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It's all a matter of balance. If you are going to put in the extra hours to get ahead, you need to have a spouse with patience. I have dragged my wife all around Oz from station to station and she adapted her life to my career. (I've seen her crying in hotel rooms suffering homesickness to the max) I was lucky. You can usually predict the ones who will have a problem in the relationship. They lack balance. I have a little thing I do every time I have to make a decision about what extra stuff I will do for a station. I say to myself "On my death bed, what will I say." Will I say "Gee I'm glad I went to that promo or worked those long hours or am I glad I spent the extra time with her". The answer is always simple.
I don't have to win lotto... I won it when I found her. Shit everyone's gonna think I'm a SNAG now.
It can be damaging...it hasn't ended my marriage, although it has decreased any respect she had for me. One station fired me after 3 weeks and on the day my family arrived. I was dumped because of a backlash over a certain popular guy who had to make way for me. The staff ganged up on me and sabotaged my work...(copywriting at the time) so I went for "poor performance".
The next station, I was fired because after someone asked if I could do a "Hector Pascal" impersonation...the gay PD thought I was villifying him. So, after 9 months....I was sacked because of "poor performance".
At my last station.....it took a month and court action to get my termination money....left us in a desperate state. What I'm getting at is the petulant attitudes of some operators not only affects you...but the family as well. So therefore..I've been criticised for staying in this "pathetic industry" as she puts it. Luckily, I now work for a great PD who has a wife and kids himself.
Another thing....alot of stations won't employ you if you're over 30 and married with kids because they think you'll a). want too much money, b). will put them before your work and c). a single young person is easier to deal with.
One network applies all this...they're privately known as "McDonalds Radio". Radio is different to other industries in regards to your marriage simply because there are too many incompetent and overpaid morons in high places.
Radio is an incredible Mistress to keep up with. My husband of 20 years has been involved with her for a lot longer than we have been married. He talks to her daily, he listens to what she has to say, short of buying anniversary presents for her, she gets much more from him than I do.
But, I get the last laugh on him because I've had an ongoing affair with that same mistress for almost as long as he has. Radio isn't a job its a lifestyle. Marriages are tested everyday by a myriad of different things, Only the strong survive.
If it wasn't radio that tested our relationship for this long it would have been something else.
I love broadcasting, my husband loves broadcasting, our daughter (16 years old) has been broadcasting professionally and unassisted for 3 years now and she loves it, heaven help her future partner.
We are The Osbournes of Rural Western Australian Radio.
Sherryl Chilcott, Radio Great Southern, Wagin WA