The gig economy means that we’re all hustlers. My neighbor turns heads as a barber. He needs a six pack of customers every day to keep the lights on. Actors and musicians are those people by nature.
Every show closes.
You know what I’m talking about. We know the stars names, but what about the veteran character actors that keep the production moving forward. You’re that guy. You know, been there forever but may not necessarily want them to know your name. I hope that you believe that the job can’t get the job done without you. It’s a good to back up that confidence. There’s always chaos in the marketplace.
Hats off if you’ve stuck in a profession for a decade or more.
The superintendent where my kids went to school gave the same graduation speech every year. She assured the parents that the staff did their best adding that the graduates would have five or more jobs in a lifetime. Then she handed out awards to a small group of kids that didn’t miss a day of class in 12 years. I should have asked them if they got that five jobs message every day because my kid’s didn’t hear it.
The first car mechanic in the U.S. told his wife that he hated horses – smelly, messy creatures – that had to be put out of their misery with a bullet between their eyes. The automobile elevated the spirit of mankind, he declared. It was an invention that danced to the beat of government policy that favored its proliferation: same as the Erie Canal, railroads, radio, television and sending a man to the Moon.
Someone asked me what my future looked like in the gig economy. Terrific, I told them. What do you know? was my follow-up. Gigging don’t ask for agility. It demands it.