As is my custom, I am blogging my annual Christmas card letter, for those I may have drifted away from and are googling my name out of curiosity.
Good day! Mark Cappis here, updating you on how his 2020 is going.
I like the picture I included this year. It’s the last known photo of my radio career.
St. Patrick’s Day, 2020. I bought a snazzy new green shirt for the day. Thanks to watching my weight, it was the first time in years I’d confidently bought a 2XL shirt. I decided to take that “selfie in front of the station logo” that so many radio folks do. When that was done, I went back on the air to read the latest update about the COVID-19 pandemic. The station’s salesperson rolled his eyes at my newscast. “Look at me!” he said. “I just got back from Mexico, and I don’t need to self-isolate because I’m feeling fine! This COVID-19 is just a bunch of fake news.”
My doctor didn’t think so when I saw him a few days later about a prescription. I was ordered in to two weeks self-isolation for coming into contact with a foreign traveler who was refusing to self-isolate. At the end of the first week was when I got the call: a temporary layoff notice.
(As I copy-paste this over to my blog, I realize that some may infer I was laid off because I was self-isolating. That's not the case at all. I was one of ninety people the Company laid off at the end of March. The pandemic has not been kind to radio. It seems that every month another broadcaster is announcing another round of mass layoffs.)
I figured, “Hey, it’s temporary. I’ve got CERB. $2000 a month is pretty much my salary, so I’ll enjoy this paid vacation.” Yup, I’m one of those guys the politicians warned you about. I was living high on CERB, eating cheezies and watching cartoons. Although, if I knew I could have cheezies, I wouldn’t have blown it on my rent. The notice said the temporary layoff would end in six months, and at the end of September I got the call: the temporary layoff was being upgraded to permanent.
And that brings us to the now. Haven’t tried on that green shirt in a while. Stress eating (and Westlock’s new Dairy Queen) kind of threw my diet out of whack. With CERB done, I’m on EI. Fourteen years with the Company resulted in a not-too-bad severance package, and with the economy being the way it is, I figure I’ll coast through the holidays and start job hunting with a passion in the new year.
Not gonna lie...I’m scared. I’m 43. That’s too old to start over. But then they also told me I was too old to start over when, at the ripe old age of 26, I went back to school to fulfill my dream of being on the radio.
I’ve done it before. I can do it again.
Anyway, I hope your 2020 treated you a lot better. Merry Christmas, and all the best in 2021.
Mark Cappis
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