember when the first movie came out, being a younger kid and standing in line to see it in theaters. Then to see Darth Vader standing in front of me, that's amazing. It's funny because we've had some neat people that we've met. We had Ben Jones, who played Cooter on the Dukes of Hazzard, here years ago and that was awesome because these are people that you grew up watching on TV and all of the sudden they are standing in front of you and you are having a conversation with them. Some of the other ones are fun though. A couple years ago we did a Sox Hop, and we all got to dress in '50s attire, I still have the poodle skirt at home - Where else can you go to work and wear a poodle skirt and nobody would think twice about it? It's awesome. To say that there is a favorite is hard because fortunately we have a marketing and promotions staff that puts a lot of fun into it. I love the dress-up days, and we've done proms and things like the All-American Girls Baseball League Tribute where we bring some of the lady's that actually played in the league. What's interesting is after we did the first one I was talking to my aunt about it and I come to find out a good friend of hers played and I never knew this even though I had known the lady for years. We were able to get her down to take part in some of the things that we did. It's neat how when you do these things, things you didn't know about people suddenly come up.
Your office is out here in the middle of nowhere, do you ever get lonely? Do you like it?
Oh I love it, are you kidding? On any given day there is a line of three or four people out there just waiting one after another to come in. I kind of like it out here because it's a safe haven, for lack of a better term. I spend so much of my time running around this stadium, whether it's going back and forth to the front office, or going over to the catering side, going over to operations. I've got to be in so many places at one time it's nice to be able to come here and have some sense of peace and quiet. It's also a great meeting space because of the fact that people can come out here to talk and if we're doing something, I can pull three or four different people over and we don't have to worry about disturbing anybody. If we get laughing about something, it's not like we are going to disturb the whole office and that's one of the things we do a lot out here is we laugh. It's fun. If it wasn't fun we wouldn't be doing this. My office is kind of a crossroads, because you've got people from catering, you've got people from operations, sometimes our coaches will come up here if they need information. This is kind of halfway between everywhere so it's kind of nice. And this way, even when the team is out of town, I get contact with the fans that come up to the window. People that have known me for years know exactly where to find me, this is kind of where I started full-time and it keeps me a little grounded.
Baysox Baseball - We'll Knock Your Sox Off. The Baysox open their 19th season as the class Double-A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles on the road in Harrisburg Thursday, April 7. They play their first game at Prince George's Stadium Thursday, April 14, at 7:05 p.m. Baysox ticket packages are now available at www.baysox.com