SuzeMuse - Personal blog of Susan Murphy - writer, speaker, TV producer, content wizard. » job

The Big Break

Suzemuse — Sat, 23 May 2009 14:00:01 +0000

The man on the right side of this picture, the one sitting in the chair with the camera….he gave me my first break.

I was 19 years old and ready to take the television world by storm. I thought getting my first job would be easy. After all, I had two years of college under my belt. I’d graduated with honours, one of the top students in my class. I was a shoe-in, right? Wrong. Nobody wanted to hire me because I had no “real world” experience. And I couldn’t get any “real world” experience, because nobody would hire me. I was extremely frustrated.

Then one day I walked into the local cable TV station. I signed up as a volunteer. I started doing some work as a camera operator, production assistant, etc. It was fun, but not what I really wanted to be doing. I really wanted to edit and direct and produce.

One day, about two weeks into my volunteer run, I was stopped in the hall by the man in the picture. At that time, he was a staff producer at the station. He asked if I wanted to grab a cup of coffee and chat. We sat down in the green room and he proceeded to ask me a ton of questions. “What school did you go to?”, “What kinds of stuff did you learn?”, “What are you interested in learning here?”, and so on. He discovered that not only was I really eager to do some editing, but that I had learned on most of the same equipment that they had there at the cable station. In fact, they’d just gotten some new gear that the staff was still learning about, and I already knew how to use it!

It turned out that my new friend was in desperate need of someone to help with editing some segments for his news magazine show. He asked if I’d be interested in that. I jumped at the chance, of course. And from that point on I spent my days for the next little while (I didn’t have a paying job yet, remember) at the cable station, editing stories. I was having the time of my life, and learning a TON. Plus, my work was actually ending up on real TV, which was cool. My parents were proud – so proud, that they recorded all the shows I worked on onto a VHS tape (I wonder if they still have that tape?)

About 2 months later I was driving my producer friend home after a show one night. He was doing his usual thing…asking me questions. “How’s the job hunt?”, “What’s your next step?”, “Did you hear about this new paid internship program?” – wait – internship? paid? “I can help you get in,” he said, “I’ll recommend you to my boss.”

That was the first day of the rest of my life. It was 20 years ago. Now, I run my own production company.

Until last night, I hadn’t seen my friend in about 10 years. We’ve kept in touch off and on, but last night was the first time we really saw each other. We had a small chat, and he’s at it again. He wants to recommend me for something else now, a really interesting opportunity, and a smart next move for me as an entrepreneur.

I owe a tremendous amount to my friend. He gave me my start. He’s given lots of other people their starts, too. One person in particular has gone on to become very famous.

When defining success, don’t always look at yourself and how you’re going to make it to the top of the heap. Look around you. What my friend has taught me over the years is it’s not always about becoming number one or becoming rich and/or famous yourself. Being a success can also mean raising others up. Noticing those around you, learning about what drives them, what their passion is, what they are really good at, and then giving them a chance to excel. My friend has had a very successful career. He’s very talented, one of the most talented and creative people I know. But a big part of his success is gained by his ability to spot talent in people (by observing), figure out what they want (by asking questions), and then give those people a lift (by believing in them).

Thank you Ray. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you believing in me 20 years ago, and for you continuing to believe in me today.

And now, dear readers, I leave you with a question….

Who are you going to lift up?

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Career, Job, or What You Do. What's the Difference?

Suzemuse — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:00:49 +0000

Back in the 50′s, when my parents were entering the workforce, choices were different. Many people dropped out of high school in Grade 10 or 11 and got a JOB. JOBs were things like working in a factory or working for your Dad in his hardware store. Or selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. If you didn’t want to do any of those things, you could join the Army. If you were a woman, you had even fewer choices: you were either a housewife or you went to business school and became a secretary.

Getting a JOB in those days offered a few extremely important things. Benefits. A steady paycheque. Bonuses. Security. The makings of a happy life.

These days, we teach our young people to stay in school. Go to college. Get a CAREER. I used to have a CAREER. I was a high-tech worker. It had benefits. It had a steady paycheque. It had bonuses. I falsely believed it had security. I gave it up.

Now, I believe that what I do for a living is not a JOB or a CAREER. These labels don’t fit anymore. Now, my work is what I DO. It’s how I survive, not just financially, but spiritually, and emotionally too. I knew I didn’t fit in to the corporate world. Oh, sure, I did a good job. I got just as many pats on the back as the next guy. But at the end of the day it meant nothing to me. I was doing it for someone else, and that left me wholly unfulfilled.

Perhaps we should be teaching our young people that it’s okay if they don’t want to fit into the mold of a CAREER. But more importantly we should be teaching them HOW to make it on their own if they want to. I certainly didn’t learn anything about owning a business in high school or even college. And that’s not right.

I’m not saying that everyone has to be an entrepreneur. Of course there is room for more than just the self employed. Otherwise, nobody would have any employees! But we need to be giving our young people options. We need to make them aware of all of the possibilities.

On the flip side, there’s nothing wrong with having a CAREER if that’s what you want. Case in point:

A good friend of mine has made a CAREER out of what many would consider a regular JOB. He started many years ago working at a convenience store. In fact, that’s how we met. I lived in the neighbourhood and was a regular customer. I loved watching my friend work, he was so happy in it. He loved helping customers, would strike up conversations with anyone. As a result, the store he worked at was like the social hub of the neighbourhood. After about 10 years as a convenience store clerk, he moved on to work for a large retail chain – a job that pays more but is still, what some would consider, just a JOB. There isn’t anything else he’d rather be doing than working in retail, serving customers. He will absolutely be doing it until he retires.

I bet if you were to ask him, he’d tell you that his work isn’t just a job. It is what he DOES.

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Hard Work Should Be Easy

Suzemuse — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:43:08 +0000

I’m inspired this morning by Mitch Joel of Twist Image. In his latest blog post, “How Hard Do You Really Work?”, he mentions a line he uses when he does his public speaking events. “…most people I know are trying to make it to the weekend. I’m trying to make it.”

Wow. That is a great line, don’t you think? It pretty much sums up how I’ve felt most of my working life. I’ve had a lot of jobs over 18 years or so, some great, some not so great. But I always found a way to be passionate about what I’m doing, and to put everything I had into the work. Even if it sucked.

Here is a brief summary of the types of work I’ve done over the past 18 years:

Produced television shows
Coordinated, designed and taught adult education programs
Technical Writing for optical data networks
Waited tables at a popular neighbourhood pub
Presented technical training to rooms of 400 people
Designed user help systems and interactive web portals
Receptionist/Administrative assistant at a Seniors’ Recreation Centre
Traveled the U.S. teaching specialized training development software
Wrote 2000 page proposals for federal government contracts
Graphic Design for corporate marketing projects
Designed and deployed communications strategies for large corporations

It’s a pretty wide range of stuff. Some of the jobs were tedious and long, (proposal writing) but rewarding when the proposal was successful. Some were exhilarating (I love teaching because of this). Some I’m just not well-suited for (the admin assistant job was the only job I ever got “disciplined” for because I was trying to take too much initiative – ACK!). I’m a really lousy waitress. I mean I suck at it, bigtime (but, I made a lot of friends at that pub). And some jobs I’ve loved because I’m truly passionate about it (TV production, web design/development and communications).

But what I have in common with all of these jobs is I always brought everything I could to them. Even though, at times I was just doing it for the paycheque, I still showed up with the attitude that I was going to work hard and give my all to what I was doing. Not because I owed it to the company I was working for, but because I owed it to myself to not be just another cog in the wheel trying to “make it to the weekend”.

Successful work means hard work, but hard work doesn’t have to burn you out or take away from your quality of life. What Mitch Joel is referring to is the dedication and commitment one should have when they set out to do a job, no matter what it is.

I’ve been a full time entrepreneur for almost a year now. It’s been a crazy ride so far, with lots of ups and downs and twists and turns. We have totally exceeded our expectations so far and continue to do so. I’ve learned more in this past year about myself and what I’m capable of than ever. And me and my partner have worked really really hard. Not 100-hour-weeks-burn-yourself-into-the-ground-just-to-get-ahead-hard, but we’ve had the passion, dedication and commitment to get the job done and get it done well. Sure, we’ve worked till 3am on occasion. Sure, weekends haven’t always been free of emails and phone calls. But we still take most weekends off. Easter is coming and we have no intention of working our way through it.

Hard work is easy if you have passion. If you have passion, you don’t see the time passing. It doesn’t mean you aren’t going to have crappy days, challenges and scary moments. That comes with the territory in any job – heck, in any life! It does mean you can have it all, no matter what you do for a living, and it’s simple. Just have passion. And if you can’t have passion, then do something else.

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