The chance to win Emmy gold.

Believe it or not, we actually get the chance to win one of those bad boys in this business. You know the thing that took Susan Lucci like 30 years to win? Yeah, I could have one of those before the day I turn 30. How cool is that?!?

And at WCNC, it’s like a rite of passage. The minute you walk into the lobby, it looks like the Independence High football trophy case. Emmys, Duponts, Murrows. You name it, we’ve won it. So there’s a lot of pressure to keep up with the Jonses around here. My good friends Mike Redding and Andy Benton have 43 combined. Think about that - 43 EMMYS!!! I can’t even grow that many hairs on my chin and these guys have statues lying around the office like spare change in a sofa!

So far though, the statue has eluded me. But if I do win, everything will change.

The minute that gold touches my fingers, I’ll go down to the Mecklenburg County Courthouse and change my name. No longer will it be “Jason Michael Pallante.” Oh no. An Emmy winner deserves better. My new legal name will be “Emmy Award Winning Jason Pallante.”

“Excuse me, is Jason in?”

“No he doesn’t exist anymore. You can schedule a time to speak with Emmy Award Winning Jason Pallante though. That’s if he’s not too busy gazing into the eyes of his new trophy.”

I’ll walk around town wearing it around my neck looking like Flavor Flav when he had that giant clock dangling around his chest.

I’ll make a photo album and send it home to my parents. “Here’s Emmy and I at the Grand Canyon. This is Emmy and I with the Mona Lisa, oh and here’s Emmy and I canoeing down the Hudson River. Isn’t Emmy just precious?”

I always wanted to win one in historic fashion, too. It wasn’t enough to just walk up there and give a speech like everybody else. Oh no. I wanted to be the youngest to win one, the shortest to win one, the scrawniest, the baldest, the guy with the flattest feet to win one. It didn’t matter, as long as I went down in the history books (what an egomaniac!).

But so far, the only gold I see is the reflection from Mike and Andy’s cubicles. And you know what? That’s probably a good thing.

I have learned so much from working with the amazing folks that work both in front of the cameras and behind the scenes at WCNC.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned though is that you can’t just back into success.

It isn’t like discovering penicillin. It isn’t an accident that these people have achieved so much. You can’t be great without a whole lot of elbow grease. You can’t win the gold clocking in 20 minutes late and then counting down the minutes till closing time. Everybody here knows that. They don’t ask about overtime, they don’t ask about lunch hours or coffee breaks or nap time. They do their jobs and they do it with great big genuine smiles on their faces.

And that’s a lesson I’ll take with me from day 1753 on, whether it means wearing my statue around my neck or going to the Grand Canyon without my precious Emmy.