Friday, February 19, 2010

The "Easy" Job

If I had 1 Dollar for every time someone said, "You've got such an easy job man. Leave at 10am and the rest of the day is yours and the work is so easy", I would be very rich now. Like every job some parts look easy and there are parts that no one sees that are not. Where do I start explaining about my "Easy" job.

Let's start with what happens on a normal weekday.

The alarm rings at 4.45am and it's waking up time. Get ready to go to work, get in the car and head to the office.  Must be there by 5.30am.  Get there and start looking through news for something hot off the press, and then get ready.

6am, go "on air" Happy, Excited and Full of Energy

Here are a few different scenes for you. I'm having the worst day of my life where everything is going wrong. (everyone has been through that) How am I at at 6am? .... Happy, Excited and Full of Energy

Hmmm, I couldn't sleep the night before and only manage an hour of sleep or maybe none at all. How am I at 6 am? Happy, Excited and Full of Energy

How about , I just lost a family member, say my niece.  3 days later I'm back to work. (this really happen to me) How am I at 6am ?  Happy, Excited and Full of Energy

Not everyone wants to hear your pain and sorrows at that early in the morning and my job, to entertain no matter what. So no matter what come 6 am, I'm Happy, Excited and Full of Energy.    98.25% of the time I am really Happy, Excited and Full of Energy but there are times when I have to push through

This goes on until 10am.  Now I know you think, time to go home? Nope the day is only starting.  I take a short break, then off for a meeting to plan for the next day.  Once that is done, we go and find all the little sound bites and stuff, that is needed for the show next day.

The little sounds that not everyone notices and passes in second but made the story we're telling sound better. Those little things take time to find but pass by so fast.

Then there are Gotcha's to pull. These are not easy at all.  Out of the 10 we pull there will be only 2 that works. There are times when we sit in there for about 2 hours and all we get is 1 Gotcha.  Why is it so hard you ask? Well for a few reasons
  1. The people don't pick up
  2. They recognize my voice
  3. They just don't car even though the news we're giving is really bad. The "What Ever kind of people" or 
  4. They are the kind of people who just don't like to fight back and just keep quiet even though it's their right to fight back.

We have to get 10 Gotchas a week. :)

Once that is done, there are promo's to voice and some times other meetings to attend. I mostly go home at 1 pm everyday.  Unless there are interviews or other work like MC-ing an event at night then I might have a 12 hour day or longer.

So if you want to put that in everyday 9 to 5 life, it's like going to work at 9am and working with only a short break till 4.30pm without any lunch.  And the glamorous part is I need to be in bed early to be fresh the next day.

The "Easy" Job.  I love it. I really do.

9 comments:

EverydayPeople said...

i feel you, i truly do.

...twohands

sm said...

oh... wow...

Jessie C. said...

and that's why we love you Jj :)

June Malik said...

I see you *wink*

Marsha Maung said...

reminds me of those times when i had to don the high heels, ten inch makeup, sexy-licious costume and a big PLASTIC FAKE AS HELL smile and sing and dance around like i was having the time of my life when all i can think about was bed and my kids. i feel ya, man

Sasha Leong said...

JJ, can I help you pull prank calls a.k.a. Gotchas ?? =D

Unknown said...

I really respect the stuff you do bro, in fact, I respect all; sound guys, comm guys, marketing guys, publicity guys, admin guys, TopM guys, everyone in AMP Radio Networks! (am I forgetting anyone else?) and especially the road crew fellas as there are the front line men.

I'm really keen on getting myself into the radio business as soon as I graduate. I hope to, really.

Can't wait till I graduate. Take care bro.

Mike said...

Thanks JJ that's a great insight to your daily job routine! I've always wanted to know what's life as a Radio DJ and this is quite enlightening to me

JJ said...

Thanks guys.

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