Change and Turmoil
After tiring of being on call 24/7 and living on dirt wages, and getting my ass chewed out one or two times too many, I thought I would test the waters, see if I could get hired as an airline pilot. I was interviewed by a small airline, Midwest Express, a DC9 operator out of Appleton, Wisconsin. If hired I would get the opportunity to fly jets, most likely domiciled out of Milwaukee. I made the mistake of telling my boss of my intentions so that I could get time off for the interview. I was naïve enough to believe he would want what was best for me.
The interview went well, but they took forever getting back to me. In the meantime, Mr. Graham was pressuring me to let him know if I was staying or leaving. Then, American Airlines invited me to come to Dallas for an interview on July 29th, 1985. I made a HUGE mistake in telling Mr. Graham I needed another couple of days off to go for yet another interview, this one in Dallas. He responded by saying, “You’re telling me that you’re leaving. Let’s just say that two weeks from now, you’re gone.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “So, you’re telling me after six years to hit the bricks just because I’m looking for a job that will let me make more money and have more time off?” I said. It was the first time I ever stood up to the old man. Not that it made any difference. I had a trip in the Conquest later that afternoon to take the president of the Petty Company to White Plains, New York and drop him off. It didn’t even occur to me until much later that I could have or should have told him to go pound sand, find someone else to fly his airplane that day. But I didn’t have the courage to do that. Plus, I still had a great deal of respect for him. I think, looking back, we each hurt one another’s feelings that day. And if I look a little deeper, I realize that I felt I needed to pursue greener pastures, which in turn left him in a bind, needing to find a replacement. I don’t know, but I think if he had offered me a better compensation plan and if I’d asked him to teach me how to invest, I likely would have stayed. But I was young, and he was old enough to be set in his ways, so that was the beginning of the end for us. I wish we could have either worked something out or ended on better terms.
I went out to the airport to get ready for my trip. The telephone rang. It was Marsha, “Wayne, are you sitting down?”
“No.”
“I’ve got some really big news! You need to sit down.”
I was thinking that Midwest Express had called to offer me a job, hoping that it was true. “Just tell me what it is!” After the afternoon I’d had, I wasn’t in the mood.
“You have to sit down.”
“Alright! I’m sitting! Now tell me!”
“We got a baby!”
Timing is everything. Marsha and I had been trying for years to adopt. Now, within an hour’s time, I had just lost my job and become a father. I told Marsha that I would postpone my interview with American, but Marsha persuaded me not to do that, considering that I would need a job if I was going to support our new arrival. It meant waiting a few extra days to meet our daughter, but I agreed it was the thing to do.
I traveled to Dallas on a Sunday, spent the night, and interviewed the following day. We were herded around like cattle all day long. The lady who conducted my interview was bored and yawning as we talked. I felt like asking her if she hadn’t slept the night before, or if my resume was really that boring. But I didn’t.
Every airline has its own unique, sometimes weird, way of selecting the pilots. American conducted a physical examination and sent us home with what looked a lot like a stick from an ice cream bar. At home, we were to use the stick to take a sample from our feces and mail it to them. Weird.
I flew home and the next day, we drove to Springfield, Illinois to meet our daughter. We already had her name picked out. Angela Marie Baker. I’ll never forget the first time I laid eyes on her. She was only twelve days old. I know that she was too young to smile, but I swear she did. I melted into a big puddle right there. When I got the chance to take her in my arms for the first time, I was scared to death that I would break her. She was so tiny, so delicate. I swear that I love her now just as much as I did that first day. She was and is the joy of my life. Today, that joy is increased by the addition of Angi’s children, Annika (aka “Ace”), Penny, Flo, and Hazel. I love them more than the air I breathe.
After bringing Angi home to a large gathering of relatives who came to Effingham to welcome her into the family, it was time to figure out what I was going to do for money. Mr. Graham had in effect fired me for wanting to better myself. I knew that nothing was going to come from the American interview, and Midwest Express still had not told me yes or no.
Tony Whaling was the president of the Petty Company – and a partner in the business with Jack Graham. Tony offered me a job out of the blue when he heard that I wouldn’t be flying him anymore. I knew that it would be awkward working at the Petty Company, in such close proximity to Mr. Graham, after the way things had gone with him.
Petty Company was in the printing business. The deal was that I would begin working in the plant, learning the business. From there I would go into the office as a customer service representative and sales trainee. Mr. Whaling promised to pay me the same amount that I had been making as a pilot.
Midwest Express did finally call to offer me a job as a DC9 first officer. Based on what I had been led to believe would be available to me at Petty Company, and my sense of loyalty to them, I turned it down. It wasn’t long before I realized nearly every promise would be broken.
Mr. Graham got wind of what Tony Whaling had offered me and felt I should not get paid anything close to what I had been promised. Mr. Whaling told me about it but said he would find a way to take care of it. He either forgot or was unable to do it. Nothing more was said about the difference in pay.
Mr. Graham was having trouble keeping pilots. He was a good man, and kept new, well-maintained airplanes. But flying for him at Effingham Air meant you were on call 24/7/365, and the pay was well below industry standard. (Once, when I’d brought up that fact, he informed me that the low cost of living in Effingham, Illinois was worth $10,000 a year.)
Ed Smith, who was there when I left, stayed on, but Jerry Kennedy, who had come to work when I left the flight department soon likewise left. Jerry took a job with the State of Illinois, and then later went on to fly for United Air Lines. Unfortunately, he would later lose his life while deadheading to Chicago on the DC10 that crashed in Sioux City, Iowa. He was an excellent pilot and a good man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Mr. Graham spoke to me one day a couple months after I began working at Petty Company, and offered me the chance to fly some trips for him on my off time. When I asked what he would be willing to pay me, he acted as if I was crazy. It seems he thought I should be grateful to fly for free on my days off from Petty Company just to stay current. Like he was doing me a favor. Unbelievable. “No, thank you.”
I was supposed to become a sales representative for Petty Company. Before assuming that role it was decided I should first work the floor doing odd jobs in the plant. From there, I’d go into Customer Service, and eventually, sales.
The one day I remember most from my time at the Petty Company was when I was working on the floor, doing some flunky job I’d been assigned. Mr. Graham was walking a group of people through the plant and stopped to point me out to them. One of them came over to me and asked me why I would give up flying to do this. All I could say was that I was ready for a change. It was time to do something different. What I was actually thinking was not something I wanted to say. I couldn’t understand why the man I had so much respect for would choose to humiliate me. It’s been nearly 40 years, and I now choose to believe that was not his intent.
The only thing that made it all tolerable was that at the end of the day – every day – I had a wife and baby daughter to come home to. Still, after a few months, I knew the time was coming for me to move on. Going to work at the Petty Company was almost as much fun as going to the dentist. Coincidentally, Petty Company had decided to reduce its staff, and on Valentine’s Day, 1986, they were calling people in one at a time to let them go. When I was told that they wanted to see me, I said “Okay,” then took my time. I went to the bathroom. I got a drink of water. What were they going to do, fire me for keeping them waiting to fire me?