It's
morning, already! I had a splendid night rest, in my tiny bed, in my tiny room
for which I am grateful for, ofcourse. *smiles* Don’t get me wrong. I checked
my time piece and it was about 7am and now; how about a quick flash through
what’s really happening here.
We are
getting to the end of February in the year 2011 and I just relocated to Lagos,
having resigned from my former place of work – Cool fm, Port-Harcourt where
until
the 1st of February, 2011, I was an On-Air-Personality (…an
OAP)
I had
graduated from school and after looking for a job for a while I landed my very
first actual job and it so happens to be a radio gig as a Radio Host with Cool
fm, Port-Harcourt in 2009. It was a dream-come- true. I had to undergo some training
in broadcasting, ofcourse. Topnotch, courtesy of Cool fm. I was really enjoying
myself on air, co-hosting the Good Morning Nigeria Show with my then boss (he
was the Head of Station and an OAP as well). He mentored me really well and after
a few months' training, I started filling in for other OAPs when they were not
available to do their shows and soon enough, I was given my own show. I couldn't
contain the feeling of 'wow!' I was falling in love with the whole experience
and already making a life time decision to actually build a career in
Broadcasting.
However, I
always knew I would have to move to Lagos at a point. I believed (and still do
believe…) that Lagos has a bigger market as regards this industry of ours.
Besides that though, I have lived all my life in Port-Harcourt and I intend to
explore other parts of the world, so how about we start with Lagos, huh?
*smiles*.
So, after a
year-plus with Cool - PH and realizing it was sort of difficult (almost
impossible) to be transferred to Cool fm, Lagos, I knew it was time to move on my own. Yea, I
know some may call me 'crazy', but I weighed my options and realized staying in
Port Harcourt forever scared me more. I had to make this move and here I am…the
morning right after I landed in Lagos. What can I say?... *stretches*.
I said my
prayers, got out of bed and started prepping to go out. It’s a beautiful day to
go be a tiger (or in this case, a tigress…). I got out my cds (I had recordings of my live radio shows on
cds), put them in my bag. I got copies of my CV and a list of addresses of
some media houses. Ok, relax…I can see that eyebrow arching up right now and
you are thinking; ‘what happened to phone calls and emails?’ but you would also
agree that sometimes the face-to-face meetings pay off better and well, in this
case, honey, I practically know nobody in the industry practicing here in
Lagos, so let’s face it – there’s not much phone calls to be made as regards
getting myself a gig, hence, I had to go out there to the streets, to the media
houses, to their offices, myself and try and have one-on-one meetings. So, you
wanna say it: (JJC…*covers face*) or can we just move on already? Thank you…
*rotfl*For what it’s worth though, I guess this time I wouldn’t be paying #3000
to a cab guy from the Airport to Ajao Estate*laughing really hard now*
Fret not for
me, love. *smiles* From my experience, you could just walk into your
life-changing-moment, just by having a 5minute-meeting with someone who
matters. So, I’m ditching the phone calls from home and going out there to go
have those meetings. Besides, I have to
build my network from the scratch.
I was out of
the shower and out of the house after a quick breakfast. My first stop – Beat
fm, so I was on my way to the Island – Ikoyi precisely.
Before I
resigned from Cool fm, I had sent a package (containing a recording of my live
show and a copy of my CV) to Beat fm. I got a call from them saying they had no
openings for OAPs, but may have a space on their new sister-radio (Naija fm),
if I was interested in doing pidgin. Well, I wasn’t interested and I told them
so but I’m very well still interested in a spot on Beat fm, hence my
re-visiting the place…this time, in person! Heck! I’m in Lagos, now. I heard
one of their female OAPS had just left them. If I could just have a talk with
the guy in charge, I just might get that spot. Well, you gotta keep watching
this page to find out. *winks* Remember it’s Diary of a Hustling OAP.
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