When you’re doing what you were meant to do for a living you know it, but so do all the people around you as well. I was doing on-air shift after on-air shift with all kinds of powerful, not to mention useful, feedback and almost all of it positive. As the air shifts began to pile up in the completed category, I was feeling more and more confident about the job and subsequently telling everyone who was within earshot that I was a radio DJ.
After 2 months I was pushed into the Sat. 10a-2p slot (the most listened to time of the weekend) and eventually asked to do fill-ins on M-F mid-days, then on occasional weeknights, I was busy (a super-sub if you will); and then it happened…
I was in my underwear on my back deck enjoying some early Tuesday morning spring sun, no joke, when the phone rang. It was the station manager telling me that in two days I was to be the fill in for “Jumpin’ Jeff” Walker, the locally legendary 3p-7p afternoon drive jock, who had been in that spot almost the entire 35 years that the station had been on the air. This was BIG.

The dive-time slots on radio stations are THE time you really want to be considered for as an on-air DJ. The thinking behind their popularity is that if you can get a listener to tune in during those times, then they’ll be back on again during almost any other time of the day. So you’d better be great.
I was nervous and looking of some tips. I remember asking the station mgr. if there was anything special that he wanted me to do in Jeff’s absence, as gracious as he was, he laughingly chose no answer at all, in fact I was given no feed back from anyone at all until the day I took the seat behind the mic and was set to do my first drive-time shift… the studio door swung open, it was the music director Kelly K, she peeked around the half open door, smiled and said two words: “Don’t suck!” It helped, sort of.
Months later a friend of mine Pete Marta told me a story that would solidify my confidence in my radio pursuit permanently. He was out chasing girls in a local nightclub called The Woodlands where “Jumpin’ Jeff” was doing his weekly 2 hour radio appearance gig, they call these easy money making events: remotes. I believe it was every Thursday and it was notoriously busy with the “local friendlies” (easy females) as my G.I. buddies would call them, so if you were single, or just horny, it was a no-brainer that you’d make it a stop on the night’s menu of places to visit.

Pete made it a point to talk to Jeff that night, for a couple reasons I suspect:

a) because it might elevate his bro-status being seen with the famous DJ in a club filled with other bro competition for the ladies he wanted to bed,

b) see reason “a” again,

and c) to put a good word in for his buddy Eric “the new guy at the station” Petersen…

but much to his surprise the truly good word about the new guy wouldn’t need to come from my friend Pete at all.

Pete strode up to Jeff, introduced himself and proceeded to explain to him that I was a friend and asked if he had a chance to meet me yet. The response was the type of poetry I’d like to have framed: “Of course I have met Eric”, he shouted (it was loud in there) “He’s amazing. Ever since day one, when he slid in behind that mic, he’s been a consummate professional. I’ve asked the manager to make him my permanent fill-in. When I’m off he’s the only one I want—-”
Jeff had been distracted by something, then pulled off for a work-type duty Pete told me, he’d excused himself and wasn’t seen again for the rest of the evening. But the words he had spoken had been relayed verbatim to me. It was like getting a sitting president to endorse your candidacy for public office.
The part time work you do as a radio DJ is by far the most fun and best days of your working radio life, at least it was for me, and as the rest of this story unfolds you’ll understand what I eventually had to come to terms with, perhaps what every working person on the rise in their career has to wrestle with-

freedom simply means having nobody that’s able to control you…

that’s what a salaried employee has to surrender, immediately.