Why do radio people have egos?

This is a question I have asked ever since I started going to school for radio.  The answer I got in school was that you had to have an ego to survive.  You have to think people care about what you have to say.  I don’t know that, that was ever a satisfactory explanation for me but today I learned something about ego.

I have been out of school for a few years now and last October got my first full-time job in radio.  To say this is a full-time job is an understatement.  I am the only Air Personality at this location.  I pretty much am responsible for about 80% of what happens on air.  Needless to say when something goes wrong I have to deal with it and when things need changing I have to deal with that as well.

Recently one of our programs was canceled.  I contacted the powers that be in the company to figure out what to do to fill that time.  I received no answer.  I preceded to make a judgment call, which apparently was the wrong call.  I was about to go into the studio to do my afternoon show and felt a pit in my stomach.  You know how it is you realize you made a bad call and need to fix it and felt bad about it.  I kicked off my show and realized my energy was lacking and I just felt crappy about this decision.  I then decided to be confident that it wasn’t a mistake it was just a bad situation and I did with it what I could to make the situation better.

This whole thing made me realize something.  With so much on my shoulders I have to careless about what people think sometimes and have to exercise my ego as a survival mechanism.  Now I’m not claiming that it’s acceptable to snub listeners, and act like a jerk, but you have to have that ‘ok I’m not going to give a crap about what they think’ attitude sometimes.  Again you have to be friendly and do everything to accommadate the listeners as you can.  It’s just when you can’t please everyone you have to have a thick skin.  I’m working on it.