Now What ? How I'm Handling My Middle - Aged Job Crisis

You’re a fifty - something professional who’s worked hard all of your adult life to become one of the best at what you do and to provide for your family. You have a very specialized skill set that has enabled you to be successful in your chosen field and you’ve tried to develop a reputation that speaks well of how you conduct business. This description could fit anyone reading this.

Like so many in this economy, you suddenly find yourself no longer employed. After the initial shock wears off, the question becomes “Now What ?” This is the position I now find myself in.

Oddly enough, it’s given me a clarity that I didn’t have before now because I can compare this experience with the last time I actually lost a job some 18 years ago.

I know not to do some of things I did back then. The first was to take it personally. This is still kind of difficult because media is an egocentric business and while you have develop a thick skin, there are still some layers that aren’t as thick as others. I’ve chosen not to internalize this because it gets in the way of my objective.

The second is to realize that you’re just as expendable as anyone else. No matter how valuable you make yourself to any operation, you can be replaced. The only satisfaction you can take from that is knowing that your replacement will never be as good. That egocentric thing again.

The third is knowing that while experience is timeless, time is not. This is where a lot of middle - aged people like me find themselves.  While there are some some professions where your age tends to be an asset,  Media, historically, hasn’t really been one of them. Words like “seasoned” are wonderful for a lot of positions in the corporate world. There’s a steadiness that’s implied with older executives. In my case, “seasoned” implies “old” and supposedly, positions like on - air talent for radio and television “belong to the young”.

So again, “now what” ? In my case, I’m attacking the problem on a couple of fronts as so many of us have had to do. Learning new skills has become a necessity for a lot older job seekers and they find themselves in occupations they would’ve never dreamed of doing. The first law of nature is self - preservation, so you do what you have to in order to survive. For me, it’s about adaption. Something I’ve been all too familiar with for the last 35 years. In order to thrive in any business, you must continue to make yourself relevant through technological changes, business trends and the like. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve outlasted so many of my peers in radio.

I’ve told so many young and aspiring radio personalities that you have to learn as much as you can about what you do, including those areas not directly related to what you’re doing. I’ve done that . You break down every skill you have and you figure out how it applies to the job you’re looking for. The deeper the skill set, the more options you will have.

Radio has afforded me the opportunity to pursue interests that can and will generate additional income, especially if others recognize those talents. Lots of love and gratitude to Angie Fenton for seeing the writer in me. Because of her eye for talent, I’m able to be a contributor to the Voice - Tribune. This opportunity has led to one of my past articles being published in a book scheduled for release later this year.

Public speaking, television appearances, voice over work, producing music, marketing, management, consulting and even photography are all offshoots of what I’ve done in radio. Those talents could go to the highest bidder and they can serve me as I go into business for myself.

Remember the two fronts I mentioned earlier ? Another one of the mistakes I made as a younger man was in thinking that I couldn’t do anything else. It took a really long, hard look at my resume, a few minutes standing in my trophy room and most importantly, a common theme that ran through the conversations I’ve had with quite a few people that love and support me to give me the courage to really go for it.

One of the biggest questions that media personalities grapple with is “how much of an impact have I really had ?”. Your ego says that you want to be remembered as one of the best that ever did it even if reality dictates that your memory will fade from the minds of listeners and it’s on to the next one.  

Another gift of being older is that you know when it’s time to turn off the microphone and as I continue my job search and taking baby steps with my company, Mark Gunn Media, I take great pride in knowing what kind of impact I’ve had here. I take some satisfaction in knowing that the name “Mark Gunn” can always mean something even if I’m not of the air or in front of a camera.

The most important lesson I’ve learned from all of this is patience. There are days when I’ve submitted a gang of voice over auditions, submitted a lot of resumes and done of lot leg work and feel like I’ve done nothing at all. You can’t give in to that. Keep telling yourself to BELIEVE.

Your professional life is as much about branding yourself as it is how well you do your job. You want your name to be the very next thought of the person thinking about a particular business. I’d like to think that I was successful in doing that with B-96.5 and Mainline Broadcasting. I have the confidence to know that I’ll be just as successful in my next professional life with a company that could use my talents and with my own.

Lost In The Gun Control Debate... Control.

By means of full disclosure, I have to state that I am trained in the use of firearms. I’ve used everything from .45 caliber pistols, automatic weapons like the M-16, M-60 and others in between. I’ve also taken the time to get a Concealed Carry Permit. I don’t like guns, but I do respect them.

While I have a great deal of respect for the majority of gun owners, there are some that just don’t get it. These are the ones that use the 2nd Amendment in some sick and twisted context and are stupid enough to think that they can hoard enough firepower to actually take on the Government.

Throughout this whole debate, I haven’t been able to shake the image of 20 little kids being slaughtered. I also haven’t been able to shake my own experience with gun violence. Being caught in the crossfire of someone who could care less about human life, much less his own, shapes your perspective in a way that you never fully realize until something like the Sandy Hook Massacre happens.

It’s safe to say that, other than the military and law enforcement, a majority of gun owners have never had to fire their weapon at anyone. They’ve probably never seen the results of someone being shot either. The sight of a human lying on the ground with blood flowing like lava leaves you shaken to your very core. No amount of movie or video game violence can even come close, and yes, they are a part of the problem. Our kids are becoming desensitized to the kind of violence at Sandy Hook and parents along with the entertainment industry must be held accountable.

People, for the most part, are in favor of some measure of gun control. Mandatory background checks for every weapon purchase, closing the loophole for gun shows and private sales, mental health screenings, a limit to the size of magazines and a return to the 1994 assault weapons ban all make sense in limiting the access to weapons that are only designed to one thing... KILL.

I would require that all weapons to be registered and fitted with a GPS microchip. They would then be entered into a national database which would be able to track them should be stolen since a majority of so - called “illegal” guns are stolen from “legal” gun owners. Mandatory testing would be required every 6 months and owners would have to qualify to keep their weapons. Trigger guards and Safety classes would also be mandatory and would be subject to periodic testing. The bottom line being that greater responsibility must be placed on the part of the gun owner.

Some would say “You’re just punishing law - abiding citizens”. Gun owners are putting the rest of us at risk. “Criminals don’t care about gun laws”. No they don’t. However, if this society is to finally get serious about gun crime, much harsher penalties would be handed out for possession of unregistered weapons and mandatory life or death sentences for crimes in which a gun was used.

Legal gun owners must face sanctions for their carelessness as well. Had Adam Lanza’s mother been more responsible in the way she locked up her firearms, he wouldn’t have had access and Sandy Hook might not have happened. You are more likely to get shot by someone in your own home or due to a gun owner’s negligence than you would by a criminal. Just this past week, there were 6 accidental shooting incidents at gun shows throughout the country.

There are RABID gun owners that somehow see gun control as “taking my guns away”. They also see the 2nd Amendment as a means to having unfettered access to any kind of weapon made. Somehow, they miss the fact that you can’t legally own a rocket launcher. They also ignore the fact that the Supreme Court has stated that there are limitations to the Amendment. They rant and rave like spoiled little brats when you press them on the need for military style - assault weapons. It’s these people that scare me and enforce the need for mandatory mental health screenings.

Meanwhile, the leadership of the NRA and politicians who’ve prostituted themselves for them are playing paranoid gun owners like chumps. Runs on guns and ammo have them laughing all the way to the bank while we continue to pay the price in blood.

You know what the bitter irony of all this is ? If “We The People” don’t get our act together when it comes to guns, that “big, bad, tyrannical, Communist, Socialist” President and the Government that these deluded paranoids swear is out to get them just might be forced into existence. Then what ? How will your weapons and serious lack of skill fare against those black helicopters you keep imagining ?  Some would say “There’s no way the military would fire upon American citizens.” Are you willing to take that chance ?

In order to stem the tide of gun violence, it’s going to take a collection of initiatives and more importantly, people of good will and courage to carry them out. Those that do not own guns far outnumber those that do. The majority of gun owners are reasonable and see the need to finally tackle this problem. Ask yourself, what’s more important. Is it the life of an innocent child or the need for some yahoo to carry an assault weapon because he’s overcompensating for some other shortcomings ?