Some people dream about forgetting their lines in the school play. Or doing a speech and realising you're naked halfway through. Or taking a course and realising right at the end, while everybody else is ready to graduate, that there's one essential class you've never attended. (I have that last one myself, from time to time.)
However, my two most common anxiety dreams both have their roots back in my radio days.
In the first, I'm driving a taped show and desperately trying to back-time the tape so it'll finish in time for the news. Then I realise I've missed out a whole section of the show, or I'm going to have five minutes of dead air and there's nothing I can use to fill, or the tape snaps and there's no way to get it going again (which would be annoying, but not impossible to remedy).
In the second, and by far the most common of the two, I'm playing in songs from a stack of CDs when I realise there are no even remotely appropriate tunes left on any of the CDs I have out and that I'm going to have to run all the way down to the record library to get something else to play... but I only have 30 seconds left on the song that's currently playing. 29. 28. 27. And I can't even get out of the chair. 26. 25. 24. And there's not even any ads or promos I can play. 23. 22. 21. And I can't even open the mic, because I'm not the presenter of this show: but the presenter isn't actually here!
I doubt any of these dreams trouble present-day DJs or "technical operators" since everything they need is stored in one computer and so much of it can be automated. Their biggest fear is probably that computer going down, which you do occasionally hear happening on live radio shows, forcing the presenters to go old school.
Here's an actual radio song to go along with this week's post... remember when I actually used songs about the radio, not just something tenuously linked to whatever I was babbling on about? It just occurred to me that there's still hundreds of great radio songs I haven't got around to playing yet, so here's an Irish indie band from the early 90s that somebody on youtube calls "Morrissey sings Steeleye Span". Well, you've got to give that a listen, haven't you...?
The vocalist sounds a bit like Debbie Harry but the bass player's smirk makes me want to smack him. Neat trombone though.
ReplyDeleteNobody likes a smirking bass player.
Delete(Paul McCartney?)
I agree with FBCB - the WouldBeBlondieIfWeCould's perhaps?
ReplyDeleteAnd it's funny how those anxiety dreams can be rooted in something long ago but stay with us. I still have dreams about not being able to dial a phone number correctly - just can't get my finger to do what it needs to do and all on one of those old fashioned telephones where you have to wait for the circular dial to spring back! Not yet had an anxiety dream about being unable to type a text but it will probably come.
I was watching an old film with one of those phones in, with the curly cord, the other day, and I got quite nostalgic for them.
DeleteReading this post (and the one you wrote last week about your job in teaching) just confirms my theory that the world is made up of two types of people - Those who really care about doing a good job, the best job possible in return for what they are being paid - and those who really don't give a toss. Sadly I think you, I, and probably a fair few other in this circle are of the former persuasion. My observation over the last 30 plus years however is that it's the ones who don't give a toss that get the best jobs, keep the best jobs and never suffer from the stress and anxiety the rest of us suffer from. It just doesn't feel fair does it - Last year when the new set-up at my work meant we were faced with so many obstacles in doing a good job, I ended up throwing in the towel. Everyone else is still there picking up their pay checks doing a satisfactory, but not a great job - If the system is set up that way they say it's not our fault if we miss all the deadlines and can't produce what is needed. Such a hard concept to get your head round and one I could never grasp, sadly.
ReplyDeleteThis is a round about way of saying..., these anxiety dreams just wouldn't happen to many others, because they wouldn't get anxious about any of that stuff in the first place. They would blame someone else for the problem and just play the same tape over and over - Not the end of the world to have a radio emergency, and last time I checked no-one had died of one.
Will now go and listen to the song - Dropped by for a quick visit and lingered longer than I meant to!
Liked the song - I used to have hair just like the lead singer's back in the day.
DeleteA great post, Rol!
DeleteRight again, Alyson. I resented it when my fellow office flunkies would pretend to be hard at work while, in reality, diddling away the time and doing the bare minimum to get by. (I would find that to be more energy draining than doing the actual work!) Whether a particular task was boring me out of my mind or not, I was compelled to perform it as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The odd thing is, Alyson, I think I fall somewhere in between the two types you describe. Or I have, at various points in my life. Yes, I want to do a good job, but not because of any loyalty to the people paying me. And there have been times when I have taken the piss royally at work... Though I don't often have the opportunity in my present role (and there are times I resent that and rebel a little). I do have pride in my own work though and don't want to let down the people I offer a service too (as opposed to the people who pay me to offer that service). Well, unless those "service users" are a waste of space, in which case I'll give them the amount of effort they deserve.
DeleteIt's a very complex psychology of work, going on in my head. I wish someone would just pay me to write this blog and be done with the rest.
Thanks, Marie. Oh, and your blog is blocking me from reading it again.
DeleteYes..., if only someone would pay us for writing our blogs - When I was faced with the dilemma of just too many hats to juggle, the blog was definitely not one of the things to go, but sadly it doesn't pay the bills. When I think of all the entertainment we offer around here between the Daily Bloggers, Saturday Snapshots, Jez's Chain, perhaps even my own "Moon & American Odyssey series" and all the other blogs, surely there must be a way of making it pay. I'm pretty sure many TV & Radio shows have started with less.
Delete(One more thing though, if we feel like this about work, how must all the youngsters who have graduated with a First over the last few years feel. Most of DD's Uni friends have now graduated but only around 10% have a job that remotely makes use of their potential. A lot of supremely talented people out there stacking shelves and making cups of coffee.)