Excerpt from original career article “So you want a job in Entertainment?” on Medium.com
I let go of my old job, my old career, and I definitely let go of my old salary. I gave all my energy and focus to this new life, and it was about to pay off.. in a really weird way.
Move It Forward
Ralph was the overnight guy on KYXY. One night while I was at home studying I got a phone call from the Music Director who said Ralph’s appendix had burst. I guess it was just my luck that there was literally nobody else who was awake at that late hour, or who was dumb enough to answer their phone. But I had hustle, and more importantly I had a key to the station. I was literally their only choice.
I raced to the station to fill-in for the overnight shift ON AIR! Well, not exactly on the air. The Music Director told me to play the Emergency Disc (Emergency Disc: An old-school audio disc with a couple hours of music with generic breaks in between songs. It’s always kept within reach of the DJ to be played in case of an emergency, or if the computer systems were having trouble.) & that’s all anyone would be hearing of me “on air”.
After that evening, poor Ralph had to stay in the hospital for a little while longer. The radio station didn’t have any jocks available to do his show. So I was asked to come in night after night to push the play button, and babysit the boards. I did a good job at that. Made nice smooth transitions between songs. Matched the tone of the jingles to the tempo of the music it was playing over. Never any dead-air or glitches. So, the big boss said that I could crack the mic once an hour to read the legally mandatory “Station ID” (And all that entails is saying: KYXY 96.5fm San Diego. Nothing more.)
After I did a good job at that, the boss let me do a few of the rejoiners. I’d come back from playing the commercial set and say something like “All your favorites, all night long. Kicksy 96.5!” And hit the next song…
Never Looked Back
Now you’re all caught up. I worked my ass off to get into a position where I was ready to do the job (any job) if the opportunity presented itself. From there, I filled in when the real jocks were on vacation or sick. Eventually I even got to chime in on the morning show as I was leaving my overnight shifts. After I was on the air enough without messing up, and proved I could be relied on, I was then offered my own show at night.
Career Defining Moment
My first contract was “Love Songs with Kris Toledo” . I had my own show with my name on it! My shift was 7:00pm to Midnight every weeknight, and Saturday nights too. It wasn’t until the moment I signed my name on that contract that I was finally certain they weren’t going to ask me to drive the Van. After the ink dried, and I was heading home, I knew I was only moving forward, from now on.
Come back Next Monday for PART 3
CLICK HERE if you haven’t read PART 1
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