CHAPTER 184 FULL UP WITH FIL 2001

 CHAPTER 184 FULL UP WITH FIL 2001

 

Wednesday, September 5, at around 10:00 in the morning, Fil Sherry came to my cubicle.

“Hey, Larry, how’s it going.”

  “Fine.”

“Good.  I need to talk to you.  Can we get together around, oh say, 1:30?”

“Sure. Do you want me to come to your office?”

“No, I’ll come get you.”

Dum de dum dum!!!!  

That friend, was the moment I knew.  Why would he have to come get me? I knew where his office was. If he wanted to talk, we could meet there.  It was a private office. He had a door  that shut.

I immediately got up and went to see Deborah Williams.  I said,

“Well, I think this is it.”

“What.”

“I think they’re throwing me out.”

“No.”

I told her about Fil. She said she didn’t believe it.

At 1:30 Fil appeared. 

I got up and he herded us toward the hall and elevators.  I  knew where we were going, the execution chamber. 

 

 “We are going to do some reorganizing that effects the databases and I felt I ought to talk to you about it,” he said, still smiling.

We turned toward the doors to the elevator bank.  “I don’t like our conference room much,” he said.  “I found another conference room that will give us privacy.”

THE EXECUTION CHAMBER. 

I saw my Manager, Mary Murphy talking to someone near the restrooms. I waved bye-bye to her behind Fil’s back.  I could tell by her face she knew.

We entered an elevator and he pushed down…down…down.   There were a couple of other people on the car.

 “Yes, we need to talk about the reorganization.” He kept up the pretense.

I gazed over that the other passengers.

Yeah, you’re going to reorganize me right out of here.  

I thought it, but I didn’t say it. I wonder what he would have said  if I had said it. He act was almost funny.  I almost laughed at him.

We reached the street floor and exited the elevator.

“Yeah,” he said.  A lot of people don’t even know there are conference rooms down here, but I found them one day and said these are nice meeting rooms.”

I knew about these rooms.  This is where he took Harry, then Joyce and then Jim. They had been mean and nasty to Harry and Jim I had heard. I wondered how they would do me in.

We went past a security outpost then turned into the little alcove that hid the “nice meeting rooms” behind it

  There were two of them actually. I saw people sitting in one and knew they were Human Resource staff waiting their queue to enter the stage. We walked into the other little room where Rita Turner sat square center behind a conference table, stiff as a board, her hands folded before her on the table. She stiffly nodded. 

Fil followed me and began: “We have decided to make some changes with AnalytiX. It is going to be moved over to the Headquarters. We have decided that the individual managers and branch staff will be setup with AnalytiX and will do their own reports going forward. Unfortunately, that means your job has been eliminated.  Jim Cameron will continue (between tears) as Direct Mail Clerk.  Sherry Shen will be the technical person, but will no longer have supervisory duties. The unit will be moved to Joan Sullivan’s area in the Rodney Square Headquarters and Melissa will be the new supervisor.”  (Ah, Melissa, who Sherry Shen and I had exiled to Barry Strepko was now to be Sherry’s boss.)

R said, “Larry, you have been with the bank (I didn’t correct her and remind her of her own orders that we don’t use the word “bank” anymore) and you have made many contributions over the years.  I regret we never had an opportunity to work together  (I didn’t share her regret).  It is just that the AnalytiX system is perfect (who is kidding whom?)  now and with this change we just have no place for you (or any other gray-haired old geezer).  In a moment Katie and Julie from Human Recourses will come in and explain your options.”

Fil asked, as they always ask the about to be executed, “Do you have anything you would like to say?” (Any last words before the firing squad fires?)

 “Yes,” I said. “I am concerned about Sherry.  Sherry is a great asset to Wilmington Trust. She should be listened to concerning AnalytiX. You know she has done more than her job.  She has solved a lot problems in Information Technology and I want to be certain she will be treated fairly.”

They stared at me, not knowing how to respond.  I am sure they expected me to defend myself or get angry or something, but not talk about someone else’s welfare.  But I meant what I said. Sherry deserved much better than the way she has been treated. I know doggone well they took advantage of her because she I was a foreigner and made her self-conscious about her accent.  Fil looked like he was in pain and he barely managed to choke out “that is very big of you.”

R just glowered and said nothing. She did reach out a hand and dead-fish my own.  

They excused themselves and in marched Katie and Julie, more bright smiles and chirpy voices as they explained my two bad choices.  I could choose TERMINATION or I  could choose EARLY RETIREMENT.  If I chose termination, then I would get 26 weeks severance pay and that was about it. I would eventually get my pension, because I was fully vested, but I would lose all my employee perks and my mortgage rate would jump up to the normal rate, stripped of the employee discount. 

Now 26 weeks pay, about $37,000, sounds like a lot at first, but you take out taxes, it isn’t that great. And it can go pretty quickly. After all, I would have no insurance, health or otherwise, but I’d have all my bills, including a car payment,  and be paying more on my mortgage because I would lose the discount I got for being an employee.

If I took early retirement, I would keep all my employee discounts, my free checking, my mortgage discount,  and all that stuff. My 401K would roll into an IRA. My mortgage rate would not change. I would stay in the health plan, although I would have to pay more than before.  It was still only a third of the total cost.  I would get life insurance coverage.  It would only be for $7,500, but at least that’s enough to bury you. 

I could start my pension if I chose, and I was at a point where I

wouldn’t actually get much more on my pension even if I stayed until I was 65. I would also keep my 20%  discount at the company cafeterias.  Man, how could I pass that up?

Of course I worked for a very chintzy outfit. You’d think they would give you a little plastic ID card, but no, they gave you a thin piece of paper (on right) and to get it, if you decided to use the cafeteria, you had to come into Human Resources and ask for a ticket. I mean, Personnel was in downtown Wilmington. You’d have to travel into town to get the ticket, and then travel further for a meal at the cheap cafeteria just to get 20% off. Give me a break!

I opted for early retirement.

Harry, Joyce and Jim had all been ushered to the street on the day they were done in, not even allowed back up to say goodbye.  I was asked to stay through Friday because “I knew things that others had to learn before I left.  Would I please come in through next Friday to pass on this knowledge, but after that I didn’t have to come in again if I didn’t want to.”

You’re darn tootin’ I didn’t want to. 

They said September 21 would be my official retirement date.  Then I received a letter saying it was October 1. Then it was the October 10 on something else, so to tell the truth, I don’t know when I really was officially through.

I heard from a reliable source that The Boss had promised Ted Cecala that she would shave a half-million dollars from the Marketing salary budget for 2002.  Well, Jim and I made a dent in that, I guess.  Like others we were booted because we were old, been there a long time and made a lot of money. That is the only reason. Jim Cameron was a total disaster, but he stayed. He was 27 and made half my salary and not near as many benefits

I had lunches with Sherry Shen and Deborah Williams after I left and I made a prediction.  I said I think they will terminate Mary Murphy and move the Small Business Center to Commercial Banking.  Bert Willet will probably be gone then.  Now they will have shrunk Interactive Services down little more than a call center.

They fired Kermit Wooden, the manager of Human Recourses for sexual harassment (he was using a lot of female humans for his own resources).  I said I think they will make Fil head of Human Resources and then make that a Department and him a Senior Manager.  Michele Wilson will be made the Division Manager to replace Fil, but at less money, and her position will not be filled, because it isn’t needed anymore. Maybe the web design people will be let go now that our sites are all up and running.  After all, we could hire an outside firm to administer the websites that we only had to pay if we needed them and that would be an operation expense, not a salary expense.

Well, after I left, Mary Murphy was terminated, as was another

there named Pete Adams. Bert Willet was terminated. The upper limit that defined the Small Business Center, which had served  companies with $10 million or less in sales was  lowered to only $3 million and any accounts higher than that level of sales were given to Commercial Banking. A couple underwriters were transferred out of the division, as was Mary’s old assistant.  Strong Points was also moved to the headquarters under a woman named  Beryl Barmore (in foreground of photo), who I considered a friend at my church,  and Deborah is now managing one half of the call center.  I don’t know if the rest of my prediction has happen yet since I am no longer there to watch. 

On September 7, I shut down my company PC for the last time (legally) and without fanfare, Larry Meredith had left the building.