Promo Guy

For an American kid, living abroad has its pros and cons.  Some of the cons include:  never going to a high school football game, not having typical American dating prospects, having to represent “America” when a kid doesn’t necessarily feel like a typical “American.”   Ex-pat kids have these challenges, and many more.

However, there are also a number of pros to living abroad as an American kid.  One of these pros is that occasionally interesting opportunities present themselves; unique opportunities that only an American kid living abroad could have.  Our son Ben recently had one of these interesting opportunities present itself–and he jumped at it.

I won’t go into the long boring story, but Ben is now the Jordan promo guy for a large American children’s television cable network.  The network was looking for a young, male voice with an American accent.  A number of kids were auditioned, but ultimately Ben got the job.  So now, once or twice a week, Ben goes to the studio, records a number of short promo for kids’ shows and then walks out with a wad of cash.  An example of one of these promos might be, “Next time on Sponge Bob Square Pants.”  or “Tune in Wednesday at 4:30 for Penguins of Madagascar.”  He gets paid $10 for each one he does and he has done as many as 22 in one hour.

It’s a sweet gig for a 16 year-old!

As parents, our only fear is that Promo Guy is going to start thinking that it’s normal to get paid this much money for so little work.  One night, the studio called and said that they needed him to come in to do one promo.  They picked him up, took him to the studio, he did the one promo and they brought him back home–all within one hour.  And he made $10 for that.  Afterward, he complained a little that he had made $220 before for one hour’s work.  But we had to remind him that there are very few 16 year-old American boys that are making even $10 per hour, and he should appreciate that money.

Unfortunately, Promo Guy’s career is going to be short lived.  We leave Jordan in June and then the network will have to hire a new Promo Guy.  But for now, he’s milking it for all it’s worth.  Thursday evening he went in and did 21 spots and tonight he’s doing 6.

Do the math!  This 16 year-old American kid is raking it in as the Promo Guy!