Posted by chicagomedia.org on April 02, 2009 at 10:52:31:
Wedded at work: Eric and Kathy a perfect fit
THE MIX | 13 years ago, Eric and Kathy hit it off on air immediately -- and still find each other a perfect complement to their real-life spouses
April 1, 2009
BY MIKE THOMAS | Chicago Sun-Times Staff Reporter
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Having never met before, Eric Ferguson and Kathy Hart were partnered by a program director who had a hunch they'd hit it off.
"It's the fastest job I've ever gotten," Ferguson says of his connection with Hart, who was already on the air in Chicago. He likens their linking to a blind date.
But their matchmaker couldn't have predicted the extent to which the relationship would bloom.
Two of the highest-paid radio personalities in town -- Ferguson reportedly brings home seven figures, and Hart draws a healthy paycheck as well -- the Chicago area natives have worked side-by-side for 13 years now. That's longer than either of them has been married.
"After the fifth or sixth year, we just stopped having sex 'cause it was getting in the way of the show," Ferguson, 42, jokes after a morning air shift in his Prudential Plaza office.
You might say Eric and Kathy, as they're known to the fans of their morning radio show on the Mix, are "work spouses" -- platonic partners who share bonds similar to marriage (but without the romance). Many offices have such pairings -- in one survey of 575 employees by vault.com, 23 percent said they had a "work husband" or a "work wife."
But male/female radio teams -- like Eric and Kathy, as well as the two other duos we'll profile this week -- are especially attuned to this phenomenon because they occupy the same small space for hours on end, day after day. Unlike average work spouses, however, they live out their relationship before hundreds of thousands of listeners.
"A lot of spouses, the problem they have is communication," Ferguson says. "They don't talk to one another, they don't discuss things. And each and every day, that's all we do. So there's never an instance where we can say communication has become a problem."
Both say the job has positively affected their respective marriages.
Hart, 44, sits across from Ferguson, her feet propped on the edge of his desk. Her office adjoins his, so even though they purposely don't talk much off the air (it enhances spontaneity), they're rarely far apart.
"I learned to let things go a lot more," says Hart. Her husband of 12 years, Bert Witte, owns a karate school in Buffalo Grove, and they have three kids ranging in age from 15 months to nine years. "Before, I was a very Type A personality, very emotional, very outspoken. And I just realized that [my husband and I] don't see each other that often, so it's just not worth it. So oftentimes, I'll come to work and take it out on [Eric]."
Ferguson says he's "picked up a lot from my real-life wife that I've changed in my relationship with Kathy. She's made me more patient or more relaxed in my approach to work. 'Cause I can be a tough guy to be around, and Kathy is much more tolerant of any type of difficult behavior that I might have than my wife is at home."
Jen Ferguson, a Chicago dentist and mother of four, says the fact that Eric spends far more waking hours with Hart (around five a day, plus a business trip or two per year) than he does with her isn't an issue. It hasn't been, she says, since they met in 1997 at a concert promoted by Jen's cousin. Both broke dates to see each other the next day.
"When we first started dating, I remember my grandmother saying did I have any concerns about him spending so much time with such an attractive woman. And I remember thinking, 'That's so preposterous that I would even think twice about it,' because they are such sibling-like people."
On the topic of whether he's intimidated by Eric, the lethal-limbed Witte (a fifth-degree black belt) laughs big and says, flatly, "No."
He calls the Ferguson and Hart union a "well-oiled machine. One can finish the sentence of the other. Kathy can pick up a topic and keep something going while [Eric's] busy preparing the next thing. . . . Their chemistry is really good that way."
When Witte and Hart clash, it's potential fodder for the show.
"If she's got something stuck in her craw about me, she likes to put that out on the air," Witte says. "If she's got an opinion about something that we may not agree on, she'll let it be known. I don't pick up the fight with it when she gets home. It's like, 'All right, whatever.' "
But while listeners might think they know Ferguson and Hart from the duo's regularly revealing on-air banter (Eric's body hair, Kathy's yoga obsession, etc.), there's more than meets the ear.
"The rascally, joke-telling, self-deprecating guy -- he doesn't usually come home," Jen Ferguson says.
In many cases, Eric says, neither does domestic discord.
"It's funny. I'm a guy who likes to talk it out at home, oddly enough, and my wife would prefer to avoid conflict and it's over, it's done with, why even bring it up. So I get all of it out here and then go home to silence."
"It's perfect," Hart says of their purgative profession. "Who needs a therapist?"