Signs that a jock is a burnout

[cold_coffee]

1. You hate the person who gave you a break by giving you a job. You don't appreciate that he or
she got you off unemployment.

2. You don't enjoy comming to work. You don't care if you do a good job anymore.

3. The request line is now a pain in the ass. You hate it when it light up. You can't
enjoy talking to your fans, wish they'd leave you alone. You can't even pretend to
be kind.

These are some of the signs that you are burned out. This happens to most entertainers
eventually. When it does, it is time to step away. Work in another field for awhile.
Don't go down in history looking bad.

 

[radioindy]

What causes jock burnout?

1) When you initially begin at the station, you're excited, anxious and always start strong ... then ...
The guy who hired you (pig vomit) starts micromanaging your stop sets, starts calling on the hotline after every intro to tell you how 'brain dead' you are because you were 1.5 seconds off the mark.

2) you don't enjoy coming to work because you know that you will be victim to at least a half dozen calls by the station owner/GM telling you how great HE was back in the day, and how you can't carry his 'jock' strap.

3) You are required to take requests on the request line - but the nasty little secret is you have no control over the next song, and the requests rarely get played because the owner is hotlining you - telling you how brain dead you are - because you moved a song up in the rotation because it was a request. So you know that even though you have to take that request call (usually from nutcases) you won't be able to play the request, so the same nutcase is going to call every hour asking why it hasn't been played.

 

[words2you]

The majority of the people by their own admission continue to live lives of quiet desperation. They get up every morning tired, not wanting to go to work, and worried about money. They gripe and complain about all the countless difficulties that surround them in their world.. Their conversation is negative and pessimistic, they criticize and complain about others behind their backs. They go home from work watch television all evening after eating to much dinner, go to bed and get up for another similar day.

Welcome to the majority of Americans today my friends.

 

[radiorob2.0]

Causes of burnout....

-Witnessing a radio station slide from greatness from lack of corporate support or upper management (non-programming types) screwing up a good thing.

But then there is this concept....

Until the early to mid nineties everywhere I worked there was a sense of team work between sales and programming/operations. But in the last ten years that has changed. There was one case where I worked at a station where the GM called programming/operations "the sales support staff"; and it has seemed to become worse.

You know, back in the day we didn't make any money back then but at least we all had fun.

 

[Oxnard]

I found that I never got burned out when my job was my show (PM Drive Major Market) and my production after my show. It was when the consolidation of the company meant wearing more and more hats (often for the same pay) and working 6 days a week and voice tracking the 7th, and never got any recognition for the job I was doing, that I started to feel the burn. Then everything I did including my show became a sales extention. It was no longer about entertaining and informing, it was about plugging and added value. That's when I started to hate radio. I had a PD in St. Louis who didn't want his full timers working weekend, except remotes, because you can't relate your life to your listeners lives if your life is working 6 or 7 days a week. He gave us the weekend off so we could be family members, go to our kids games, go to the movies and hang out with neighbors. It was one of the tightest, more focused teams I've ever worked on because we all had time to step away. When you can't remove yourself from work you can't help but burn out. The only way you'll get weekends off these days is when they mandate voice tracking the entire weekend...and while that's good for you that's not good for the station. 48% of rated AQH is during off-prime/nights and weekends. These days those are all voice tracked.

 

[informant1977]

Causes of burnout~

1. Your job is constantly on the line because, no matter how good you are, you're making too much money.

2. The GM makes sure to tell you on a regular basis that he could hire someone off the street to do a better show than you did.

3. Your job is posted online (just so they can get a "feel" for the market)

4. You see that all of the part-time jocks have been let go.

5. The prizes now consist of discount coupons for a business that went belly-up a decade ago.

6. When a winner gets told what they've won, they tell you that they'd rather not be a winner.

7. You have to drive your own vehicle to events and promotions, because the owner "borrowed" the station vehicle for the weekend.

8. The "Great big new special completely different from what the other guys are doing incredible spectacular book promo" is the same thing you did last year.

9. The company can somehow afford to pay for sales people's dry cleaning, gas, phone calls, and lunches, but they can't afford to buy a good processor.

10. Duct tape. Everywhere.

 

[justalurker]

9. The company can somehow afford to pay for sales people's dry cleaning, gas, phone calls, and lunches, but they can't afford to buy a good processor.

Or they buy the processor but can't afford to pay the staff a livable wage.

 

[Marco53]

The last station I worked for was slowly going belly up, and it was rumored that it was simply being operated as a tax loss, and to keep it on the air until the owner was good and ready to sell it. :-\

When you start to liken your last days to being on the Titanic (you knew it was going under, you just weren't sure exactly WHEN), you are in mid to late stages of burnout. When you want the ship to hurry up and sink so you can invest your time elsewhere, you're in final stages.

It happened, but not as quickly as I had hoped, but it saved me the monthly trips to Radio Shack to keep the old McMartin B-502 patched up and working.

 

[Ur-A-Dawg]

I see the confessions of some burnt out jocks here.

 

[Kent]

1. You hate the person who gave you a break by giving you a job. You don't appreciate that he or
she got you off unemployment.

2. You don't enjoy comming to work. You don't care if you do a good job anymore.

3. The request line is now a pain in the ass. You hate it when it light up. You can't
enjoy talking to your fans, wish they'd leave you alone. You can't even pretend to
be kind.

These are some of the signs that you are burned out. This happens to most entertainers
eventually. When it does, it is time to step away. Work in another field for awhile.
Don't go down in history looking bad.

(4) You spend your spare time on internet messageboards saying the industry is doomed, dead, ruined or any other synonymous term.

(5) You spend your spare time telling everyone how satellite is taking off and putting radio out of business.

 

[elkiewheels]

You've been jocking for twenty-plus years and never made it past a market bigger then South Bend.

 

[radioindy]

I think anyone in the business for 20 years knows that it's likely working for 'reasonable minded' employers in a smaller town, where you can hang your hat for more than a year at a time is much preferable to corporate or lunatic owner/managers in the cut-throat larger markets.

It still stands true that in TV your goal is to work your way up the ladder to the largest markets - which also earns you respect ...

while in radio, the larger market requires immediate results, and the radio jock will get blamed for ratings before the station owner/manager will take responsibility for format/programming. The exception in Indy would be Q95, which has given many of it's jock a long term home.

All the rest are a revolving door ... which begs the question "do all these jocks suck, or are the owners/managers covering their own butts and blind to their own inept programming/management style?"

 

[informant1977]

1. You hate the person who gave you a break by giving you a job. You don't appreciate that he or
she got you off unemployment.

2. You don't enjoy comming to work. You don't care if you do a good job anymore.

3. The request line is now a pain in the ass. You hate it when it light up. You can't
enjoy talking to your fans, wish they'd leave you alone. You can't even pretend to
be kind.

These are some of the signs that you are burned out. This happens to most entertainers
eventually. When it does, it is time to step away. Work in another field for awhile.
Don't go down in history looking bad.

(4) You spend your spare time on internet messageboards saying the industry is doomed, dead, ruined or any other synonymous term.

(5) You spend your spare time telling everyone how satellite is taking off and putting radio out of business.

(6) You post on a chat board that the people who post on this chat board are apparently burned out because they posted on a chat board.

 

[N_D_Radioguy]

The exception in Indy would be Q95...

All the rest are a revolving door ...

The WFMS lineup has actually been in place longer than at Q, though Q has indeed been more stable than most.

 

[Oldbones]

1. Your job is constantly on the line because, no matter how good you are, you're making too much money.
2. The GM makes sure to tell you on a regular basis that he could hire someone off the street to do a better show than you did.
3. Your job is posted online (just so they can get a "feel" for the market)
4. You see that all of the part-time jocks have been let go.
5. The prizes now consist of discount coupons for a business that went belly-up a decade ago.
6. When a winner gets told what they've won, they tell you that they'd rather not be a winner.
7. You have to drive your own vehicle to events and promotions, because the owner "borrowed" the station vehicle for the weekend.
8. The "Great big new special completely different from what the other guys are doing incredible spectacular book promo" is the same thing you did last year.
9. The company can somehow afford to pay for sales people's dry cleaning, gas, phone calls, and lunches, but they can't afford to buy a good processor.
10. Duct tape. Everywhere.

Funny, this sounds a lot like the stations I worked for in the supposed "good old days" when there were "local owners that cared".

 

[elkiewheels]

I think anyone in the business for 20 years knows that it's likely working for 'reasonable minded' employers in a smaller town, where you can hang your hat for more than a year at a time is much preferable to corporate or lunatic owner/managers in the cut-throat larger markets.

Forgot my winking smiley. South Bend is a decent market and I think JT has been on at WSBT for close to forty years or so.

 

[marketweis]

You've been jocking for twenty-plus years and never made it past a market bigger then South Bend.

I've actually worked in a few markets about the same size as South Bend, and a lot of the staffs in those markets were comprised of people who grew up in the area, got a radio gig and just never left their hometowns. I have a buddy who talks all the time about getting out of the market he's in (his hometown) and going to program a station in a bigger market. He's more than qualified to be a very good programmer/jock in a top 50 market but will probably never leave the - slightly larger than 200 - market he's in now.

 

[Kent]

I've actually worked in a few markets about the same size as South Bend, and a lot of the staffs in those markets were comprised of people who grew up in the area, got a radio gig and just never left their hometowns. I have a buddy who talks all the time about getting out of the market he's in (his hometown) and going to program a station in a bigger market. He's more than qualified to be a very good programmer/jock in a top 50 market but will probably never leave the - slightly larger than 200 - market he's in now.

I remember my time working for that small cluster I was talking about in the hotlining thread very well. There was a local messageboard at the time, and people working for the competition constantly bashed our staff saying that their people were always moving up and ours never did. They complained our people lacked ambition by staying in a small market and/or just couldn't cut it anywhere else.

What they seemed to forget was that our cluster paid as well as, if not better than, the top-30 market 150 miles away for many positions. Most of our people could support themselves and their families. They were happy living in a smaller city as they didn't have to spend an hour or more in traffic everyday, and they liked having an excellent public school system and a little bit of culture that you don't normally find in small towns. The cost of living was also much better. It was a great situation for most of us, and most of us realized our careers weren't about being able to put "New York - Market #1" on our resumes.

I developed a lot of respect for my former co-workers. They were happy with what they were doing and were supporting their families. As with any radio station, there were a few who really wanted to be in a bigger market, and I respected most of them, too. Rather than sit around and complain about how bad small market radio was and whining about everyone overlooking how good they were, most of them put their noses down and worked to achieve their goals. We had one staff member go to national syndication. Another went to Denver, and another went first to South Bend and then to Boston about three years later.

 

[nightfly61]

Hey Kent, yippy skippy...Glad everything's all la-de-da in Kentland.
back to the thread:
Your OM holds every title but Music Director, then the Music Director himself quits so you think you've got the job in the bag...nope... the position gets dissolved & there is no MD due to budget cuts. GM gets a bonus for saving the company money.
You have to cut a spot for the dish network in trade out so your OM can have it at his house. (the client would rather have you do the spot since you have much more upbeat delivery but your OM decides on having the sat service at his family's house).
The only time you take the request lines off hold is when you have to record a stock market or sports report for the AM down the hall.
Your on air delivery reeks of sarcasm about how much you just "adore this hot flamethrower of a timeless classic" from Eagle Eye Cherry. :
You dread doing a contest & taking a winner on the weekend so you voice track a fake winner 3 days ahead of time (a friend or co- worker from another gig that actually pays money) and they pick up the prize and you split the large pizza so you don't go hungry. Usually sounds better that way anyway because most callers are pretty blah.
You sarcastically mention the last time the latest Rob Thomas song aired: "If you thought you just heard that song 62 minutes & 12 seconds ago it was just your imagination".
You have been there thru 7 company changes, 9 GMs & haven't gotten a raise in 10 years so you finally break down & buy some fart gel capsuls & put them under the carpet in front of the GM's door & line them under his plastic desk chair wheel thing.
You bank your really good sounding generic voice tracks & change their end date to infinity & use them every night just so you don't have to have the hassle of recording something you would have said the same way anyway.
You know it's a lost cause when the owners make the website accessable by zip code.
You ask the cleaning people if they are hiring.
You are jealous of the cleaning people.
Show prep consists of a construction update & a fake on air call in from your girlfriend.
You make up a quiz & email it to the sales staff to see if they even know what announcer is on at what hours on what station & what features each one has. All but 1 fail to your sheer delight.

 

[Ur-A-Dawg]

Another sign of burnout is spending more time paying attention to the competition than your
own station.