Not All Epiphanies Come in a Flash

Sometimes those big moments come creeping up.

Charlie felt stuck in quicksand. The more he struggled against the quagmire, the further it sucked at his body and pulled him down.

Following a devastating life change involving a broken heart and depleted bank account, he returned to the land from which he came and found it to be exactly the same place he had escaped from some thirty-five years prior. The small city was small. Not all of that smallness was bad as he found walking to his parents' home through a series of parks a joy and the rent on his incredible apartment to be more reasonable than it would be in larger, more exciting cities. On the other hand, he found the general approach to life to be stultifying as he found himself surrounded by imaginations as small as the city.

It turned out that the Dorothy Gale insight that 'there's no place like home' had a double-edge.

Then there was the job.

His supervisor looks beaten. He’s not much older than Charlie and he has had a truly remarkable career in radio throughout the country but his time in what feels like a dying (or at least a rapidly changing) industry is weighing down him. He is, in Charlie’s view, one of the good ones out there carrying the heavy standards of local media in the face of national syndication, brand standards that reflect the people here rather than the theoretical people everywhere, and a damn fine individual to boot. Charlie finds it depressing to see someone with his talent and experience so laid low by corporate interests minimizing this thing to which he’s devoted so much of himself.

They work for a national company which owns 45 lower market radio stations across the South and Midwest. Charlie is responsible for five of them in the small town from a couple of country stations, a couple of rock stations, and one of two Hispanic stations in the area. These stations have been sold and resold half a dozen times in the past ten years like a game of hot potato and the current corporate owners are looking to the consolidation and streaming model of I Heart Radio for inspiration. Thus, lots of syndication with a low priority placed on local DJs, lots of rebranding in an ongoing but half-assed execution, and an almost disinterest in promotional events which leaves Charlie stuck.

“I don’t know, dude. I wish there was something I could say or do that would make this place better for you.”

He took a sip of rye that Charlie had poured him. “Thanks. I guess it hinges on that I used to be good at this. I’m not anymore. They don’t really need my skills so I feel sort of useless. I disagree so much with the direction things are going but no one’s listening.”

“Heard. I’d suggest that you are still quite good at this but the corporation isn’t interested in those skills in their consolidate and syndicate strategy.”

“Hmmm. Like you with events.”

“Exactly. I’m an events guy—the thing I do better than anyone else—but events are almost completely disregarded in their goals so I’m languishing.”

“Yeah, but you’re a different breed. You seem to handle it well.”

"Ah, maybe. I think it's merely that, for me, this is all just temporary. I haven't spent the past twelve years cultivating these stations as you have and I'm not sticking around for any extended amount of time. I can find a sense of humor with it all."

To prove he still has a sense of humor, he tells a few funny stories. They laugh but Charlie can hear in his voice a deep melancholy.

“I think this is the result of too much time stuck in a no-win situation.” Charles thinks to himself.

Instead of voicing that, he says "I see the problems. You see the problems. Do you see any solutions beyond torch the place and start over?"

He laughs grimly. "That'd certainly solve some of the problems. I don't know. I may have stopped even looking for solutions."

Charlie felt the entropy his supervisor expressed but he was a solutions guy. He’d already seen what going along to get along resulted in but he’d also seen the consequences of challenging the prevailing authority. The small town GM Squidward wasn’t going to respond to either choice easily.

Then Squidward held a meeting with much of the tiny staff including Charlie.

Charlie was shocked as the meeting was a brainstorming meeting for future events and the prevailing attitude from most of the staff was “Hey! Other people are doing this, let’s do it, too!” and “We could sell a lot of sponsorships for this!” The almost pathological lack of creativity was stunning. The few people in the room with ideas focused on a unique approach or an interesting angle (including his supervisor who was so despondent he faked a few phone calls just to leave the room and breathe) had looks of amazement at the stupefying dumbness of the possibilities tossed out. Squidward casually shut down any thought that wasn’t already tried and true, lazy and unoriginal.

”I need to reframe this in order to find a solution,” thought Charlie.

The reframe Charlie found was that Squidward and the general lack of creativity exhibited by the staff could be either a roadblock or an obstacle course. The roadblock would encourage no movement. The obstacle course was a challenge to be mastered.

"I like obstacle courses," thought Charlie.

It had the markings of an epiphany but the pieces of it were like breadcrumbs to a new perspective. Going rogue was always Charlie's best quality so going rogue was the solution. It didn't change the small town nor the small town mentality but it changed Charlie and that was a grand solution.

The next day, Charlie showed up at work dressed like a ninja. Black, loose uniform clothing, soft but durable black shoes. He’d blacked out his eyes like Batman and wore a black nylon head covering that slipped over his face. He snuck around the office as if no one could see him, dodging chairs and people.

On Wednesday, he came dressed as a pirate. Thursday, a dark clown. While everyone was talking about his strange behavior, he planned really interesting events based first on the value to the audience rather than the revenue potential. Charlie was on a roll.

Soon his supervisor figured out the game and started coming into work dressed as a ballroom dancer, a basset hound, and a a juice box, respectively. Behind his disguises he began making programming decisions that openly defied the orthodoxy of more money at the expense of the cattle drive of disregard to the audience.

Obstacle courses, baby.