I was speechless. I really was. I looked at her, looked at the check and tried very quickly to make sense of it all. I had a lot of money in my palm. I suppose I could have considered it due payment for all the years I had jumped from one market to another, one job to another, one studio to another, one cash cage to another - just to get ahead. After all, I had made those choices, consciously, yet now the money was so unfulfilling. I thought Summit would be a new beginning. But for me, and others, it was a sudden ending. They wanted me out right away. Get your stuff, give us your building pass, thanks a lot and please leave.
In Radio, they always do that to you when you are fired. I guess they're afraid you'll do something sudden and terrible like - try to say goodbye to people who you've worked with while still maintaining your dignity. After all, we can't have that. What if everyone started insisting on his or her dignity? It would be anarchy!
When you're fired in Radio, you suddenly are morphed into deadly bacteria. It's extremely important that the station cleanse and extract you from the environment so you don't have a chance to infect anyone or take anyone else down with you. Management types are highly fearful that the fired person will say something negative and that, in itself, will force a spontaneous stampede of resignations from people who just needed one more comment to throw them into an utter fit of upheaval.
Ironically, the day before my contract was payed off, my wife Chris and I had been shopping at Water Tower, a mall on Michigan Avenue. We walked into a jewelry store and she spotted some piece she liked that was maybe $300 or $400 dollars. I said to her, “Buy it. We can finally afford it. I make $120,000-a-year.”
Little did I know that would be the last time I would be able to say that.
I went home, walked in the front door and said to my wife, “I have some good news and some bad news.” I showed her the check and said, “The bad news is I've been fired.” We were both pretty sullen and it took us a few days to digest everything. What kept going through my head was
