Finding Meaning in a Major Career Setback.

I've been the luckiest guy on earth. My career in radio was such an incredible joy. Downsized due to Covid, I have struggled to find the right place to resume my broadcast career. I've had interviews and market visits and more Zoom Team meetings than I can count. Yet the right job in radio has yet to materialize.

As a result, last Friday I started my first non-broadcast job since college. I am doing inventory control. My new business, Attention Promo, has done well in its first year, but its still not paying ALL the bills.

Don't get me wrong. I am happy to be working again. It's just not how I saw this all playing out for me. The thoughts that go through my mind when my alarm clock goes off at 4am, and I strap on my work belt are not the kind of thoughts I have had to deal with often in my life. As I face another grim shift, I begin to try and find meaning in things that seemingly have no meaning.

So here goes.

My dad worked his entire adult life in a factory that produced chlorine bleach. I know that he thought many of the same thoughts I'm having before those early morning shifts on my new job. Except, he thought them every morning for 40 years. On his job, he sometimes breathed chlorine fumes and would come home after a 16 hour double shift with a dry heaving cough. As a young child, I would hear him in the room down the hall. My dad worked long overtime hours, because he wanted to be able to give me an education, so I could have a career I loved.

He gave me that. I found radio and I found more than a career. I found a passion.

Unfortunately, for my dad, right as he was about to retire, he was told that he had esophageal cancer. Two days after he signed his retirement letter, he went to the hospital and never came home again.

This new, hopefully temporary job, gives me a new awareness of the magnitude of my father's sacrifices for me. Unfortunately, I don't think I ever told my dad how much I appreciated the gifts he gave me. Now, every morning when I strap on my work belt and struggle to find the strength to face another boring shift, I say it out loud. "Dad, Thank You". I hope he hears me.

I also hope that he prays for me that I will find the right position in radio. If and when I do, I will cherish it and work even harder than before. I guess I did manage to find some meaning in my current situation, after all. I love you dad.

Find out more about Joe "Crash" Kelley at https://www.justjoeproductions.com/resume

Or on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/joseph-browning-185891037

Or Call me 478-284-8148....If I don't answer, I'm counting something in a store near you.