I’m quietly reading my free USA Today which the hotel dropped in front of my door as I sit in front of a wall-mounted flat screen TV tuned to CNN with the sound turned off and closed captioning scrolling by. If I wasn’t so tired I’d ask the front desk to turn up the sound but then I wouldn’t hear the conversations going on to the left and right of me.
I’m surrounded by dark suits which on the surface I assume house humans – but I can’t be sure. This is the National Association of Broadcasters, a trade organization comprised of radio station owners, managers, consultants, and generally the type of people who have sometimes acted in antithesis to my personal good.
I have reason to be a little suspicious. I can recite to you personal stories of station owners who lured me distances for job interviews on false premises; instances of companies who signed contracts with me and later refused to live up to their written word; interactions with consultants who said what was expedient to make themselves look good. This is not an indictment of all, only a warning about a few. But, I can tell you this: my biggest professional disappointments have been delivered by people in dark suits.
To my right is a station manager from Michigan who is dictating a memo to someone a thousand miles away. To my left are two older men discussing properties and personnel, programming, and procedures. They nervously flip open their cell phones to check time, email, messages and to answer an occasional call.
I realize I am in unfamiliar territory.
