employment

8/12/99

I got a job—temp-to-perm. Doesn’t pay that well, but it’s four 10-hour days per week, and the people I saw when I interviewed seemed like they have a good time. It’s in a small town, about half an hour from Warner Robins, which is perfect. I’m one of those people who enjoy a small commute; something to put a firm barrier between home and work. And the drive is beautiful—rural highways through the peach and pecan groves of middle Georgia.

None of this changes the reason why I got the job: I’m a euphonium player. Funny, everyone told me a degree in euphonium would never get me a job. Au contraire! The man who interviewed me at this huge, non-musical corporation was a euphonium player in high school. This has happened to me before. I’ve gotten more than one job from a person who’s intrigued by a musician for some reason.

Maybe they think I’ll become famous someday? Maybe they feel sorry for me because they think that I think I’ll become famous someday. Maybe they’ve heard of those now-disproved theories about Mozart and learning patterns.

***Time out. As hard as we pushed that issue, any musican could have told you that listening to a couple hours of classical music before a test is not going to increase your math scores. But a steady diet of well-composed music will make anyone, especially a young anyone, more perceptive, deductive, creative, attnetive, and lots of other –ives. You won’t dissuade me from that.

So anyway. My interviewer grew up listening to the Robins AFB band. He still goes to their concerts, and he’s even been to some of the concerts John was in. He has a neice who played in the youth Honor Band that John managed this summer. I pretty much had this job in the bag.

I do have some administrative skills—I’m totally qualified for this job. But none of the other qualified applicants have a master’s in euphonium performance.