By Timothy Miles
This is a story about you and me… and everything but the bit about the banana sticking to the wall and me not wanting a raise is absolutely true.
You read this rag religiously. You check its website and others for jobs – not that you’re actually planning on going anywhere, but just to know what’s out there… thinking, believing, deep down, that you are, indeed, qualified for that position somewhere else.
You get Nick Michaels. You swallow Roy Williams. You marvel at Dick Orkin. You read O’ Day’s email newsletter and scream silently to yourself, “YEAH!”
Pull the trigger.
This isn’t for Joel Moss. Or Todd Manley. Or Dave Foxx or Jay Rose or Steve McKenzie or Ross McIntyre or any of the other good’uns who’ve found their home.
This is for you.
You languish in sweaty frustration and hopeful loyalty knowing that someday your senior management will see the light and your right to assume your position, as teacher of the way things should be at your stations.
By golly, good luck, but frankly, you just might be righter and smarter and gooder than they can ever hope to be. I’m sorry to say it, but it could be true, and there’s so much out there for you if you just pull the trigger.
I finally did it.
And I just got home from dinner where my GM picked up the tab, and we ate and drank and toasted and celebrated my first razor-blade ensconced RAP thingie. I wrote the ad for my old station, where any mention of it would have led to fear of me asking for a raise. I don’t want a raise here. I’m happy.
Recently, I made my first move in eight years from southern Illinois to Columbia, Missouri, and since I’ve arrived I haven’t produced a radio ad. Mind you, that’s pert near all I did for seven-and-a-half years, but since I’ve been here they’ve had me doing imaging and promos and – wait for it – print ads and television and t-shirt design.
They told me, “You seem really good at ideas. We think you could help our stations promote themselves. Have fun. Work hard.”
It’s out there for you, too.
I’m learning Photoshop, Illustrator, Vegas Video, and how neat it is to deal with Program Directors directly instead of having to use salesfolk as middle-people… AND, and, and, the client back in southern Illinois? They now pay me to continue to do their work for them.
I’ve been learning the trade for years. If you’re reading this, you have, too. The only thing that wasn’t present in my little fishbowl was confidence that I could do it elsewhere.
Oftentimes, the grass is actually greener, and there’s plenty of free parking.
Send me your resume. We’re not hiring. I took this job, but you or me might know a guy.
♦