Sloe Times

These days everybody wants to be a DJ. Let me just tell you who. My Mother wants to be a DJ. My Father wants to be a DJ. My Sister wants to be a DJ. My Aunt wants to be a DJ. My Cousin wants to be a DJ. My best friend wants to be a DJ. My Girlfriend wants to be a DJ. My cat wants to be a DJ. My goldfish wants to be a DJ. My Neighbor wants to be a DJ. The Postman wants to be a DJ. The Teacher wants to be a DJ. The Bus Driver wants to be a DJ. The Wed Nerd. The Bum wants to be a DJ. The Pimp wants to be a DJ. My Bucci Bag wants to be a DJ. The President wants to be a DJ. The Queen wants to be a DJ. The King wants to be a DJ. The Priest wants to be a DJ. Jesus wants to be a DJ. The Trees wants to be a DJ. The Ground wants to be a DJ. The Sheep wants to be a DJ. The Dogs want to be DJ’s. The Stars wants to be DJ’s. The Moon wants to be a DJ. The Sun wants to be a DJ. My Foot wants to be a DJ. My Ears wants to be a DJ. My Mind wants to be a DJ. My Hands wants to be a DJ. My Head wants to be a DJ. My Dick wants to be a DJ…I Just Want To Be a Drummer.
-- Heavy Rock - I Just Want To Be a Drummer

How can one person be so effing busy yet so bored at the exact same time? That's the situation I find myself in now. By profession I'm what you would call an I.T. person. From my perspective I'm a person who warms a seat, fills out paperwork, and attends meetings. Now to be honest I ground out many years as an operations level person who was responsible for monitoring and fixing broken things. In a sense I've paid my dues for the club and have been progressing into areas of more... impact. Or at least that's the theory. The problem is that I don't feel like I make much of an impact on anything. I take someone else's plan, implement it and then hand it off to another group to support. As important as the role may be, there's not much technical ability involved in it and there's no sense of real control over anything. It either gets done, or it doesn't. Not getting it done impacts the company negatively and generates all kinds of noise and undesirable events. On the other hand, getting the job done doesn't generate anything. I think there is a proportional response missing in this equation. Lets see.... lots of anguish and teeth gnashing when things go badly, but rarely an acknowledgement when things go as designed. This isn't just true for my current situation but it's a recurring theme in a lot of work places and lots of people. Giving this particular problem some thought it's not as easy to solve as you might think. There really isn't a proportional response for doing your job because from a company perspective, that's what you're paid to do. However from a worker point of view, there has to be a level of job satisfaction and as important as a paycheck is, it doesn't amount to very much if you're not satisfied with the type of work your doing or its perceived value/impact to the organization. For me, I think it's a degree of challenge. The problem is, that everything a company needs done isn't always a challenge. What may have been a challenge the first six months on the job is old hat a year later, now what? I think this one of the reasons the .com era was so great for people like me. Once the challenge was overcome there was always an opportunity a phone call away that you could jump into. Not so much now. The challenges are out there, but now days it takes a little more than a phone call and frankly as you get a little older your priorities shift to the point where job hopping isn't as attractive as it once was. They don't make golden parachutes for the little guy so it's a precarious position now to try and job hop and look out for your financial future.

Anyway, all of this lead me to thinking what would be a cool job today? Then I got to thinking, what are some of the pitfalls we try to ignore when going for that dream job?

Since about the age of puberty and the first dirty magazine, what boy hasn't wanted to be an erotic photographer? The barrier to entry is pretty low, you need a camera, and a willing beautiful model. Take some pictures, shop them around, and rinse and repeat. The downside is that it's much more fun looking at the output than it is dealing with all of the hassles of producing the pictures. Models are finicky creatures, who knows why they won't wear the bridle and prance around in 26 inch heels but some of them flat refuse. Go figure. On top of that, there's very few 'perfect' people in the world so the pre and post work involved is really not that glamorous. Who knew you'd have to airbrush out the 2 day growth of pubes that make her look more like a hazardous waste zone. While it's not exactly a tough life, you've got to figure that its going to have some impact on the way you look at sex and other people and not necessarily in a good way.

Moving on, there's the perennial favorite, sports superstar. The problem is, there are very few real superstars relative to the total number of players in a given sport and on top of having to have some sort of athletic ability you spend most of your time practicing and then riding the bench when the real action is going on.

Part of what you want to do also depends on the culture you're around at a given time. I spent some time in England and everyone from 12 - 30 wants to be a fucking DJ. Like trying to party 24/7 is really as great as it sounds. First, you've got to have some talent (an ear) for music and the ability to match beats and create an energy and flow using music that people want to shake their ass to. Next you've got to start out by being willing to play the 4am - 6am set at some hole in the wall during the week where the only thing on the dance floor is are two passed out birds and somebody's dinner making a second appearance. If you're still banging away at it after all of that, you might catch a break at a summer festival or maybe a get a set in Ibiza where you'll get some recognition that you can turn into a more premier gig with some big name producer. Then you'll realize that the real glory and glamour is in banging out your own tunes and not spinning someone else's.... unless you've had a go at remixing it.

Bah, enough cynicism and pissing and moaning for now. I'm certain things will work out, and if not, I'll do the trendy thing and join the pro poker circuit, anyone want to stake me? I know all the suits and and numbers of the cards real well. ;)