(Almost) All I Really Needed to Know...
What I learned from my first job lasted me a lifetime.
More than thirty years ago, Robert Fulghum wrote a number one New York Times bestseller called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It outlined a few simple tenets for effectively navigating our world, so simple that a five-year old could understand them.
My first job in broadcasting was a little like kindergarten. In the mid 70s, my part-time position at a tiny radio station in Denton, Texas taught me lessons about reality, creativity and resourcefulness that have endured throughout my entire career. I will be forever grateful for the humbling experience and the lessons learned in my first exposure to the strange world of broadcasting.
The job offered a place where I could make mistakes and learn from them, and I made plenty. Like many radio operations in that day, my workplace housed two stations, an AM side with a country format where I spun vinyl 45 rpm records live on the air, and the FM side featuring contemporary Top 40 hits in an automated format on tape. During my solo shift, I was responsible for both stations. It sounded easy, but four times a night I had to select a longer-than-normal record to play on the air, then race over to the FM studio, change the automation tape and then hurry back, hoping to finish the job before the record ended. Repeating this exercise taught me:
Lesson Learned #1: Plan for the worst. It can happen.
One night when it was time to change the FM tape, I chose John Denver’s “Sunshine on my Shoulders” (five-minutes and ten seconds) as my time killer. Hitting the turntable’s play switch, I dashed to the automation room and pulled the spent ten-inch tape reel from its player. After carefully returning it to its box I grabbed the next tape, threaded it up, cued it to play, and looked at my watch. Less than four minutes, I thought, a near personal best.
Upon breathlessly returning to the AM studio, I was horrified to hear Denver’s voice repeatedly crooning “almost always makes me…almost always makes me…almost always makes me…” over and over. For the preceding three minutes the record had been skipping near the end of the first verse. I glanced at the studio telephone. All four lines were blinking. Flicking the turntable’s tone arm with my little finger, Johnny finally moved on to the next line. I ignored the phone, but didn’t ignore what I had learned. For the rest of my 40-plus-year career in broadcasting, I always pre-checked my tools and equipment before using them live on the air, most certainly saving untold heartache and embarrassment.
After several weeks on the radio job, the novelty began to wear thin. The tedium of performing a five-hour radio shift on six (and often seven) nights a week grew dull and monotonous. I confess that I often wondered if I had chosen the wrong path in life. That’s when I recognized:
Lesson Learned #2: Look for the hidden benefits.
I loved music. All kinds. So I was pleased to discover that disc jockeys could often get free tickets to concerts just by calling up the concert promoter and expressing a desire to tape an interview with the artist for a radio show. Though our station was located in a small college town, our signal reached into part of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, so the promoters probably figured maybe we’d have some influence. My request was never turned down.
For the rest of my tenure at that radio station I attended countless concerts in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Since our main format was country, I interviewed the Nashville-based performers, but also met the rock musicians and pop stars who appeared in our automated FM station’s contemporary format. I had the time of my life seeing artists perform live and getting a chance to pick their brains. It was the music and the musicians that kept the job interesting for me and kept the career regrets at bay. At every job thereafter, I took advantage of all available perks, saving money, having fun, and providing much-needed job satisfaction when the going got rough.
At our radio station there was a sharp division between ad salesmen and announcers, and there was no overlap of the two camps. That is not to say the sales people didn’t try. Sometimes the ideas they hatched to bring in money for the station (and fat commissions for themselves) bordered on the absurd. But it led to my understanding of:
Lesson Learned #3: Recognize that those who pay the bills make the rules.
Without consulting the disc jockeys, the sales staff would often make promises to their clients that the announcers had to fulfill. One mandate direct from the boss was that we give impromptu testimonials about local businesses, giving our personal recommendation. Little notes would show up in our programming folder: “Note to DJ: Coming out of the David Brothers Barbecue commercial, be sure to mention that you’ve eaten at the restaurant a number of times and love their brisket.”
I should probably applaud the sales staff’s efforts to generate a paycheck for me, but I’ll never forget hearing the heated argument between a salesman and our Program Director one afternoon.
“You did what?!” the Program Director screamed.
“It’s only fifteen minutes a day,” the salesman retorted. “They’re good clients. It’s a good contract.”
“You’re telling me that we have to air fifteen minutes of live organ music every day? From a mortuary?” The Program Director was incredulous. “We are a country music station for crying out loud! We don’t play a fifteen-minute block of organ music! We don’t do one second of organ music!”
“Well, it’s already been approved by the boss,” the salesman sneered. “It’s a done deal.” So for the next six months, every day at noon, right after the news and commentary with Paul Harvey, we cut to Lila Belle Kelso at the Hammond organ, "coming to you live from Clifford and Sons Funeral Home.”
It was embarrassing and demoralizing, but looking back now, the stunt did no real harm, and for the rest of my career, whenever possible, I went along with the bosses’ whims. It just made life easier.
Though I wasn’t a salesman myself, I found ways to have fun and make some money for the radio station. It resulted in kudos from the boss, getting to hobnob with one of my favorite bands, and embedding into my work ethic:
Lesson Learned #4: It pays to go the extra mile.
Ever since their 1976 smash hit, “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight” England Dan and John Ford Coley were among my favorite artists. Having attended my college, they were local boys who made good. With that in mind, I brainstormed a plan, using their success to promote our virtually unknown FM station. I convinced a local record distributor to provide us with twenty copies of the duo’s new album for giveaways. I arranged with a concert promoter for twenty tickets to the group’s upcoming concert in the area, and hinted that it would behoove him to advertise the concert on our station. Handing that lead off to a grateful salesman, I produced a half-hour biographical special on the guys and devised a call-in contest to attract listeners. My personal reward was socializing with the band before the concert and then introducing them from the stage. After the fact, my boss unexpectedly paid me for my extra hours (at time-and-a-half no less), and when the day came for me to move on in my career, he gave me a stellar letter of recommendation. In the ensuing years not every employer was that grateful, but over time I found that implementing Lesson #4 usually had its dividends.
I wish I could say every attempt at obeying these four lessons has proven successful. Not so. I made many mistakes and learned many other important lessons too numerous to mention. But more often than not, observing these four precepts in my employment doctrine worked in my favor. They most definitely helped make my 44 years in broadcasting more satisfying and productive.
“Kindergarten” really is an exceptional teacher.
© Nick Walker 2020
Do you have any other lessons learned that you would would recommend? Feel free to scroll down and leave a comment.
