Hard For The Money

5/16/1997

Last week, I had a meeting with someone in our business who is currently out of work and looking for a job.  In today’s climate, these meetings happen all too often.  I asked the same question I always lead with in these situations.

“What do you want to do?”

The answer?  “I have to like what I do.  I want to have fun.”

What a crock of bullshit.

Where does it say that our jobs have to be fun?  Why is it imperative that we like what we do?  Since when does a job owe these characteristics?

It doesn’t.  Somewhere along the way, we’ve gotten a little confused.

I’ve heard all the horror stories about our business.  “This executive is a jerk…that PD is unworthy…all are classic underachievers who want something for nothing.”  The radio and music industries are filled with egomaniacs who treat people like dirt and go on about their business.

I hear the laments:  “I want to get out of this business so I won’t have to deal with the dregs who are in it.  I want to work in a normal atmosphere.”

Grow up.

Our business is just that…a business…no more, no less.  If you buy into anything other than that, it’s your fault.

We should all strive to like what we do.  (After all, whatever you do in radio or records certainly beats working.)  But we don’t have to like it.  It’s not a prerogative.  It is a job.  It is something you do to make money so you can buy the things you like…the things that make you happy.  It isn’t the other way around.

The Army is proud to say, “It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure.”  Don’t believe it.  It’s a job.  And a bad one, at that.  How else would they convince people that getting up at dawn to wade through a swamp is “fun?’  That’s not a job, that’s the adventure.

Bullshit.

So why do people join the Army?  The same reason we all do what we do: we love it…we’re good at it…we don’t have any other choice.

Our business may be little top-heavy with egomania and paranoia. There is a reason for that.  None of us knows exactly what we’re doing.  There is no school that prepares us for what we’re doing today.  We learn some and make the rest of it up as we go along.  Consequently, many of us live in fear of the day someone will tap us on the shoulder and say, “Okay, we’re on to you.  We know you don’t know what you’re doing and you’ll have to leave.”

It’s easy to act like an asshole and let your ego run wild when you have no real foundation for your success.  False bravado keeps a lot of questions unanswered…questions that might expose us as fools.

Most of us got where we are today because of luck.  I don’t mean we aren’t deserving, but few of us planned to take this twisted path.  In the first grade when we were asked what we wanted to be, how many of us said, “VP Promotion at a big label,” or “Program Director of a major-market Top 40 radio station?”  Unless our parents were in the business, we didn’t know these jobs even existed.

And now that we know what they are, are we all satisfied?

Radio is the worst.  You’re only as good as your last book.  In today’s climate, many times you’re only as good as the last company that purchased your station.

Once upon a time, I had the opportunity to program a great radio station.  I was lucky and managed to be the PD chair when the ratings were the highest in the station’s history.  For this, (and because I lobbied hard behind the scenes) I was named major-market PD of the year by Billboard.  My GM presented the award to me on a Friday night.  In front of hundreds of my peers, he proclaimed me the greatest PD in history.

Monday, the new ratings came in.  The numbers fell drastically.  The GM wanted to bring in a consultant.

What?  I got stupid and incompetent in two days?

The record business is almost as bad.  Who knows what makes a hit record?

Several years ago at a party, someone was praising one of the icons in the music business about what  a genius he was for signing the many successful acts to his label.  This man, who is responsible for signing more hit acts than anyone in our business, said,  “If you took all the acts I signed, and say I didn’t sign them, and all the ones I turned down, and say I did sign them…the end result would be about the same.”

Nobody knows.

Most of us got into this business because we loved music. But what do we do “…after the love has gone?”  We “…work hard for the money.”

Don’t misunderstand what I’m mis-stating.  We are the luckiest people in the work place.  Ask anybody you know.  Try another line of work before putting “show biz” down.

Bitch about your working conditions to the people who pick up your garbage.  Do you believe your car mechanic really thinks you have it rough?  How about the people paving the road?  Or the one working the all-night shift at the 7-11?

So, boys and girls, the next time we say we aren’t having “fun” at our jobs anymore, could we look back on the application and find where that was a prerequisite?  It’s a job: your life is an adventure.  Work hard because it’s what you do.  Have fun and like what you do when you’re not working because that’s who you are.

There is a difference.