CHAPTER 178. KICKED TO THE NEXT BIG PROJECT 1998
There I was successful again and again moved to another area. Each time I had been moved it was not my idea or desire. Each time I was moved it was into the current “hot” spot, the newest number one priority, and yet each time I was moved it was not upward, but crosswise. My level stayed as it had been when I left Deposit Services, yet people who had not established reputations of innovation and success were moving effortlessly upward. Doug Harder had become a Section Manager in but a few years and Fil Sherry, who had a reputation among those he worked alongside of doing nothing, had progressed by age 33 to a Division Manager position. It was also very clear that Fil was more than just the new manager of Deposit Services, replacing Walt. He was the top guy at the Plaza. It was obvious that Ted Garrison, the Vice-president over data Preparation had to acquiesce to Fil’s wishes. Yet Ted was there every day for many extra hours overseeing his domain, and Fil was most often not there, off golfing or having meetings and whatever.
And all along people over a certain age were disappearing from the Plaza to be replaced by young and inexperienced people, who also seemed to move up the latter as amazing speed, even as the quality of the work seemed to deteriorate. It was as if the invasion of the bodysnatchers was at work behind the scene.
After I had built the Strong Points System to accompany the Strong Points program I was sent yon and beyond to accounting and another woman was brought into to take over my Strong Points system.
Again I tossed at night, certain this was that move to make me fail, more greasing the skids.. I dreaded going into the accounting area. I only hoped that they had called me in recognition of what I had done with costs, since building a cost system was the new number one priority of the bank.
Bouyed up by the sale of my play and the fact The Hearts of Tampa continued to perform it, I looked once again toward the literary world, and I had a fly dozen of my poems get picked up. They were published in the 17th Annual anthology: A Poem o Save the World.
Proliferation of nuclear weapons. All the poems were read publicly under the title; Readings Against Nuclear Holocaust at the Ward County Public Library in Kansas City, Missouri, July 1998.
In th Summer of 1998 my daughter Noelle was taking her army
Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood.
Now in one of those incredibly questionable moves, Wilmington Trust had hired an outfit called PMG, out of Malvern, to study WTC’s costing needed and recommend a system to buy to meet it. They paid PMG $100,000 for their recommendation. A smart move; get an outside opinion before investing several million dollars in an unknown quantity?
Oh right, sure!
Except the representatives from PMG were former Wilmington Trust managers who had been close to Ted Cecala. But I am certain they were fair and impartial, Even if PMG also sold a cost and profitability system, so one of the vendors they were studying for their recommendation was themselves. But I am sure they could be fair and impartial. And surprise, surprise, their recommendation was PMG. But I am sure it was a fair and impartial recommendation.
At the very same time, Jim Wadsworth, in Marketing Research was pushing for the purchase of another multi-million dollar venture called AnalytiX, a Marketing CIF system from Experion. Only one little hitch, the PMG system was number one priority in the bank and all the I/T resources had been allocated to PMG. There were only crumbs left over to support the installation of AnalytiX. But Jim stubbornly pushed it and he got it approved and purchased. This would return to haunt us all.
I was assigned to a team to go and study the costs of the Plaza, which was fine with me. I was to spend most of the next year where I use to work, away from headquarters and the accounting division. I became the group leader of six analysts. I set the schedules and did training. I didn’t like some things about the PMG system and I got through the backdoor into their database (It was Access) and was able to steal the data into a database of my own design, which gave much better reports. I also fixed some errors in their design. I did tell them what I had done after I did it (bid it and they will come) and they did incorporate some of my changes into upgrades of their system, but notice that got me no name on the credits or royalties.
was a normal approach, not just my idea. However, Ted Cecala had insisted the system be completely in place within one year, so they had cut the study time to make the target date. Well, I couldn’t see breaking Data Prep shifts up over three months. The work flowed through the shifts and I wanted the flow to match, especially the volumes. It meant visiting every shift every day for a month, but I scoped it out and got it done and saved them two months. Didn’t get a lot of sleep that month, though.
At the end of the year I was assigned my desk in accounting and made Senior Profitability Analyst. I had told my boss, Bill Shinn, he could give me any areas except Trust. I really didn’t know Trust. I was given Commercial, which meant I would have to work with a man named Bert Willet, who was high up in Commercial and over all the lenders. Then all of a sudden, things changed and I was given Trust. Not just Trust, but also Trust Operations and Information Technology. The tough assignments.
But our Section was poorly run and also had responsibility for the budgets, so we constantly got interrupted in trying to pull the profitability system together because of budgets, and we were always in a bind from lack of leadership. Then it became apparent that there was a generation gap. They reorganized into units and a little click of twenty-year olds who hung out with the manager got promoted to supervisors and we old guys were just worker bees. We were the ones who they could depend on to do the job, but we were just chucked aside socially, so to speak.
But I can’t just not do a good job. It goes against my nature. I began automating some of the routine procedures and I wrote up the procedures. I built a database to handle the organization chart and the income review, which is still in use. I joined a team (this was a new big deal – the cooperative bank. Everyone was supposed to join teams outside their areas. It was suppose to empower us, but basically it had everyone doing two jobs and being paid for one. I joined a team that was to come up with a marketing model to gain recognition of WTC in the high-income market. This team had been in existence for six months and had gotten nowhere, even though most members were marketing people. I went home after the first meeting I attended, sat down and drew up a model, which I presented at the next meeting. It was tweaked a bit, but it was the one presented to Senior Management and it also is still being used. Did I get recognition for this? Well, yes and no. The whole team received an award for it, but the ones who people remembered were the two who did the presentation at the senior Management meeting, not the one who actually conceived the model and also actually wrote the presentation and created the PowerPoint slides.
I just went back to my accounting cubicle and crunched my numbers. Then one day I saw my old job in Marketing Research was posted. The woman who had replaced me was retiring to move out west with her husband. I ignored it, until I was coming out of the cafeteria and met a woman named Anne. Anne worked in the Brokerage and she had shared the BRAG system with us and we had often interfaced. She asked me if I was going to post for my old job. I said I had not considered it. Then she said, “I know Dave would love to have you back.”\
And with those remarks my fate was sealed and I began my quest through the forest of evil.
Meanwhile I began to write a novel called
Gray.
SUNDAY
It had rained much of March, but this Sunday finally was living up o its name. After church, Stephanie Long took a long walk just to enjoy the first Spring-like day that had come their way. She crossed the bug highway on the special pedestrian walking bridge. A breeze stirred up her long hair like a kind hand and she smiled She stood just off the bridge upon the high ground and gazed across the schools’ athletic fields.
On the distant side of the football field, just below the parking lot of the local libtrary. who could see a group of children playing some sort of tag. As she watched, a gray car came around the side of the library. The building was closed and the parking lot deserted. The car stopped at the back edge toward the field and a man got out. He left the engine running and leaned an elbow on the roof. The man was as gray as his vehicle and disappeared against it. He lit a cigarette, flung away the match and listened.
Children played in the field. Giggles and shouts pierced the crisp spring air. The man puffed his smoke and watched.
He noted the color of each child's hair, guessed ages, observed how the wet grass darkened the cuffs of jeans and the tops of sneakers. He reached through the driver window, stubbed out his used up cigarette in the ashtray and lit another, flicking the match to life with his thumbnail. He used old-fashioned wooden matches.
The children eventually dashed away, dashed away home. Most went in the other direction, away from the Library, but one girl turned in his direction after waving goodbye to her friends.
The man watched the girl.
Through a puff of smoke, he stepped around the front of his gray car.
He saw the girl catch his movement and look toward him. He felt her eyes stare into his. He watched her stop and look around as if someone in the distance called her name.
He heard nothing.
She waved to the invisible caller and ran away.
The man got into his gray car and sped into the darkening evening.
Excerpt from the novel, Gray., 1998
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