The day I arrived in Chicago was both exciting and daunting. I located the temporary apartment which the station had arranged for me and hauled my belongings up to it as quickly as possible. They agreed to put me up for three months. Being alone, I had no alternative but to leave my truck on the street, unattended, while I moved my belongings by elevator into my flat. I was sure half of it would be stolen between trips. My paranoia was unfounded and when I was finished, I stopped to look out my new front window which faced Michigan Avenue and surveyed a skyline chiseled by skyscrapers to my left, Grant Park in front of me and Lake Shore Drive behind it.
I was exhilarated and content. This was everything I had worked for my entire career. I was in the third largest market in America about to be on the air in a few days. I felt I had made it. I don't believe I will every feel quite like that again. I thought about those people I had met along the way who, for whatever personal reasons, were hoping I would fail. I wished I had a way to show them the view I was admiring.
In Radio, you learn to live with an endless stream of people who are motivated by jealousy and ego. And the bigger the market you work in, the more intense the disdain from your competitors - inside and outside the station you work. The afternoon guy wants to be the morning guy. The evening guy wants to be the afternoon guy. The unemployed guy wants to have any of their jobs. The guy in the smaller market wants the guy's job in the larger market. The guy competing against you cross-town wants you to die, or get picked up for drunk driving, or arrested for corrupting the morals of a 13-year-old girl. Anything to see you fail. Anything to get you out of town. Anything to get rid of you. Anything to get your job. It never ends.
Sometimes you feel like you're trying to race up a mountain of loose stones that keep slipping under your feet, all the while the people on each side of you are hoping you'll fall flat on your face and slide back
