With earnest diligence and hard work, he goes about his duties selflessly. Affectionately called ‘Fish’ by colleagues, Festus Affum, is one of the effective backroom staff at Starr FM working a great deal to serve listeners.
Starrfmonline.com caught up with him to discuss his botched footballing dream and how he ended up as a radio technician:
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
I am an emotional person, hard-working, easy going, a good listener, a shy person and enjoy asking questions.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR FAMILY?
I come from a humble family of six, four brothers and a sister namely; Augustus Affum who works at the Art Center, Ernest Awuah who works as lightning engineer at Charter House, Cornelius Annor, an artist and my little sister Linda Opare Ntow Annor, not forgetting my late father Cornelius Annor Affum, a sculpture/framer; a very calm person and my mother Vida Annor, a trader who’s a strict disciplinarian.
HOW WAS IT LIKE GROWING UP, ANY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES?
I started my basic education at the Benas Preparatory School at Kotobabi, all I wanted to be was a footballer but my mum wasn’t supportive of the idea. She said footballers were school dropouts and she wanted me to be a doctor. One memory I kept about Benas was back in the day, GTV visited schools to select students to act a play about the family, so I got the chance to act as a father. We did rehearsals upon rehearsals and just when the GTV crew was to film us, I was told I was too big for the role so I was asked to pick someone from the lower class to replace me, and I was not happy but I chose a class mate’s junior brother to take my position.
I was very disappointed but on one of our school anniversary celebrations, I was compensated to take my role and on that day, everyone got the chance to invite their parents. My father was there to watch me and he was very proud of me.
I also remember there was a day we had big match in our neighborhood against a different neighbourhood’s team and my mum got to know about it from my junior brother, and knowing very well I was going to play that match and she was going to be away in the market, she tried to prevent me from playing the game. You won’t believe what she did! She tied me to a standing fan and left for the market. I cried until a man in the hood who came looking for me came to untie me, because they needed me for the match, which had a crate of coke as trophy.
After the match, I remembered what awaited me back home. My mum pretended everything was okay till we all retired to bed. In the middle of the night while enjoying my sleep, I heard a whip at my back and I started begging until my dad intervened. But this incident did not deter me from playing football. One of my aunties came to speak to my father about some opportunity for me to play football outside the country. I was very excited about it and prayed the day came quickly for me to prove my mum wrong but luck was not on my side, my father got seriously ill.
He went from one hospital to another and didn’t get any better. Unfortunately, he died and I was only 11 then. I eventually got to know that I will never get the chance to play with my father or see him again when a lot of my extended family members came to our house wearing black and almost all of them were crying. After his burial things became difficult for us financially .
WHY DO YOU SUPPORT MAN UNITED?
I was a Bayern Munich fan because of one of their players Steffan Enfiberg’s leadership skills on the pitch and also because Sammy Kuffour was a Ghanaian in the team. Whenever I went out with my cousins to play football we presented ourselves as the Bayern team and I always captained the team and every time we lost a game I cried. I started to support Manchester United after the finals of the Champions League game between Manchester United and Bayern Munich. United never gave in, they fought hard till the final whistle and I drew inspiration from that game to believe in yourself and never give up easily till you achieve whatever you want to achieve in this life. I Hope and pray that one day I will get the opportunity to watch a live match at Ild Trafford with my favorite Man United player now Paul labile Pogba but my all-time Man United player is David Beckham whom I share the same birthday with.
HOW DID YOU EARN THE NAME FISH?
I got the name ‘Fish’ from my former work place Citi FM, specifically from a colleague Richard Mensah. When I started my internship at Citi FM I was a very shy person and anytime I got to work I never stepped out until I am done for the day, so Richard came into our office one day while I was there alone in the cold room and he asked whether I was a fish to be in such a cold temperature. Then he asked if I knew a footballer called Mark Fish and I answered in the affirmative. So actually he nicknamed me ‘Mark Fish’ not fish, many people couldn’t mention the full name and corrupted it to ‘Fish’ and it’s been Fish till date.
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE A RADIO TECHNICIAN?
You need to be a quick thinker, have the passion, love and also to be a quick thinker to solve issues because the listener doesn’t care about you having problems, he/she has the option to flip to another channel. You need to be on your guard at all times.
HAVE YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A RADIO TECHNICIAN?
All I wanted to be was a footballer, but my mum wasn’t supportive of the idea because she said footballers are school dropouts so she wanted me to be a doctor and either way my father liked it, but after his burial things became difficult for us financially so I chanced on my current job and I’m cool.
HOW WAS LIFE LIKE IN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL?
I completed my junior high school at A.N.T. school. Afterwards I worked with my brother at Arts Centre learning a trade called Kugar smoothing sculptures with sandpaper after which you polish it with Kwi black and brown polish. When my BECE results came the computer placement system chose a school for me but I was disappointed with my results and the school chosen for me and my elderly brother advised me to go to a vocational school, I had to make a decision either to go into football full time to get a team to play for or the vocational school and my father who supported my football idea was no more, so I chose the vocational school which was N.V.T.I to study electronics engineering. During our second term we were to have our internship for three months at any company of our choice. After months of struggling I landed an internship with Citi FM.
TELL US ABOUT LIFE AT CITI FM?
I enjoyed my internship at Citi FM. When my internship ended I still went there on Fridays after school to help any technician on duty and late afternoons on Sundays and also on Wednesdays they had a program called Salsamania where people were taught how to dance to salsa music with some instructors. There was this guy called Amoo in our department who used to play salsa songs sometimes and Sammy Forson. I understudied the technical setup of event and playing of the music too, at some point I became the regular technical person who did the setup and played the music. I used my internship allowance to pay for my school fees at N.V.T.I and became a permanent worker at Citi FM eventually. Honestly, I relished my stay at Citi FM – the bad and good times.
I later enrolled at GIMPA IT department called C.I.P.D to do professional diploma in networking engineering for two years. I was mostly on night shift duties so I had the chance to go to school in the morning and I spent almost seven years at Citi FM before I left to Radio XYZ.
SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE AT RADIO XYZ
I left Citi FM to Radio XYZ because I wanted to move on and take up a new challenge. It wasn’t rosy as I thought initially. I was so excited about the move that I jumped on board the XYZ train without an appointment letter. In a matter of weeks, the CEO who was supposed to have signed my letter passed on.
I had a text message which read “your owner is dead will we see how you will survive”. Throughout the evening I was still trying to come to terms with the fact that the man was dead. I wept uncontrollably. Things were bad after the death of the owner-cum-bankroller. The situation was so bad that there were times I used people’s light bills to do my runs and was wondering how I was going to pay my fees. Luckily, I had people like Kokui Selormey, Innocent Eddah and Kofi Larbi who helped me out. I got to finish my course amidst many months of working at XYZ without salary.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR TEACHING EXPERIENCE AT RABODEFF?
Tommy Annan Forson approached me to work for him at his school called Rabodef Academy as a technician and I took up the job and since then it has been a good experience to teach the students how to self-operate the console or the mixer, some software used to play music on air and software for editing sound bite sometimes most of the students are afraid of the console and my job was to encourage them to be confident. I was juggling between work at Rabodef and Radio XYZ. So I went to Rabodef in the morning and XYZ in the evening.
WHAT IS THE INTERESTING ASPECT OF YOUR JOB?
The interesting part of my job is feeling fulfilled when I get my job done.
HOW DID YOU END UP AT EIB NETWORK?
Somewhere in July 2014, when Starr FM started, some colleagues of mine were poached and one of them called me to come and install a software on his new laptop. There I got the chance to speak to the head of IT/Technical and miracle happened. I started working at Starr FM in August 2014.
YOU WERE ADJUDGED BEST EMPLOYEE FOR THE YEAR 2016, HOW DID IT HAPPEN?
I cried on the day I was awarded best worker because I felt there were other colleagues who equally worked hard and to be the best among them was quite emotional. I was grateful to God and my employers for acknowledging my hard work, hard work they say pays off.
WHO OR WHAT MOTIVATES YOU?
My mum motivates me, one thing my mum always say to me that keeps me going is that I should work hard with my hands to achieve whatever I want, if I don’t use it and I die it will go waste.
HOW DO YOU RELAX?
I watch any of my Manchester United season reviews, listen to music, learn on my own on new software or watch movies. My favourite musician is Lucky Dube and I enjoy one of his songs with this lyrics: “If you can’t say something good about somebody just shut up.” The people you meet on your way up the ladder the same people you will meet on your way down the ladder, so I respect everyone in my life.
