My involvement
soliciting funds for The United Way was somewhat paradoxical. For most of my
life I had been resentful and critical of The United Way. This attitude went
back to when I worked for ARCo in the 1960s. ARCo supported the United Way and
every year they solicited funds from the employees. They were very heavy
handed. You were expected to pledge “Your fair share” to the cause or else. Now whether
you actually pledged or gave anything was supposed to be a matter of free will. It was also
supposedly confidential; no one would know if you gave or not, or how much so the company claimed.
I didn’t give
anything. I didn’t make a pledge of so much as a penny from my weekly paycheck nor did I
even make a token one-time token donation. I had my own charities I gave to and considered this private business. I also resented being pressured to give to something that essentially gave the
company a nice public image. ARCo wasn’t doing this because they cared about
the agencies on the list. The company President or Chairman wanted to stand up
at the campaign award banquet and be handed a plaque to hang on his trophy
wall. They wanted comments about ARCo's generous contribution splashed about
in the Philadelphia papers.
So rebellious I pledged
nothing.
Then one day I came to work and I was approached by a guy I didn’t know
and told to follow him to some conference room. I go in the room and there are
these guys from the
Atlantic Independent Union waiting for me. The guys surrounded me and they're yelling at me for not giving. They're telling me I better give my Fair Share. It was like a scene from some mob movie. They were big guys, too, probably worked down .at the refinery or maybe they were the same goons who showed up from the Teamsters in my office at Olson Brothers (see my post, “Job Roulette with Egg”).
And how did they know I didn’t give anything; it was supposed to be confidential
I told them, “Fuhgeddaboudit!”
No I didn’t actually say that. I did tell
them my charity giving was my business, then I got up and left the room. Sorry
if I ruined the companies 100% participation.
For the next week or so I fully expected I might be
jumped on the street somewhere after that, but nothing more ever happened. I
also swore I would never give to The United Way. Now, here I was in 1984, more than 20 years later not only
making a contribution, but standing up in front of groups of fellow employees making
speeches asking for their money. I do have to say, Wilmington Trust never put
any kind of undo pressure on their employees to give and the list of donors was
strictly kept secret.
On January 23 of
1984 I was picking up Laurel from nursery school and my car brakes began to fail.
I took the car directly to the mechanic I used and dropped it off. Laurel and I had to
walk two-miles home. The next morning, I got my car back at 8:30 AM, which made
me late for work. Laurel didn’t go to school. She was still tired out from the walk(remember she was only 5 years old).
On the 26th
I bought a new car, a Ford LTD Station wagon. We had truly arrived at that dreaded point of non-coolness, the suburban family in their suburban wagon.
On Saturday
the 28
th I left a fidget Philadelphia for New Orleans. It
was the annual BAI P.A.T.H Conference, now called the BAI Productivity Conference
and this year there was a huge difference. No, not the name change.
I was one of the
speakers.
Over the course of
my first years at Wilmington Trust my name gradually became known.
Originally my fame, if you want to call it that, seeped through the bank. My position had started as an experiment really, which no one quite knew how it would work. I
was designing my own job descriptions and creating just what Project Management
in Banking looked like. I had started working at The Bank (as we referred to
ourselves within Wilmington Trust) on September 3, 1980. By the end of 1983 I had overseen 18 major
projects and not only brought every single one in before the scheduled
completion dates, but also brought them in under budget. A few of these weren’t
overly complex, but many required gaining confidence and cooperation beyond our
own Division.
People within
our bank were actually talking about me at meetings and conferences in the
industry beyond Wilmington Trust. This was not just because of my ability to
accomplish the goals set forth, but because I sometimes brought a new way of
doing them to the table, for example, the Bulk Filing Conversion. I was an aggressive
project manager, as well. I was always suggesting projects,
which quite often were rejected because no one else was ready to see the
possibilities. Still, I was being talked about. At the same time, Project Management was becoming a
buzz word around the banking industry, although it remained a mystery to a lot
of old-line managers. Thus in the last quarter of 1983 I was asked by the BAI
to put together a presentation (what they called A Breakout Session) for the
1984 Productivity Conference on project management in banking. I choose the title, “Project
Management Works!” and sent my synopsis to the BAI content committee.
How did a
country boy with Social Anxiety Disorder ever pull this off. I had my bad
moments dealing with others certainly, but overall I seemed to have been born for this job. My fears of
social situations were offset by my gift of organization and my preparation.
These were very much gifts from God.
New Orleans was fun,
even though I was all on my own. I flew in on Saturday. On Sunday I took both a
bus tour of the city and a steamboat cruise down the Mississippi.

I loved the
city, but was disappointed by the Mississippi. The Mississippi just didn’t seem
all
that large where I was. I realize it is the longest U.S. water and a major course of transportation through many a state. But I was used to living near the Delaware River and somehow the Delaware looked wider than the Mississippi in New Orleans. Actually, this is true. The Delaware River where I am from is almost 3 miles across. The Mississippi in New Orleans is 2 miles.
Anyway, I rank New
Orleans as one of my favorite cities because it is a great walker’s city. My
favorite cities are all walker cities: Philadelphia, New York and New Orleans.
You can walk about these places even at night and feel safe because there are
so many people about. I would put Washington DC on my list, except there is
something about it that isn’t comfortable after dark. And once more I was
hitting the marathon circuit.

I stayed at the New
Orleans Sheraton, just a short walk from the heart of the French
Quarter, and I was in the French Quarter about every evening.
Every morning I would get up early and saunter down to Decatur Street to the Café Du Monde and get a couple Beignets and some café au laits. Ah, it was a little bit of Heaven. I have missed those Beignets all these years I have been home.
My session
was late morning on the first day of the conference. I had designed my
presentation to involve the audience. Unfortunately, the lighting in the room
was terrible and I struggled reading my own script, which I think confused some
of the people.

The BAI treated all
the speakers to dinner at Arnaud’s Restaurant (left). This establishment has an
extensive Mardi Gras Museum inside (right) and we were given a personal tour. The food
was excellent. They served Shrimp as an appetizer. It was a huge tray of
shrimp in a Creole Remoulade Sauce. This was the only time I ate shrimp and enjoyed it. I am not a big fan of seafood. I had Filet Mignon au Poivre. Why not, the BAI was paying for it. Several of the other speakers near me told me they had attended my session and really enjoyed it. I was surprised since I didn’t think it went well due to the lighting.
The next night I was
alone for dinner and ate in the Hotel restaurant. I still wasn’t paying, the
Bank was paying for this meal. I had a table sort of toward the middle of the
room, unusual since I had found restaurants usually sat lone diner a bit out of
the way. As I enjoyed my drink, a woman approached and asked if she could join
me. She was young, trim and pretty. She explained she was attending from
Pittsburgh National and hated eating alone. We talked about Information
technology, of all things. As we neared the end of our meals it became obvious
she did not want to go back to her hotel room along. As we got up, she invited
me to join her. I turned her down. I had opportunities, but I never had and
never would cheat on my wife. There was one time I came close, but we’ll get to
that later.
I had been
propositioned before her during my stay at the Sheraton. The second night I was
there two prostitutes entered the elevator with me. They got turned down as
well.
The
conference ended on February 1. I came home on the 2nd, a Thursday.
That weekend
Lois and I went away while my parents took the kids.
We had a
celebration for Laurel's birthday on Sunday the 26th.
That Monday my wife went
back to working. She has been home quite a while after the children were born,
but money was getting tight and she decided to return to the ranks of the
employed.
She was able to get
a position in the Data Preparation Division of Wilmington Trust as an encoder.
She ran into a couple obstacles. First was a company policy rule, wives were
not supposed to work in the same area as their husbands. Walt went to bat for
us on this one and Personnel decided there was enough separation between my
position and hers and allowed the hire. However, the Supervisor of the Encoding
Unit was dubious whether Lois could do the job or not. Lois is left-handed and
all the encoders were made for right-handers. My wife got the job and proved to
be one of the best encoders they had.

The big draw
back for us was I worked the day shift and she worked the evening. We would
literally pass going between. But she got to be there for the kids all day and
I took over at night, so they never needed day care. It also tended to wear her
out going in and working so late. Her hours were from 6:00 PM to Finish. She
never knew what time she would get
home. Some days it was early, but some days she was there until dawn. Other then this shift difference, life got back to being fairly normal. In April Lois met my mom and grandmother at Granite Run Mall and had the children’s photographs taken.

On April 14 I
attended training called “Counselor Relations”. Sometime around this time of
that year I also attended The Writers Group Workshop. I think I had more
interest in that than the Counselor stuff.
And
then came April 1984 and the whole world was about to change.