Radio
So you want a career in radio… well, I think you should know a few things about it first. Oh, you’ve got experience on the school’s lunchtime “radio” show that broadcasts on the p.a. system, do you? Maybe you don’t need me to… oh, you think so? Good—then listen up.
You’ll go to one of those colleges that prepare you for “an exciting career in broadcasting”—funny how that ad hasn’t changed in so many decades, yet nobody’s bothered to shoot or sue enough to stop it. You’ll learn how to run the sound equipment and record commercials and all the stuff that will keep you in a stuffy little room that smells like the last guy’s b.o. and onion-filled sandwiches. When you “graduate”—not that there’s any cap and gown ceremony from this institution, you’ll take your “certificate of completion” and the list of radio stations they gave you from some internet site, and you’ll cold call your way to depression and low self-esteem.
After a long time living in your parents' basement delivering sales fliers and phone books, some hick town station hires you to work in their run-down 1000 watt station broadcasting live from the cattle fair and the tractor shows, and you’ll pretend that you’re not embarassed when you cash your tiny paycheques at the only bank in town. After six-months of rejection letters you’ll begin to fictionalize your resume, paying an acquiantance to pose as all manner of former employers should someone actually call to check your references.
Eventually, after two years of learning more about alfafa then you ever cared to, you manage to score a job in a larger community, where you get to cover the local special events, like beer league baseball tournaments and the annual shriner’s fair. As you become better known, you continue to hone your skills. You learn that smoking a pack a day and drinking whisky late at night help give you the deep resonant tones that eventually command you the coveted morning slot on a station that still only pays you what the night manager at Mcdonalds earns.
After 10 years of moving from one market to another slightly larger market, you finally catch a break. You get afternoon drive-time in a metropolitan market, where they disregard your proud Polish heritage and christen you “Ace Daniels” or “Rocking Rick Shepherd” or some other generic handle that all the other afternoon personalities go by in all their other major market stations. Everything is dictated to you—your jokes, your personality, even the clothes you wear when “on location”.
Of course, moving from town to town while earning poverty-level wages has helped keep you poor and single. With the new job, you aren’t getting rich, but at least you can afford to ditch the bike and get your old MG back on the road. As for relationships—well, the girls who are impressed by your radio “fame” are all a half-dozen years too young to join you in the bar that is your second home. Still, your voice can charm the occasional bitter, drunken divorcee into thinking she’s getting close to some sort of pseudo-celebrity, and who knows, maybe Suzie the traffic girl will dump her drug-dealing boyfriend if the cops can finally make this one stick... You can always hope.
Previous Cynical Career Counsellor Advice Here
So you want a career in radio… well, I think you should know a few things about it first. Oh, you’ve got experience on the school’s lunchtime “radio” show that broadcasts on the p.a. system, do you? Maybe you don’t need me to… oh, you think so? Good—then listen up.
You’ll go to one of those colleges that prepare you for “an exciting career in broadcasting”—funny how that ad hasn’t changed in so many decades, yet nobody’s bothered to shoot or sue enough to stop it. You’ll learn how to run the sound equipment and record commercials and all the stuff that will keep you in a stuffy little room that smells like the last guy’s b.o. and onion-filled sandwiches. When you “graduate”—not that there’s any cap and gown ceremony from this institution, you’ll take your “certificate of completion” and the list of radio stations they gave you from some internet site, and you’ll cold call your way to depression and low self-esteem.
After a long time living in your parents' basement delivering sales fliers and phone books, some hick town station hires you to work in their run-down 1000 watt station broadcasting live from the cattle fair and the tractor shows, and you’ll pretend that you’re not embarassed when you cash your tiny paycheques at the only bank in town. After six-months of rejection letters you’ll begin to fictionalize your resume, paying an acquiantance to pose as all manner of former employers should someone actually call to check your references.
Eventually, after two years of learning more about alfafa then you ever cared to, you manage to score a job in a larger community, where you get to cover the local special events, like beer league baseball tournaments and the annual shriner’s fair. As you become better known, you continue to hone your skills. You learn that smoking a pack a day and drinking whisky late at night help give you the deep resonant tones that eventually command you the coveted morning slot on a station that still only pays you what the night manager at Mcdonalds earns.
After 10 years of moving from one market to another slightly larger market, you finally catch a break. You get afternoon drive-time in a metropolitan market, where they disregard your proud Polish heritage and christen you “Ace Daniels” or “Rocking Rick Shepherd” or some other generic handle that all the other afternoon personalities go by in all their other major market stations. Everything is dictated to you—your jokes, your personality, even the clothes you wear when “on location”.
Of course, moving from town to town while earning poverty-level wages has helped keep you poor and single. With the new job, you aren’t getting rich, but at least you can afford to ditch the bike and get your old MG back on the road. As for relationships—well, the girls who are impressed by your radio “fame” are all a half-dozen years too young to join you in the bar that is your second home. Still, your voice can charm the occasional bitter, drunken divorcee into thinking she’s getting close to some sort of pseudo-celebrity, and who knows, maybe Suzie the traffic girl will dump her drug-dealing boyfriend if the cops can finally make this one stick... You can always hope.
Previous Cynical Career Counsellor Advice Here
1 comment:
OMG! My lazy software job seems like heaven now!!!
Man with no Name
(http://thisucks.rediffblogs.com)
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