Mathew Warshauer is a professor of history at Central Connecticut State University…he may have caught some college tournament hoops over the weekend, tossed his time into checking out the President on 60 Minutes or programmed his DVR or Tivo to record Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice…
His true strength falls under the label of People Watcher. He is best known to the business world as being the voice that stood up and said, “American’s believe their job is an entitlement and should be something you work toward.”
So is Calvin Trillin who authored the book Travels with Alice, in it, he paints the picture of these modern trails as being nothing more than a group of American’s driving across the country as if someone is chasing them.
Stop!
Being one who puts no faith in turning around to see where you’ve been…consider this a lesson in the way of being truthful to what you accomplished this past weekend? Two days, 48 hours, the sun came up and went back down, as did the moon and during those in between hours of acting like a sliver of pie cut so thin nobody in the family, not even the dog wanted to stick a fork in it. It quckly learned hardly, if anybody wants to waste time on something your taste buds would instantly forget?
Seriously…what did you do? What did you say? I can’t count on one hand the number of times I stood with store mangers challenging them to lift their game. It wasn’t me complaining! Giant box stores and restaurants mope and moan daily about the smaller number of people visiting their businesses yet if they stopped…to people watch…newer paths to a more careful consumer would be unveiled.
Yesterday morning…barely three musical bars past ten…the church crowd not yet set free…the completely caged in hardware store elected to open only one entrance…completely blocked like a typical five o’clock rush to the beach or mountains…customers who hadn’t been inside to finally convince their inner voice to break the bank and make the purchase saw no way to get past the already sold souls.
I became the squeaky wheel calmly asking, “If you want me to drive across the street to the competition I totally understand.”
A thin as the moons curved edges, the manager’s taste buds quickly noticed a growing taste and realized a second entrance was required and took no time to open it and physically decided to walk with me then put the organic dirt in the car. Wow! Talk about a fourth quarter six seconds on the clock come back!
American’s drive across the country as if someone is chasing them. Such behavior sets us up for failure.
New studies released by the Journal of Occupations and Environmental Medicine exposes a fatigued working condition. $136 billion are spent each year in health related productivity. That’s $101 billion more than non-fatigued conditions.
Wait! Fatigue is like depression…it’s the “Just get over it,” disease without physically dedicating enough time of your life into better understanding it. Fatigue is the one thing bosses don’t understand…the bottom line is this: Do it…or I’ll find someone to do it.
But what is true fatigue?
Weepiness, tiredness, reduced alertness, lack of concentration and memory, lack of motivation, increased susceptibility to illness, depression, headaches, giddiness, loss of appetite and digestive problems. Now toss in someone of power commanding you to, “get over it.”
Author Andrea Kaye calls this working environment The Rush to do Whatever Addiction. The cold hard facts that are often ignored but consistently remain, hardly, if anybody but a spiritually connected Monk possesses a firm sense of enough.
In 2007 the NY Times penned out an article based on the increasing number of new millionaires who feel nothing. They are numb to their wealth. Partly because having $2 million sitting in the bank today is nothing compared to the $48 billion Bill Gates is connected to. The only choice, locate more time to work…too often reaching deep into what’s become a normal sixty to eighty hour work week.
The health care system is screaming for doctors inside the ranks of family practice…but because it pays an idiotic $161,000 a year…students have put more faith in the stock market or anything connected to technology. Before this current financial crisis, it was the key to enjoying a peaceful retirement before thirty. In essence, they were driving across the country as if someone is chasing them.
I sit with newly educated broadcasters everyday…spending hundreds if not thousands of hours yearly traveling between schools and universities for no reason other than to fulfill my mentor Andrew Ashwood’s dream of never taking your eye off tomorrow by demanding to educate those involved today. Of the multitudes of dreams I’ve been introduced to maybe two of them have succeeded inside a career that demands more than what another Program Director described as being the next best thing to working at Taco Bell.
Why are the failure numbers so high? American’s drive across the country as if someone is chasing them. It’s natural to lose faith in a career if all you hit are brick walls. I blame this rambunctious approach on American Idol who turns former restaurant waitresses and cow farmers into overnight sensations. Those who’ve bellied up to the bad times and devoured life’s dirtiest highways don’t have television ratings to deal with, so getting on the radio or MTV is what puts wrinkles on your passion of performance because once they appear on your forehead…you’re sent straight to Grandma’s Ipod.
No wonder American’s act like they’re driving across the country as if someone is chasing them. If we don’t make it now…it’s over!
Gene Simmons of KISS is convinced that there’s no limit to the amount of money that can be made. Gary Kremen the founder of Match.com demands that he puts in more than 80 hours a week because there’s no particular number that guarantees him an insured future. Sleepless nights are the norm and in the process of educating tomorrow’s leaders, the message to them is falling short of deafness. They don’t get it, don’t want to get it and refuse to believe in the AC/DC song It’s a long way to the top if you want to Rock N Roll.” Instead, as my current student Curtis who drives two in a half hours to sit with me each day says, “All they hear is Hells Bells.”
In the 1960’s my Grandpa Bakken led a team of construction workers through a mountain…literally! Thanks to his endless efforts of commanding quality from those who elected to team with him…the infamous Bozeman tunnel connects the eastern part of the United States with the west coast.
Do those employees still exist? Was Andrew Ashwood onto something when he called me to his large office and calmly said, “You have a new job…even after I no longer work at this incredible radio station…I am demanding that you teach tomorrows broadcasters today.”
There were six of us on his team…how many of them are willing to open a gate for a potential client then hang with them until its time to load the product in the car?
A footnote: I may have come across as an a** in the first steps of the day…but never once did I feel as if I'd be forced to eat crow...or did I? Like most men, I didn't get enough products, so I returned to the store some eight hours later…only to stand proud of the store who now had three gates open and all those cold lonely trees and shrubs were headed to a more peaceful place to spread their wings.
You can spend millions if not billions on researching why the economy is stealing from your bottom line or you can take ten minutes of free time and people watch. The answer to your success tomorrow sits in your everday.
Steal my art…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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