My Wife Fired Me

"I don't have any concerns about my decision," she said firmly. "And I don't believe the bullshit lies spread about Todd. So, if you're not coming back here, have you gotten another job at another station? You remember you can't work for any other radio station in Atlanta for six months."

"No, I'm not looking for another job," I said with a smile. "I've decided to buy a radio station."

Jenny looked at me in disbelief. "I thought we decided that buying a radio station was a bad idea."

"No, you thought it was a bad idea. I never gave up on the idea of one day owning my own station. So, I'm buying WZEP in Zephyrhills, Florida. It's a 1000-watt AM station."

"You bought a dinky 1000-watt AM station in the middle of nowhere, Florida?" her voice was filled with scorn. "Tell me that the signal at least gets into a larger market."

"At the present, no," I answered as I was really annoyed at her attitude. "In fact, it's only 1000 watts during the day. It reduces down to 187 watts at night. But I have a plan to change that."

"So, how is this going to work with our marriage?" Jenny switched gears with concern in her voice. "You'll be in the middle of nowhere Florida, and I'll be here in Atlanta."

"Well, you could come with me and help me rebuild this station," I said with a smile, knowing there was no way in hell she would do that.

"I don't care what you say about your ego not being bruised by my promotion," Jenny was angry now and glaring at me. "Todd told me that you wouldn't be able to handle my promotion. I believe that buying this stupid little radio station is an attempt to convince everyone that you could have been the boss."

"Oh, for god's sake, I'm done," I said as I started to rise. "I don't care what you believe. I've bought the station, and I have plans for it. I was certain that you would never join me in Florida, but I had hoped you'd be happy for me. I see I was wrong about that."

I was about to leave, but I stopped. "Oh, you should know, I've taken half of the money in our checking, savings, and investment accounts. I've also arranged to roll over my 401k to my new SEP-IRA. Also, I picked up a few pieces of furniture and some of my things from the house."

"So, this is it," Jenny said as she rose to her feet, and her face started to turn pale. "Our marriage is over?"

"I didn't say that or infer it," I was baffled by how my wife had gone from chastising me for buying a "dinky 1000-watt AM radio station in nowhere, Florida," to my wanting a divorce.

"How are we going to keep our marriage together, if you're in Florida and I'm in Georgia?"

"Lots of couples make marriages work when they work in distant places," I explained. "I can come up for long weekends, and you can come down to visit. Shit, military couples have it much harder. They're separated for months at a time."

"That's a bullshit plan, Chad," Jenny snapped. "If you're going to Florida, then we don't have a marriage."

"That's entirely up to you, Jenny. If you want a divorce, then you go ahead and file. I'm sure Todd will console you once I'm gone. My goal now is to build my radio station into something special."

Jenny's face then went from pale to bright red. She was totally pissed. I could always tell when my wife was over the edge. The vein on her forehead would start to throb.

"Fuck you and that bullshit station of yours," she shouted. "Todd was right about you. I can see that you want to dump me. And after I'm out of the way, you can spend all your time on that loser radio station. If that's what you want to do, fine. But I expect half the expenses on the house each month."

Jenny had pushed the wrong button with me, and I was now beyond angry. "I'm not going to fight with you anymore. I've made my decision, and I don't care what you think. If you think we don't have a marriage, go ahead and file for divorce."

"So, you do want a divorce?" Jenny was breathing hard now, and I could see fear in her eyes.

"The way you have treated me," I said before I could stop myself, "maybe that would be for the best. Ever since you were appointed Executive Vice President, you have done nothing but disrespect and humiliate me. We talked many times about the possibility of our moving up when our bosses retired. And when we talked about me possibly being the Vice President of Production, you always said I deserved it. But when you had a chance to make it happen, you gave the job to Todd, so fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Right now, I don't give a flying fuck what you want to do about our marriage. I'm sure Todd will warm your bed if you get lonely."

Jenny burst into tears and fled out of her office. I went back and forth in my mind about looking for her to try and sort things out. But I was so annoyed I said fuck it to myself and left. I didn't deserve the disrespect my wife had dumped on me, and I was tired of always giving in to her. This time, she had pushed too far.

The trip back to Zephyrhills seemed to take forever, but it was only a little over six hours. I kept going back over our argument, and it was clear to me that Jenny had painted herself into a corner. And I'm sure that Todd had had a heavy hand in my marital problems. Normally, if we had an argument, Jenny would simply dig her heels in and wait for me to fold. But with Todd in the picture, I didn't know whether Jenny cared anymore. But I was certain that nowhere in her thinking did she entertain the thought that if things were to be fixed between us, she would have to start by apologizing to me. A haunting thought hit me that maybe the divide between us was too far to bridge. I slept badly that night but was up at the crack of dawn. I had so much to do, which was a good thing because it kept my mind off my marital problems.

The station only had one part-time employee, Amanda Tabor, which was good because that was all I could afford. There were three volunteers, but only one offered to stay, Randy Stamos. Amanda was married and had two children. She needed the extra money so she and her husband could make ends meet. She also explained that she sometimes had to bring one or the other of her children if her mother or mother-in-law couldn't babysit. I was okay with that as long as they stayed out of the main studio, production room, and transmitter room.

As soon as the automation system arrived, I showed Randy how to load the oldies into the program. Then I sent Amada out to distribute flyers to all the businesses and anywhere else she thought people would see that we were changing our format. Also, I made a point of attending a town council meeting in Zephyrhills and one in each of the surrounding towns, introducing myself and offering to be of service in any way we could.

I didn't think my family problems could get any worse, but I was wrong. Two days after my confrontation with Jenny, I got phone calls from my daughters. I heard from Tina, our youngest, first. She was a hothead like her mother. And she blasted me right out of the blocks.

"Dad, why the hell have you abandoned Mom?" she snapped at me. "And why do you want a divorce?"

I sighed to myself. "First of all, Tina, this is none of your business. Second of all, I don't want a divorce, and I have not abandoned your mother."

"Bullshit, Dad," my daughter flared. "Mom says that you quit your job because she didn't give you a promotion. Then you told her to go ahead and file for a divorce."

"Tina, I'm going to tell you this just once, stay out of our marriage," I was annoyed with both Jenny and now Tina. Even if Jenny had totally spun the story in her favor which I had no doubt she had, Tina was old enough to know better than to put herself in the middle of a dispute between her mother and father.

"Mom's right, you're acting like a spoiled child," Tina shot back.

"Okay, that's it. Tina, I love you dearly, but until you apologize, we're done. And you can tell your mother the same thing," then I hung up.

About a half hour later, Tiffany called. She was more laid back, but she was deeply upset that I had apparently abandoned her mother. I was already in a bad mood, and I wasn't going to put up with more crap from my kids.

"Dad, is it true that you're living in Florida now?" Tiffany began.

"I am living in Florida," I admitted but before I could say anything else, Tiffany cut me off.

"So, it's true, you are divorcing Mom."

"Tiffany, I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Tina. This is none of your fucking business, so stay the hell out of it." Tiffany hung up on me.

As I sat there looking at my cell phone, I felt unbelievably lonely. It pissed me off that Todd seemed to have screwed with my wife's head and who knows what else. Aside from now being totally estranged from my family, I suddenly realized, I had put all of my eggs in one basket. If the radio station didn't make it, I was going to be between a rock and a hard place. Getting a job after leaving WJTR was one thing, but trying to get a job as a failed radio station owner would be much harder. Fortunately, there was so much that needed to be done that I didn't have time to dwell on that or feel sorry for myself.

The Transmitter arrived two weeks after I took over the station, but I didn't install it. I would wait until we moved to the new location. John had already submitted the plans for the new house, we and were waiting for the permit to be issued. In the meantime, I had the part of the land where the house was to be located cleared and fill brought in. We dug the footer for the house, and I was pleased that the permit was issued four days later. Four weeks after that, the tower arrived, and the erection crew showed up three days later. Putting the tower up cost me another $7000, but the new tower could withstand winds up to 140 mph.

On July 1^st, I switched the station's format to oldies. I was taking over the station in the middle of the off-season, perhaps the worst time to start a business in South Florida. However, within an hour, we started getting calls from people thanking us for the new sound. Also, within the first week, three businesses walked in the front door, and wanted to sponsor. I was very encouraged.

Three months later, we moved the radio station to its new location. John, I, and three part-time laborers had finished a four bedroom, three bath house with a partition roughly in the middle. I lived on one side with two bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen, and a living room. On the other side, the two bedrooms were set up to house the main studio and a production room. There was a small area by a side door that served as the lobby. Down a short corridor was what would have been the family room but now served as a conference room/break room. I had the back end of the garage sectioned off to create a small room to house the new transmitter. To cool that area from the Florida heat, I had a window air conditioner installed. I also had a 24 KW standby generator installed that would power the entire house, radio station, and transmitter.

When we switched on the new solid-state transmitter broadcasting off our new tower, I was pleased that we were covering about a third of Tampa with a strong signal. But our signal rapidly declined the further west you went. Even though our signal didn't reach all of Tampa, I was delighted by how much it did cover. And with our incursion into Tampa, our revenue took a strong step up. Before I switched the format, the station was losing about $4000 a month. After the format change, we broke even after two months and profitable after four. Still, I continued to pay out more money than I took in to upgrade the equipment. So, even though the station was making money, I was still draining my 401-k. To date, I have withdrawn $190,000 from my retirement fund. This was bad as I had to pay a 10% penalty to the IRS, plus pay the capital gains added to my tax return.

Once we turned profitable, the drain on my retirement fund slowed. Eventually I started paying back into my SEP-IRA. Even though the station was making me money, I was only making about 35% of what my salary was at WJTR. And if I had stayed and accepted the raise, the disparity was even worse. I was making less than 25% of what my Atlanta salary would have been. Still, the reduced pay didn't bother me. I was immensely proud and happy about taking a failing station and making it profitable. However, this happiness was tempered greatly by the fact that Jenny wasn't there to share it with me.

During all this time, I hadn't heard a word from my wife. And after the phone calls from my daughters, I hadn't heard from either of them. I didn't dwell on my estranged family, as I had more things to do in a day than I had time to do them. Some days, however, I did wonder if I would ever hear from my wife and daughters again. I was tempted at least a dozen times each week to pick up the phone and call my wife. But then the total disrespect and humiliation would come flooding back. And visions of Todd and my wife made it impossible for me to make that call.

Then, one day, I finally heard from my wife. It came in the form of a separation agreement. I was so angry that signed it immediately. I sent it back with a note that there would be no reconciliation unless she apologized first. I didn't hear anything further from my wife, but my two daughters called me again to beg me to put my ego aside and reconcile with their mother. I was polite this time, but I was adamant about wanting an apology from Jenny. And I told Tina again that I expected an apology from her also. She hung up on me.

As the months passed, I heard nothing from my wife or my two daughters. I had drawn my line in the sand, and I just assumed my family had written me off. Then out of the blue, Tiffany called. Her voice was so soft that I wasn't sure who was calling at first until I heard, "Daddy?"

When I asked her to speak up, she burst into tears. "I'm so sorry Daddy. I'm so sorry. Can you forgive me?"

"Tiffany, honey, there is nothing to forgive," I told my sobbing daughter. "You were just defending your mother. You couldn't possibly know how humiliated and disrespected I felt by what your mother did. And your sister took your mother's side immediately and heaped even more disrespect on me. So, I'm not talking to them until they apologize. That doesn't mean that I don't love them because I do, and it has been very lonely without all of you."

"Thank you, Daddy," Tiffany said between sobs. "I wish I had never believed mom and Tina without listening to your side."

"That's okay, honey," I said, trying to calm my daughter. "By the way, how are your mother and sister doing?"

"Tina's called me a few times, but all she wanted to do was trash you, so I finally told her if that's all she wanted to talk about, to stop calling me. I've seen her around campus a few times, but we haven't spoken in three months. I've talked to a few of her friends, and they say she's become very withdrawn. I see Mom every two weeks or so when I go home to do my laundry. I'm only there for a few hours, but she seems out of sorts, and I don't know if she's mad at me or what. One time when I was home, she went out on a date with some guy named Todd. But I don't know if she had a good time or not because I was gone before she came home."

That news cut deep, and even though I knew I shouldn't let it bother me, it did. Ever since I signed the separation agreement, I have been out on a few dates of my own. The women were nice but there was no spark, so nothing ever developed. Besides, it was only recently that my workload had begun to slack off slightly, and I had time to think about dating.

"Do you think that you and Mom will ever get back together?" Tiffany finally asked.

"That's entirely up to your Mom," I said with sadness. "There is nothing I can or will do until I get an apology from her. But let's talk about something else. How are your classes going?"

"I changed majors," Tiffany's voice now sounded excited and more upbeat.

"What did you change to?"

"Communications."

"Really. Any idea what you want to do when you graduate?"

"I want to pursue a career in broadcasting," Tiffany's voice was now very excited.

"It's a hard career to make a living at," I advised cautiously. "What are you interested in -radio, television, cable, print media, internet?"

"Right now, I'm a volunteer at the college radio station, which is a ton of fun. I'm also taking television courses, and that's a blast. I have my own radio show. It's a sports show where I do a weekly wrap up of all our college teams, and I interview athletes."

"That's fantastic. Say, what do you think of spending time here with me at the station this summer?" I asked.

"I thought you'd never ask," Tiffany laughed. "But I can only stay a week or two because I have to make some money for next year."

"I can pay you," I offered. "It'll be at least as much as you'd make at a minimum wage job, and you'd get great experience for your courses."

"Oh God, I'd love to do that," Tiffany said excitedly but then added in a more subdued tone. "But I'd have to tell Mom, so she doesn't think I'm abandoning her. And if she pitches a fit, I'll have to pass and take my old job at the ice cream shop."

"Understandable, and I agree."

The talk with my daughter had really bolstered my spirits, and we began telephoning back and forth each week. But what happened two weeks later sent me into orbit and then into a pit of disappointment. A radio station broker called me and told me that two FM translators were coming on the market in the Tampa area. A translator is in essence a 250-watt FM station that rebroadcasts an already licensed radio station's signal to increase their coverage area. In order to apply for a translator license, a station's signal had to intersect the translator signal. And our signal did intersect both translators, so I put a bid on both.

As it turned out, there wasn't another station that had a need or intersected the signal for the northern translator. However, there were three stations, including WZEP, that were interested in the southern one. I offered the asking price of $30,000 for the northern translator, and $75,000 for the southern one, which was $25,000 more than the asking price. But another station put a bid in for $80,000 for the southern translator. I was mildly disappointed in losing out on the southern translator, but the broker had already told me he had a verbal agreement for the northern one. In fact, he was in the process of putting the paperwork together when the northern translator owners changed their minds. After hearing what had been offered for the southern translator, they now wanted $80,000 also. I wasn't going to be hustled, so I told the broker to tell them, "Thanks, but no thanks." I was angry and bitterly disappointed. I hate it when people don't honor their word.

Even though I had failed to secure either of the two translators, I didn't have time to stay disappointed for long. I had so many things I had to attend to. In addition to running the station, I was doing a morning show with a little bit of everything mixed in with the oldies. When the show finished, I'd get caught up with my paperwork and then head out to drum up more sponsors. Even though I wasn't making the money I made in Atlanta, I was very proud that the station was retaining 87% of our sponsors.

Once we moved the station, the income continued to rise. Still, I was only making about 50% of what I had been making in Atlanta. But there was another benefit to owning a station - trades. I traded spots for merchandise and services. The car I was driving was leased from a local car dealer, but my monthly payments were taken care of by his commercials on the air. If you factor in the trades, I was making about 65% of my Atlanta pay.

When May rolled around, two great things happened. The first was when Tiffany showed up. But it was who she brought with her that put the icing on the cake; she had convinced Tina to come with her. When Tina got out of the car, I came out of the station. She hesitated before I opened my arms wide. Tina raced forward and fell into my arms crying and apologizing. The girls told me that Jenny had encouraged them to join me for the summer.