Last Updated on: 13th November 2023, 09:07 am
Here’s something that I’m sure will shock the hell out of pretty much anybody who knows anything about me, and maybe even disappoint a few people, likely the ones with poor taste in entertainment.
After doing quite a bit of thinking, I’ve decided to give up my radio show. I hadn’t been completely happy with the way things were going at the station for quite a while, and after taking some time away over the summer to take care of the move, visit friends and family and to try to cure the radio burnout I was having, I’ve realized that things being the way they are, I’ve accomplished everything I can possibly accomplish there.
I’m sure that doesn’t make sense to some of you, but I’ll do my best to explain it.
Recording interviews in advance. Producing commercials or public service announcements for the station. Reporting on live events. Creating pre-taped bits to use on shows. Picking music for shows without hours, sometimes days of extra effort. Keeping logs of everything because by law we have to or we’ll lose our broadcasting license. Taking requests. These are all things that I am currently unable to do without help. there might be more, but those are the ones that spring immediately to mind. Since the first day I walked through the door there, I’ve been asking for and offering to do whatever I could to help with getting systems put in place so that I could do some, if not all of those things. and in the 4 years that I’ve been there, absolutely 0 progress has been made on any of those fronts. So essentially I’ve been stuck doing the same thing since day 1 and even though it’s been fun for the most part, there’s only so much you can do with 1 thing before you run out of creative things to do with it. My job is to entertain people, give them a laugh, do my best to make sure that while they’re listening to the radio that they’re having fun. and I think for the most part I did that. but I’ve gotten to the point where I’m no longer having a good time, and if I stayed on, I know that it would only be a matter of time before that started to show through in my work, and now that I think about it, I think it had already started to do that to some extent.
As for why I don’t just get help with all of this stuff and quit my bitching, I can explain that too. I’ve gotten as much help as I can reasonably expect to get, and I thank each and every person who ever took the time to give me a hand. But with such a high turnover around there, good help is hard to keep. Just when I’d start settling into a groove with somebody, life would get in the way and that person would be gone, leaving me to start all over again with somebody else. there’s only so many times you can rebuild everything from the ground up before it starts to wear on you, and I think I’ve reached my limit. Besides, a lot of the things I mentioned above are one person jobs, and there’s only so much I can do to make it look like the other guy isn’t doing all the work while I stand around like an idiot.
So all of that being said, as hard as it is, I know in my heart that it’s time for me to move on and find other ways to use the skills and talents that I know I have, the ones that aren’t being taken full advantage of the way that I’d hoped they would be. It wouldn’t surprise me if some day I found myself back there, whether it’s doing something steady again or even just popping in now and then if they need an extra body, but for the time being, the station and I need to see other people.
I don’t want to leave you all thinking that I didn’t enjoy doing what I did for the last 4 years, because that’s far from the case. It was nowhere near being all bad. I got to work and interact with some fantastic people, I have a lot of great memories to keep with me, and most of all, I got to live out my life’s biggest dream. Not everybody gets to say they’ve done that, so in that sense I consider myself lucky. Lucky and extremely greatful for being given the chance.
