It Ain’t Rocket Science
From Ryan Drean [ryandrean[at]gmail.com], www.RyanOnTheRadio.com, Dallas, Texas
I have had a ton of hi-lights, very few low-lights, met some really great people and have been lucky enough to have some wide-ranging and interesting jobs all in broadcasting. BUT one thing I always keep in the back of my mind is something I was told about 2 or 3 months into my very first full-time job.
I was a morning board op at a talk station in Boulder, Colorado. I took things pretty seriously back then and I was always overly-worried, unnecessarily so, about screwing something up. One day I had messed something up on the show, and while no one seemed to care too much I was pretty stressed about it. Our Afternoon host had just walked in, saw I was stressed, asked what happened and then just sort of chuckled at me. He simply said, “Man, we work in radio. It ain’t rocket science. Everything will be fine.” It actually took someone to just say those words out loud to sort of straighten me up.
Since then I always remember that moment and, with maybe only a couple exceptions, everyday is fun, rewarding, BUT never too serious. BTW - the guy, with whom I still keep in touch, is Mike Flannigan, now a professor at Colorado. We would all be so lucky to have him as a teacher of “All this!”
