Skip to main content

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.


    

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE FINAL CURTAIN

   The years floated by and like all things, familiarity bred contempt.  I started to bite the hand that fed me (add you own cliché here).  As my job became repetitive and routine, I started not to believe the slogans that I was promoting – making communications accessible to everyone became grabbing a buck from as many as possible.   Telecommunications was not mired in the old ways as evolved into an “entertainment and online store for the customers.  Many of the old guard were disappearing and the mantra for all of America’s blue-chip companies was “down-sizing.”  I used to quip to my secretary – “If my boss calls get her name!”  Then even those quips ended.  I became a “Self-Sufficient” manager which actually meant many of the support staff was laid off or reassigned.  Along with producing programs  I had to type my own contract letters,  make copies at Office Depot and stop by the post office – we no longer had company...
Post a Comment
Read more

MR CHAIRMAN

   During my 10 years of Corporate Television work I must admit I was called on to produce some real "boring" shows - but there were also moments that made me want to go to work.  Here's a brief list of the "highlights" of my time - that I can remember. Over the years I saw many changes in the stodgy old phone company as it expanded into a communication giant. Working with James Earl Jones was an event.  We shot a piece with him in his NYC Village apartment - what it was about I really can't dredge up but I learned an amazing fact.  Mr. Jones stuttered!  He said he lived with it growing up and he went into acting because when he memorized scripts he didn't stutter.  I also learn that he was paid $10,000,000 to exclusively do VZ commercials and $1,000,000 every time he made a new commercial.  Not bad for someone who was speech challenged. For another taped employee recruitment show which was going out to higher learning institutions I suggested ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A CAVALIER DIRECTOR

     I was happy working at the telephone company - but frankly I wasn’t a “Bell Head”.   Many of the 96 staff in media relations and public relations on my floor took a month to do simple jobs; three people produced a newsletter; two people produced the bill insert (by the way none of these people actually did the work, they hired freelance graphic artists and writer to fill their publications.  And we had a ton of informational products including a monthly newspaper that even had want and selling ads.  Frankly, I could have done all of their jobs in a couple of weeks.  But I soon realized that the phone company had a lot of non-wire stringers who did minimal work.  Why because if the company didn’t spend all of it’s money the government allowed it to make it would have to be returned to the rate-payers. An  incident that stands out as an example of the cultural climate at the headquarters is a shoot I was assigned to do with the preside...
Post a Comment
Read more