On the subject of a Tough Day

Yesterday I posted a status update that was unlike any other. It was simple and straight to the point.

"Jon is having a tough day."

A lot of times, I will admit I write status updates to get a reaction, and on the surface, this one would seem to be one of those occasions. However, when I wrote it, nothing could be further from the truth.

For once in my Facebook life, I just told it like it is. No comedy, no cleverness. Just honesty. It's rare for me. Hey, hold it... not rare for me to be honest, just rare for me to be blunt.

I wasn't fishing for sympathy, I was just telling it like it is.

What is a tough day?

Many people who know me well say they are few and far between, as in "he couldn't be having a tough day, he's smiling too much." Or, "Jon must be in a good mood, he's funny today."

To the people who talked to me through cyberspace yesterday, I was just that. One chat to help organize a fund raiser, was full of smileys and funny lines, as if nothing was wrong at all. It was a conversation that one would imagine from a smiling, wiggly little kid who just had the funniest joke. The fact that the lovely person on the other end of the conversation was so bright and optimistic, the yin to my yang, more than helped. It was sunshine on a sunny day.

This was a mere respite to the rest of the day, whose sole task was to do something to others that I had had done to me three times before.

The first was in college. I was just a junior, but I thought I was becoming a great sports announcer. My job, which I don't think I ever got paid for, was to be a color commentator for two great HS programs, Hurst LD Bell and Euless Trinity. We were doing the games on KXOL, and while play by play was my forte, the guy who organized the broadcasts was raising the money so he got the prime job. One day, about 7 weeks into the season, he casually told me that desipte the fact we were using most of my equipment to make the games happen, my voice was no longer welcome on the broadcasts. I was asked to leave.

Fast forward to the early 90's. I moved my life back to my hometown of Washington, DC to develop a program on my childhood's favorite team, the Washington Redskins. The show, "Redskins Weekly," was the first ever syndicated show on the team and starred local personality Johnny Holliday (a person I grew up listening to call the Terps and the Senators) and the legendary General Manager Bobby Beathard. The team was coming off a Super Bowl season, and the show was one of 11 Redskins shows on the TV at the time. The show was a modest success financially, huge success critically, and everything was set up to move from an independent station to the ABC affiliate. Through contacts I had made, we were all set to talk to the station, but when the meeting took place, I was asked not to attend. I was told it was just an informational meeting.

The show was sold to the ABC station, with one proviso. I would not come with it.

Now, it's 1995. The station I was working for had a bright new shiny coat of paint on it courtesy of its new affiliation with CBS. Everyone was excited about the move as little ol' KSTW was now "Northwest Eleven." I had moved there two years earlier to produce their Sonics programming as the station held the rights to the Sonics and Mariners at the time. It was May, right around my first birthday as a married man and the Sonics were just eliminated from the playoffs in the first round for the second time in two years. I stood up in my newly remodeled man room and looked at my wife and said, I have a bad feeling.

The next day I walked into work and was told that "Northwest Eleven" would no longer be doing the Sonics, and thus I would no longer be needed at the station.

(A footnote: A few years later when the station lost its CBS affiliation, the station held similar meetings with 67 employees to say that they would no longer be doing news, and thus would no longer be needed at the station.)

Just a few months later, one of my first jobs at the local cable network I was new to was to help him with an edit of a story of a Seahawks coach who could not stop saying Um. (That same coach is now the head coach at, um, Hawai'i.) I watched as this editor/producer put together a piece on this new thing called a non linear editor. He taught me how to use this newfangled machine called "the Cube."

When I had the opportunity to start my own company, one of the first calls I made was to this very friendly and professional producer/editor. At the time, he was a very rotund guy who moved amazingly well for his size. The greatest thing about him was his hustle. Make that the second greatest thing.

I hired him to be a segment producer... make that a miracle worker, for my new show. He would go out with his own camera and shoot three stories and come back to my house and edit them. He would also handle the tough overnight edits of the final show in the den at my house while I prepared to go on the road to cover another team. The constant smell of roasted chicken was always in the air as he had the oddest way of eating.

One day, the chicken smell was gone, and he called me on a day that I would usually see him. He said, I have a surprise for you. He walked up to the house and handed me a tape. He said, here are this week's segments. Perplexed, I looked down and wondered how he had done it. Cheerfully he replied, "I just bought a new edit system."

For the next few years, I would look into the mail box for the envelope, or await the Fed Ex or UPS driver to deliver the tape... and it was always there... like the faithful Saint Bernard waiting to rescue me. It went on that way for five more years.

That chicken smell? This rotund figure went on the Atkins diet and lost over 85 pounds. Not only was he a hustler, he was healthy as well.

Never once while delivering those tapes did he ever say a cross word. Never in those times was he ever less than absolutely excellent. He was the heart and soul of the team, albeit a small team. I couldn't do the show without him.

So how do you make a call to say that you can't hire a guy like this. It tore me up all day, and was only made worse by my first attempt reaching only voice mail.

As I was about to drop my rent check off at the landlords, the phone rang and the caller ID displayed his name. My heart sunk. I was up front with him, much like that status update had been earlier in the day. I told him that, while it's not 100 percent final, that it looks like the show we had worked on for all these years, more than 200 shows and 600 segments, was coming to an end.

His reaction? "Oh, that's okay. I had a hunch. Maybe it's run its course. Thanks for the opportunity to work with you."

Oh my god. Is there someone out there really like this? He was so understanding as I said, "the station is not going to do the show, thus he would no longer be needed." The same kind of words that devistated me more than a decade earlier were difficult words for him to hear, but seemingly just a small bump in the road, not something to drive off the cliff for. It was the first time I had ever had to deliver the words after hearing them delivered to me all those times.

That was why it was a tough day, made amazing by two very understanding people... one who I have only known for a short time and one that have depended on for years. KD and MC, I thank you both.

And to the large number of people who did comment on the status on Facebook with beautiful words of encouragement, thank you. I didn't ask for it, but as it turned out, I sure did need it.

Thankfully, no one chose to click on "like" on this status.

Yours truly,
Johnny Blogger