You ain't no rockstar....

Last night, at 12^th and Porter, I started thinking about careers, jobs, employment or whatever you want to call it. I thought about the people I know in Nashville that have these really amazing jobs in the music industry. How cool would it be to get to work with bands, play an instrument or sing for a living? Pretty damn cool I think. Now I know there are, as with any job, some downfalls of the trade. Musicians don’t always have consistent work and when they do it often means late nights and a lot of traveling. The traveling part might not be so bad actually but not the way that most musicians travel, in a cramped van or bus. When you’re a musician in Nashville the city seems much smaller. It’s an incestuous industry where people know or have worked with everyone else. It’s like 2 degrees of separation rather than 6. That and you get those people that are unethical and use people on a regular basis just to catch a break or get ahead. All that said, it’s still a really cool job. These people are passionate about what they are doing EVERY DAY. Anyway, back at 12^th and Porter, after being interrupted in thought with a drink offer by some random dude the conversation headed that way. Turns out he works for a non-profit (same one I did) here in Nashville as a case manager for adults and he hates his job. He’s burnt out and complained that he doesn’t make enough money. (Hello! It’s a non-profit, you’re not making it out of the $30K range with a Bachelors.) After telling him what I’m in school for he just kind of shook his head and gave me that look like, ‘you poor, sad, sack.’ I kind of wanted to hit him but if I got close enough to do that he would have insisted on continuing to touch me. Something about Southerners and an ignorance of personal space and unwanted physical contact is just beyond some of them. I don’t care if it’s friendly stay out of my bubble! Anyway, random tangent. So in discussing (or yelling over the music) I determined that social work is MY music industry. Social work is what keeps me going EVERY DAY. Ok, so it’s not glamorous or that much fun to converse about (or read about probably) but it’s IT for me. No one wants to talk about that kickass conference they went to about Motivational Interviewing or Evidence Based Practice nor can you name-drop and actually sound cool when you’re talking about ‘the director over at such and such agency’ but there are some parallels. Networking is a huge one as well as playing nice. I don’t care if it’s a bassist or a legislator you aren’t a fan of, you’ve got to make nice because one day you might need their help. I’m never going to be a famous musician, or singer (not even a sub-par singer) but I am going to be a rock star of social work. And when I sign off on paperwork I’m going to pretend like someone’s asked me for my autograph. Hell I may even throw out a strut or a pelvic thrust just for good measure. Bam! Take that Office of Youth Development, oh and here’s that completed grant application. Strut away.

A girl can dream, can’t she?