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THE JOURNEY BEGINS

     Graduation day, finally.  A Master of Arts!  But now what?  

It was finally time to get a job and that was not going to be easy in the field I desired - TV broadcasting!  What was I thinking?  I had two teaching certificates and now a Master's in Public Relations - my future could be fairly secure. But I just could not see myself teaching - watching a bunch of high school kids wage their war against learning for the next forty years.

    My whole life  I  needed attention,  an audience to watch me!  I was voted the class clown in high school.  I was a “professional” magician when I was nine on the Cub Scout Blue & Gold Dinner circuit. Now,  I want to be on television!

     And so without a Google to browse or a computer, what's a computer?  Univac?  I began a  job search. But where to start?  I never looked for a job - all my summer jobs found me.  But,  I had knew  about the value of networking.  My graduate course chairperson and teacher was a  "PR Pro"  and my graduate thesis advisor, Dr. Donald Bagin, a national known PR authority.  I met with him and he shared  a long list of his media friends and contacts with me.  Plus, he agreed to be a reference and offered to help in any way he could.  So I started to bang out letters on my IBM electric.

    And to my surprise within the first week of mailings  I received a call from a Temple University professor, Dr. William Semple, who I learned was Dr. Bagin's doctoral advisor.  Dr. Semple was an instructor of several  Instructional Television courses.  And speaking to me as if I were one of his students, he suggested that I contact Tri-State Instructional Broadcasting.  TheExecutive Director of this instructional TV consortium was looking for an administrative assistant.  (I learned on that call that in the business world - it was all about who you know and more important, it was about who knows you.)

     I made a "long distance" call to Tri-State of Ridley Park, PA and talked with a secretary, Mary Jane, who to my surprise, immediately booked an appointment for me to see the boss the next day.  "Bring your resume," she reminded me.  "Mr. Robert Maull will be hiring someone ASAP!"

  As I hung up the phone and said to myself... "WOW this is easy, and I thought it would be so hard.”

Little did I know the hard part was about to come.


    

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