Work Study

Work Study

Just a few words about jobs.
Of jobs I've had a few. Jack of all trades and master of none, they say. You gotta taste life, I believe. And a big part of that tasting for me is, for better or worse, experience gained through a variety of employment opportunities. And if there's one thing that I've learned about jobs it's that, most times, it's not so much the task as it is the people you spend your day tasking with. While I do not want to bore you with rote digression, I do feel that a brief history is in order.

chorus
I been working hard all my life.
I been working so hard.
Beat down like an antebellum slave boy.
Working the whole day long

Being from a family that didn't feign 'poor', my parents let us know from an early age that if you wanted anything...get yo ass to work and earn it.
I started by mowing summer lawns, delivering newspapers and popping popcorn at the White Horse Drive In Theater. Pizza Hut opened their doors to me in 1973 and promptly showed them to me for the last time in early 1974.Next was the infamous Abney Mills cloth room experience with Durham, a story in itself.
Then came The Crystal Shoppe (retail) which taught me a bit about customer service.
Next was Parker Plant, another of those 'experience jobs', occupying my off time. Then came McDonald's, Neptune Measurement (machine shop), ice cream biz (retail), propane gas company manager (all this taught me was that working for a propane gas company sucked big ones).

chorus
I been working hard all my life.
I been working so hard.
Beat down like an antebellum slave boy.
Working the whole day long

McDonald's again, but not before a short stint hanging sheet rock for a new mall. An internship and part time job in a small college multimedia department taught me that multimedia is what I excelled at (and is what I do now). I also enjoyed managing so I've been able to combine the two skills and do that as well. After building a web site for a water chiller manufacturer, I was promoted to manage the inventory of that facility until the job ended abruptly in 1996. Our own video production company was facing tough times so in March of 1999 I ended up closing it and throwing in my lot with CableVantage,LLC- a subsidiary of Raycom Media.

chorus
I been working hard all my life.
I been working so hard.
Beat down like an antebellum slave boy.
Working the whole day long

And that brings me to now. All of the above 'positions' had me working with a great number of people, and heaven knows that I've worked with a variety of them. Some great, most good, some terrible and some downright nasty. But I had never worked in an environment where creativity flowed like wine and people were happy with their jobs. CV is that place.
The people that I work with now, and most for ten years now, are the absolute best group of co-workers one could imagine. More like family, they have been here through good times and bad, supportive and loving and always made me feel like I belonged.
I can always count on at least a laugh a day, I trust them in their abilities, and enjoy having a good cup of coffee with them. The very nature of our business (advertising production and sales) makes for a strange environment and it takes a special (read special) type of person to endure it. Quick-witted, slightly profane, entrepreneurial in spirit and professional in demeanor, this core group has survived corporate buyouts, GM changes and flaky, deadbeat clients. We've held on through location changes and peer acceptance, and we still trudge across the tundra, mile after mile. Every year, we wonder if there will be a next year, and when there is, we gather together and raise a glass. For now, we're contracted through December 2009 with the usual no guarantees after that. And when the time comes, and our contract is not renewed, this core group will part ways. And I will surely miss them all. But we'll always have Paris, as they say.