Anger at How They Pick Your Pockets

Now where were we? Ah yes, the Little Woman had accidentally overdraw one of our bank accounts resulting in a $37 dollar fee of 131% on $28.

(To understand how this happened go to my previous post, "Anger from One Year to the Next".)

We do not keep much money in this particular account. There is a large deposit on the First of each month (more about that to come) and by the last week of the month little remains. It's a special purpose account. So there was only $8 remaining when my wife pulled out the wrong debit card to pay a $36 purchase (prescriptions),

I asked a question. Why did the bank allow this overdraft to happen?

Obviously when the card was swiped the computer noted there were insufficient funds and one would expect the transaction to be denied. Isn't that what you have always been told about a debit card? You had to have money in your account for it to be used?

One of the dirty little secrets, among many, is the banks encourage overdrafts. This is one of their most profitable services. This is not what they tell you, of course.

They will give you three reasons to justify this usury interest rate, the overdraft fee.

1.  They don't want you to be inconvenienced by rejecting a transaction over such a low sum. Thus, you are paying for not being embarrassed by public rejection. They are doing it for you!

2.  Overdrafts cost the bank a lot of money.

3.  They impose the fee to encourage customers to be more financially responsible.

They leave out the fourth and most important reason: it's easy and lucrative revenue for the bank. The other three reasons are basically bogus. Only Reason Number 2 has any iota to truth to it, but even that is distorted from reality and should not be considered a valid reason for these high fees.


What kinds of overdrafts do we have? We have accidental ones, such as my wife using the wrong bank card or someone thinks they have a higher balance than they have. It is difficult in these times to sometimes know your balance if you have a joint account. You take some cash from an ATM and mean time your joint partner is buying a new pair of shoes unaware of your withdrawal and voila, accidental overdraft.

We have the knowing overdraft for an emergency situation. This is where the person knows they don't have enough in the account to cover a transaction, but are willing to absorb a fee for a perceived necessity. "If I don't take twenty dollars out of the bank today, my children will have nothing to eat tonight." The person knows money will be in the account in a day or so to cover both what they took out and the greedy fee.

These are overdrafts made by basically honest persons who are good customers of the bank. The bank knows they will get that money back and their fee. If the bank thought otherwise, these people would NOT have been able to overdraw.

That's another of the dirty little secrets, you are coded.  As a new customer you may be coded 1 and this tells the system to allow up to a $50 overdraft. This will change over time as you build a reputation and profile with the bank. Each code will bring a higher allowance of overdraft, maybe as much as $200, maybe more if you are wealthy. (I know of cases of wealthy people having no limits and even when they overdrew their account by thousands of dollars paid no fees. You will find in most situations if you are rich enough to afford the fees, you never are charged any.) Naturally, if you become known as a risk or have a very minimal average balance, you may be coded down to a zero and no overdraft allowed.

So there goes Reason Number 3, because if they really wanted to encourage you to be financially responsible, they wouldn't allow you to overdraw at all. But then they wouldn't be able to charge you a fat fee and make money.

And let's forget Reason Number 1, that's just PR. They couldn't care less about you being embarrassed. It's a convenience all right; a convenient way for them to make more money.

What about Reason Number 2, overdrafts cost the bank? It may cost them interest on money borrowed overnight at the Fed Fund Rate of interest. The current Fed Fund Rate is .25%. That is the annualized rate. Banks generally borrow overnight, just as we basically borrowed $28 overnight. So the bank paid a use fee of .000007% (rounded up) for a total cost of $0.00019. We paid a use fee of $37 at a rate of 48,180% annualized. See how they turned a microscopic lost into a big fat profit?

"How about processing costs caused by an overdraft?" you ask.

First of all, there is no direct cost caused by the overdraft, except that minuscule interest rate.  The bigger extra cost was having an OverDraft Unit to prepare those notices mailed to the miscreants and the postage to send it. I don't know how big those units are these days. Most of the notice preparation and mailing is probably pretty much automated by now. The costs are a nanosecond of computer time, a bit of paper and postage; and the postage is probably the highest expense. Does this add up to anywhere near $37? I rather think not. Maybe a buck-thirty-seven.

However, there is a legitimate cost from overdrafts of a higher nature. This doesn't come because of those accidental overdrafts or the deliberate emergency of the moment ones. No, there is a third kind of overdraft, theft.

Yeah, there are people who overdraw an account with no intension of ever making it good. They not only aren't going to make a deposit to cover the overdraft, they aren't going to pay the fee either. Now some of these thieves know how to milk the system for all its worth. (They would probably make valuable advisers working for the bank actually. They think alike when it comes to maximizing undeserved profit.) They will make overdrafts here, there and everywhere in a short period of time before the previous overdrafts are noted and their withdrawing spree ended.  With the speed of today's systems, though, the banks have probably cut down on this.

But these thieves have nothing to do with our little miscues and small overdrafts. Those people are not going to be encouraged to be more financially responsible. And they can cost the bank a hunk of change, but you and I shouldn't be punished for this. Higher overdraft fees won't stop these crooks.

I am not against the banks charging a reasonable fee for an overdraft. We are using their funds in what could be called a small, temporary loan. When I initially began in banking (40 plus years ago) such fees were kind of reasonable. Our overdraft fee was $10. If you were over from one cent to $9.99 you were not charged. We did not charge anything if under the fee amount. From $10 to $19.99 you were charged half the fee, $5.00 and $20 or above you paid the full fee. Given the minimal cost to banks when the average depositor overdraws this would still seem a reasonably excessive profit for the bank.

However, I would be inclined to say they should be restricted to charging the same rate as their small personal loans on overdrafts. I see that rate  is somewhere around 15% currently. That would mean for my wife's little one day loan of $28, I would have paid a fee of one and one-tenth cent. Bank still made a profit, and if the overdraft remained another day, then another one and one-tenth cent. Okay, I can be reasonable. Let them charge a minimum fee, but no more than $12. $12 would be equivalent to a small personal loan of $1,000 for a month (31 days) at 15% annual interest. They still make a huge profit.

But banks shouldn't be living off the backs of honest people making small overdrafts, because every time they want to raise their bottom line, they raise the overdraft fee while they continue to encourage this behavior. As I stated earlier, if they truly wished to stop this behavior, they would allow no overdraft, which they do with some riskier people, so it is possible.

But that overdraft fee, despite how it sounds, was not the true source of my anger. My anger came from that combined with the same bank depositing my pension late. This is why I have an account there to begin with, my monthly pension payment is deposited there and then I have specific payments dedicated to that account monthly, which is why it shrinks almost to nothing by month end just before another infusion of my pension.

My pension check is due on the first of every month. Now usually if the first falls on a weekend, they deposit it on the Friday before. However, the first of January fell on both a Sunday and a holiday and the holiday extended through Monday and they didn't deposit my pension until Tuesday. I guess because I get a yearly pension they have to keep that amount isolated to each calendar year, but still, make it on the due date. If I am late paying something on the due date, I get charged a late fee, usually as outrageous as the overdraft fee. Not having my pension on the First caused me untold worry and aggregation and inconvenience. I am not a well-off guy, I depend on deposits being there when they should be. Not being there could cause me to make a late payment on something and incur more bloated fees.

There is no reason why it could not have been done automatically on a Sunday. They would have put a charge to my account on Sunday if I incurred one. They cancelled an automatic payment I had setup for the Second, even though that was a holiday, so why not make my deposit.

What I should do is bill the bank a $37 late fee. Fair is fair.

Anger From One Year to the Next

I am not a person easily angered. It usually takes a lot. Nor do I stay angry long. On those occasions in my life when I have reached a boiling point I usually let off steam by throwing something, generally what is in easy reach. I don't throw it at anyone. I just throw it. My anger goes away then like a cold when the fever breaks. I throw it, I feel better immediately and I fairly quickly cool down.

Then I feel bad because I probably broke something of mine I didn't want to break.

These instances occur, thankfully, very, very infrequently.

It's also something those knowing we well are happy about. They know my anger is rare, comes quickly and goes away just as quick. I am not someone whose anger will seethe and continue for hours or days. So this is probably the exception that proves the rule.

I became angered prior to New Year's Eve and it has not gone away. I am still angry. Perhaps it is because I didn't throw anything and it is too late for that now. And I am not angry at one thing, either, but several things.

The first thing that angered me was my wife overdrew our account at one bank. No, I wasn't angry at my wife. I was upset because I figured we'd get charged a fee and I was unhappy because we haven't had an overdraft on our accounts for at least a decade. But I wasn't angry at anyone or anything yet.

My wife went to have her prescriptions filled and she used the wrong card in paying. It had been an honest mistake. We have accounts at two banks. Unfortunately the debit cards of both are green and look similar. She thought she was using the bank card of the account we had money in. It wasn't and this resulted in a $28 overdraft.

I check my accounts online regularly. I was shocked to see an overdrawn account. I did not see any fee charged yet, however, and I went immediately to that bank and deposited $40 dollars. My receipt then showed us having a positive balance, not much, but positive nonetheless.

Thus the next morning I am doubly surprised when I check my account and see it overdrawn $25. Why am I doubly surprised? Not so much by the fact this was caused by the charging of an overdraft fee as the fact my pension check was not deposited as expected. This is when my anger began.

Definition of Usury: the illegal action or practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest.


It would seem that an interest rate of 132% for a one day "loan" is a high rate of interest. Of course there is that phrase in the definition: "the illegal action or practice". Certainly 132% is a high rate, but is it actually legal?


Definition of a Loan Shark: A person or entity that charges borrowers interest above an established legal rate. Depending on where a person lives, lenders typically cannot charge more than 60% interest per annum. A loan shark, then, would be someone who illegally charged interest over the state's legal limit, which could range up to, or even over, 100%.


So, 132% is more than 60%, but the definition says per annum. This 132% I was charged was daily, actually less than a full 24 hours before I deposited the $40. That is an annual rate of 48,180%, which would make any loan shark drool with envy.


Now I know it would not become 48,180%. If I didn't deposit to my account for two days or a week or a month, it would remain at 132% If I waited a year, although they would probably have closed my account by then, it would still be 131%, but still a lot more than 60% per annum!


Do I think this is fair and right? No, but I will explain why in my next post. I'll give you a partial reason, why did the bank allow her to overdraw? Why didn't they reject the purchase? I'll tell you next time.




Meanwhile, I leave you with this:

What’s the difference between Congressmen and manure?

With manure you can spread it across a field and it will yield worthwhile crops.

While congressmen are full of it, all they produce is crap.

(The photograph of Congress in session taken by the author, 2011.)

You Can Bank on Waiting

Once upon a time there was a strong and fiercely independent Family who dwelt in the land of the great Baron duPont in the village of Bankingshire. There were several proud families very like them striving there, but one by one they disappeared into the clutches of great and powerful Lords of Grab and Grasp from outside the realm. All these once noble names of Bankingshire disappeared, their legacies but memories. Except for this one family and somehow they resisted and fought and retained their name and history.

But like many a family empires preceding and surely many to come, discontentment with what they had seeped in and they began to overreach, growing careless and casual in their dealings. As a result, weakness was found within their house and soon they too fell to outsiders from a distant land.

And because of this I found myself having another change forced upon me late in life. My bank, The Bank, where I had served for many years, until they unceremoniously cast me overboard a decade ago, had fallen under a shadow that wouldn't pass. Instead it only grew darker, until they had no choice but to abandon ship. I now faced a transition of not only my financial services, but my pension as well. Do not think I did not worry.

Especially when between an earthquake and a hurricane, I lost my job. But what could I do about it except wait things out. (I'm sorry. I just looked at my photograph and two images came to mind and I don't want to mention either. Use your imagination.)

As fickle fate would have it, the Great Conversion fell on the dates Ms Irene choose to make an impression upon our little state. Just on the eve of when the new rulers of my money were about to rip off the bags over their new signs, Irene ripped down our electric wires and our cable services. Now just as I must call and activate my new access cards, because on that Friday my old had become deactivated, I had no phones. Now when I had to switch my on-line banking service, I had no internet and with no internet and no new on-line banking service, I could not see if my accounts safely made the transition and more importantly, would my pension deposit be deposited.

I've been through many conversions in my life. I have seen few (make that none) without a glitch, hiccup, speed bump or worse. It did not help that over the many months of anticipation as this conversion slowly, but inexorably moved toward completion, my peace of mind when The President said he could not guarantee Social Security Checks would be sent and my job seemed shaky. Amidst these my mind wondered would my pension get lost in translation?

Of course, the politicians made moot the Social Security question in their usual cowardly way. They simply kicked that can of worms down the street for some future gutless politicians to contend with. My shaky job soon collapsed over an abyss and fell from sight on the eve of both the great bank conversion and the hurricane. This left only the banking questions to be resolved.

After the winds blew by and the creeks rose and the power returned and the cable connected I opened a new on-line account at my new bank. Not too difficult to create, but not much to look at once I opened it. I have three accounts and all were supposed to make the trip. I see one, I see two, I see...I see...

I see one and I see two is what I see. Where is three? I look around the screen. I scroll up and down. I click on a few links, maybe it is hidden behind one of these. I do not find account number three. This is not a good thing. This is not a comfort. If they lost a whole account, one in which I OWE them money, what will they do with my pension where THEY owe me money?

I will have to wait a few more days to know the latter answer, but for now my concern is my missing number three. I see a link that says "Add an Account". Perhaps I have to add this one. After all, this one was a credit card and they not only converted banks, they switched credit card companies on me. Maybe that is why this one requires more from me here.

I click the "Add an Account" and begin filling out a form asking for account name and number and vital statistics, but I pause. At the end it has a fill-in blank labeled, "Pay this Amount". Hmmm! This isn't adding an account, this is adding a payee for Bill Pay. I don't want to pay any amount right now. In fact, if my pension deposit doesn't show up a few days hence, I won't be able to pay any amount to account number three, even if I do find it. If I don't see my pension deposit in a few days hence, maybe it'd be better if account number three stay lost. I cancel the form and return to my somewhat skimpy home page.

Then I notice near the bottom, "To add an account call 1-800-And-Wait." (That's not the real number. Don't call that number. There is no number 1-800-And-Wait. It is not a number, it is what you are going to do when you reach the real number.)

It lists the times of day you may call. I have to wait for the proper hour and when the clock strikes the time, I dial. A mechanical female voice answers with a greeting, a welcome, followed by, "All our circuits are tied up at the moment. Please call back later." Hoo ha!

High tide in the anxiety pool.

There's that word again, wait. I must wait until later and later I call again, around four in the afternoon.

Our cheery little mechanical greeter is there with another welcome and instructions: If you want this thing, press 1; if that thing, press 2; if another thing, press three and so on and so forth until, "If you haven't pressed anything because you are so overwhelmed by our 87 choices, then press 88 and we will start all over again. Just for your convenience. This time pay attention and press something."

I didn't know what to press, nothing quite fit my situation. There was no press zero for a real, live, possibly-even-breathing individual. So I did the next best thing, I picked a number at random and pressed. Our cheery greeter was back, but with a difference message. "We are experiencing a higher than usual call volume. Please stay on the line and our first available representative will be with you shortly." Meanwhile I get to enjoy the most sleep-inducing music I have ever heard on hold. I mean, I didn't want to be subjected to be-bop or hip-hop or rap or reggae or some kind of death metal play, but I wasn't ready for lullaby-time either.

Fortunately my dozing was interrupted at frequent intervals, about every other minute, by our digital hostess announcing the lines were still tied in knots, but "our first available representative will be with you shortly." Of course, "shortly" is a relative thing and it obviously was no relative of the bank's. After numerous "short-lies", a man answered.

He introduced himself. "Hi, my name is Peggy." And I introduced myself, "Hi, my name is confused." We were going to get along great. I begin to explain my missing number three account when I hear a click and nothing.

"Hello, is anyone out there?" followed by "did this guy HANG UP ON ME!" followed by my wife walking in the room announcing, "The cable is out."

Oh yes indeed, the cable was once again kerput. Along with my lost number three account was lost TV, lost internet and lost phones. I didn't lose everything. I still retained my sense of futility and frustration.

Our cable service didn't return until later that evening, too late now to call back. In the morning I decided to go to the nearest branch, track down my AWOL account face to face, Mano y Mano or Womano y Womano. Why does optimism ever ring in my heart? I drive to the bank, park my car and amble across the lot then do a U-turn back to car, to road, to home, to phone. Why did I not know the bank branch would be full. It just converted and I was probably not the only owner of a stray account or transaction about town.

I call the 800 number and our computer-generated Matron'd answers. Apparently they are firing on all circuits this morning, so she goes right into the laundry list of press-worthy buttons. They have still not added my particular problem to the menu and I still do not know an appropriate one to select. I choose to select a different one than I did the day before.

"We are experiencing a higher than usual call volume. Please stay on the line and our first available representative will be with you shortly."

I am back with the sleepy-time music and the constant notifications to stay tuned for the next available representative. And eventually the next available representative answers.

"Hi, my name is Peggy."

Wait a minute, this is the same available representative I got yesterday after pushing a different button. No wonder all their circuits are tied up, what do they have -- ONE! I mean, I was kidding about his name being Peggy, but now I'm not so sure, maybe this is Peggy. Or maybe I have entered the Twilight Zone or worse, this is Groundhog Day repeating itself over and over.

I don't want to disparage the man or imply he was anything like "Peggy". He was very nice and turned out to be quiet helpful, but in the beginning as confused about my missing account number three as I was. He also was having some computer glitches of his own. He asked me for some info on my on-line banking screen and I fumbled about seeking it, explaining that I was using a new computer and going through a learning curve.

"I'm going through a learning curve myself," he said. "I'm actually a former Wilmington Trust employee learning this new system."

He then asked if I minded going on hold while he asked his supervisor some questions. Ah, sweet dreamland.

After a couple snores my nap was cut short by the guy. "I'd like to ask you to do something," he says.

"Okay."

"Sign out of your on-line banking."

I did so.

"Now log back in again."

"Okay."

 "You should see your credit card account now."

Yes, I see it, I see it, it has come home. I thanked him for solving my problem and now all I needed to wait on was whether my pension check would show up in a couple of days.

A couple of days later I went back to my on-line banking account full of fear and trepidation. The accounts popped up, all three, and yes, my pension deposit was there. I was so happy, so relieved, that I even made a payment to the credit card.

How Did We Come to This? Chapter 5: Unsystematic System Shifting

The Old Goat was successful again in Sales Uplifting, but again he was moved (kicking and screaming) to another area. Each time The Old Goat had been moved it was not his idea or desire. Each time The Old Goat was moved it was into the current “hot” spot, the newest number one priority, and yet each time The Old Goat was moved it was not upward, but sideways.  His grade level stayed as it had been when The Old Goat was in All Things Deposited, yet people who had not established reputations of innovation and success were moving effortlessly upward.  Dudley Doright had become a Section Manager in but a few years and Flip Wineberry, who had a reputation among those he worked alongside of knowing nothing and bragging about it, had progressed by age 33 to a Division Manager position.  It was also very clear that Flip was more than just the new manager of All Things Deposited, replacing Ross.  He was the top guy at the OpsCenter. It was obvious that Willy Doitagain, the new Vice-president over Spittin’ Out Data had to acquiesce to Flip’s whims and wishes. Yet while Willy was there every day putting in many extra hours overseeing his domain, Flip was most often not there. Flip was off golfing or having meetings and whatever kept him from the helm. And all along persons over a certain age were disappearing from the OpsCenter to be replaced by young and inexperienced people, who also seemed to move up the ladder at amazing speed, skipping rungs of knowledge, even as the quality of the work deteriorated.

And The Old Goat, who had successfully built the Silly Pilly System to accompany the Silly Pilly Program, was sent yon and beyond to Numbing Numbers and another Old Female Goat with no experienced was brought in to take over his Silly Pilly System and step upon her own greased skid.

Once more The Old Goat tossed and turned at night, certain this was the move to make him fail. The Old Goat dreaded going into the Numbing Numbers area.  He only hoped that they had called him in recognition of what he had done with costs at All Things Deposited, since building a cost system was the new number one priority of the bank. 

Now in one of those incredibly questionable moves, We Are Independent Trust had hired an outfit called PENCIL-NECKED GEEKS, INC. (out of Pennsylvania), to study WAIT’s costing needs and recommend a cost system. They paid PENCIL-NECKED GEEKS, INC. $100,000 for their recommendation.  It is a smart move to get an outside opinion before investing several million dollars on an unknown quantity, is it not? Oh right, sure!  Except PENCIL-NECKED GEEKS, INC. representatives were former We Are Independent Trust managers who had been close to Cuddy Bear.  But The Old Goat was certain they were fair and impartial (oh yeah).  Except PENCIL-NECKED GEEKS, INC. also happened to sell a cost and profitability system of their own, so one of the vendors they were studying for their recommendation was themselves.  But The Old Goat was sure they could be fair and impartial (oh yeah). And surprise, surprise, their recommendation was PENCIL-NECKED GEEKS, INC.  But The Old Goat was sure it was a fair and impartial recommendation (oh yeah).

At the very same time, Icabod Longfellow, in Makingit Sell Research was pushing for the purchase of another multi-million dollar venture called WhoGotRockX, a Makingit Sell Central We-Know-Everything-About-You-And-What-You-Had-For-Breakfast-And-What-You-Paid-For-It System. A database to tell who had what and who was worth having as a client.  Only one little hitch, the PENCIL-NECKED GEEKS, INC. Cough-And-Produce-By-The-Notch-We-Put-On-The-Wall System was number one priority at WISH and all the IMP resources had been allocated to PENCIL-NECKED GEEKS, INC. There were only crumbs left over to support the installation of WhoGotRockX.  But Icabod stubbornly pushed it anyway and he got it approved and purchased.  This would return to haunt him; haunt us all in fact. Who got rocks? WISH got rocks in the head for ever getting mixed up with either of these systems.

The Old Goat was assigned to a team to study the costs of the OpsCenter, which was fine with him. He was to spend most of the next year where he use to work, away from headquarters and the Numbing Numbers division.  The Old Goat became the group leader of six analysts. He set the schedules and did the training. He didn’t like some things about the PENCIL-NECKED GEEKS, INC. system and The Old Goat hacked through the backdoor into their database (it was Access and so he got access because he understood Access) and was able to steal the collected data for a database of his own design, which produced much better reports than thePENCIL-NECKED GEEKS, INC.'s  high cost system.  The Old Goat also fixed some errors he found in their design.  He did tell them what he had done and they did incorporate some of his changes into upgrades of their system, but notice that got The Old Goat no credit or royalty.

The Old Goat also argued them into letting him study all shifts of Spittin’ Out Data during the same time frame. That division worked around the clock, three shifts. Their plan called for doing day shift one month, twilight shift the next month and night shift the third month.  Now The Old Goat was already in disagreement with their methods, because they had decided to devote three weeks of study to each area, rather than a full month. The Old Goat argued a full monthly cycle should be done, because there were often big differences between the weeks within a month. This was a normal sane, standard and sure approach to such a study, not just his idea. However, Cuddy Bear had insisted the system be completely in place within one year, so they had cut the study time to make the target date. Well, The Old Goat couldn’t see breaking Spittin’ Out Data’s shifts up over three months. The work flowed through the shifts and The Old Goat wanted the flow to match, especially the volumes.  It meant visiting every shift every day for a month, but The Old Goat scoped it out and got it done and saved them two months and probably a lot of bad base figures.

With OpsCenter completed,  The Old Goat was reluctantly assigned a desk in Numbing Numbers and made Senior Profitability Analyst. He had told his boss, Cap Kneebone, he could give him any other areas to study except Trust.  The Old Goat really didn’t know Trust. The Old Goat was given Capitalist Lending, which meant The Old Goat would have to work with a man named Vetter Willit, who was high up in Capitalist Lending and over all the lenders.  Then all of a sudden, things changed and The Old Goat was given Trust, not just Trust, but also Trust Operations and Info Machine Processing, the tough assignments.

But  Numbing Numbers also had responsibility for the budgets, so we constantly got interrupted in trying to pull the profitability system together because we had to do budgets, and we were always in a bind from lack of leadership. Then it became apparent that there was a generation gap. They reorganized the units and a little clique of twenty-somethings, who hung out with the manager, like flies around manure, got promoted to supervisors and we old guys were just a bunch of aging worker bees locked in the cells of the hive.  While we were the ones they could depend on to do the job, we were just chucked aside socially, so to speak.

But The Old Goat can’t just not do a good job, it goes against his nature. He began automating some of the routine procedures and he wrote up the manual.  He built a database to handle the organization chart and the income review, which was still in years after he left.

Meanwhile, as if time was not slim enough for getting the costing and the budgeting done, WISH announced The Cooperative Workshop, something like the collective communistic theories of Mao I think, but the latest obsession of Cuddy Bear.  It was a big deal, our subsequent annual reviews would depend on our involvement. The Old Goat joined a team outside Numbing Numbers.  Everyone was supposed to join teams outside their areas.  It was supposed to empower us, but basically it had everyone doing two jobs and being paid for one.  The Old Goat joined a team that was to come up with a Makingit Sell model to gain recognition for WAIT in the high-income market. This team had been in existence for six months and had gotten nowhere, even though most members were Makingit Sell people, who should have been elsewhere anywhere.  The Old Goat went home after the first meeting he attended, sat down and drew up a model, which he presented at the next meeting. It was tweaked a bit, but it was the one presented to Senior Management and approved for implementation. Did The Old Goat 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, wrote the presentation and created the PowerPoint slides. 

The Old Goat just went back to his Numbing Numbers cubicle and crunched his numbing numbers.  Then one day he saw his old job, Administrator of the Silly Pilly System in Makingit Sell Research was posted. The woman who had replaced him was retiring to move out west with her husband. The Old Goat ignored it, until he was coming out of the cafeteria and met a woman who worked in Brokerage. She had shared the dBase system with Sales Uplifting and they had often interfaced. She asked him if he was going to post for his old job.  The Old Goat said he had not considered it. Then she said, “You know Ernest Healthstriver would love to have you back.”

        And with those remarks his fate was sealed and The Old Goat began his final quest through the forest of evil.

How Did We Come to This? Chapter 4: A Brief Time in Paradise

When The Old Goat reported to Sales Uplifting that made five in the Division.  Yes, this dinky little group was actually considered a Division.  All Things Deposited was a division and at its height it had 275 employees and occupied ninety percent of a building, but as is often said, size doesn’t matter.  Ernest Healthstriver was the Vice-President who replaced Flip Wineberry in this position (although Flip had not been a Vice-president when he was over Sales Uplifting).  Dynamic Jones was an Assistant Vice-president and her background was Personnel (Oh gee The Old Goat am so sorry The Old Goat mean Human Resources!  God forbid we call it what it is or by a name containing the word “Person”. Isn’t it funny how the term “Human Resources” actually dehumanizes the employee – just another resource, like copy machines and envelops.) Dynamic was charged with designing the modules of the Silly Pilly program and overseeing employee training.

Tilda Childspeak was administrator of an application called Giveme-Giveme.  The vendor promoted this tool as a way to ease the sales person’s burden of paperwork. It purported to make the tracking of clients’ needs, appointments, sales and etc. simple allowing the user to concentrate on selling. When you could get them to use it.  Perhaps it was too complicated to grasp or maybe there were other reasons. Some of these people resented the idea of using any new fangled gadget while others were just too lazy to learn.

Tilda came to the bank years before The Old Goat did, although she looked about twenty years old with the speaking voice of a child of ten. She was a very nice woman, who The Old Goat had first met Tilda in the early years when she was the techie who set up his PC.

The other person in the unit was Taffy, the only Indian in this tribe of Chiefs. She worked part time, did all the data entry and acted as receptionist.

As much as The Old Goat dreaded this new job, it turned out to be great (at least while it lasted).  Ernest was as easy to work with as Ross and in such a small group, The Old Goat got to work very closely with him. They both liked to try new things, to blue sky it and to get all enthused about wild ideas. In fact, everyone was this way, except perhaps Taffy who had to bring some earth-bound reality to this den of wildcats. Ernest also gave members of the group autonomy over their area; again, with the exception of Taffy who had to please us all.

As stated previously, The Old Goat’s office was very nice. He was on the Street floor of headquarters, just behind the lobby branch in an office originally designed for use by a banking officer dealing with the customer, so the office was designed to impress the public at a time when bank’s believed opulence assured people the institution was sound.

Even better, this little division was reported directly to Hobart Wazza Goodguy, the new President of WAIT. Sales Uplifting was like a royal family and could get whatever was felt necessary. When The Old Goat came, there was no PC for him yet. The Old Goat was able to write in his own ticket and he ordered and got the top of the line PC of the day, meaning by that the top in speed and memory and storage capacity, not the brand. All the bank’s PCs were Compaq. Of course in those days, Compaq was probably the top of the line brand as well. Anyway, The Old Goat had his dream-machine.

The Old Goat was a great user of blue three-ring binders as a means of organizing information for quick reference. He requested a bookcase to hold these. In all his past experience with asking for something such as a bookcase, Purchasing would rummage about in some dark and hidden storeroom for one. The Old Goat would get whatever discard they found, usually something with a lot of scratches and dings. This time an emissary from Purchasing came and handed him a thick packet. The Old Goat opened it up and inside were wood samples. What kind of wood did Mr. Goat prefer for his bookcase, what color, what style, what this and what that? Mr. Goat never was able to get use to this kind of personal attention. Mr. Goat just wanted something to hold his binders.  “Oh, and would Mr. Goat like better binders, perhaps leather bound with monogram?”

Lets digress and discuss PCs.

In the early 1980s The Old Goat was trying to persuade Ross Rollins to get some PCs. The Old Goat felt they were the future, but Craig List, the Senior Manager of Info Machine Processing, was a mainframe man. List didn’t think the PC would ever have a place in the business world. He viewed it as some kind of toy, a curiosity, more fad that practical. Still, he did set up an experimental area called Fiddle-Faddle and bought four Apples.  (Apple was really the only thing out there then.) Perhaps he felt doing this would soon show the uselessness of the blasted doodads and get idiots like The Old Goat to shut up about them.

Anyone in WAIT could use these, (around 1,900 employees in those days), but this were strictly time-share. You had to sign up to use them and were limited to small snatches of time. They had VisiCalc and WordPerfect on them, which one also had to teach one’s self using tutorials. The Old Goat was there as much as The Old Goat could get time, but it was so limiting, and everything you did had to be saved to 5 ¼ floppy disks, which really didn’t hold much.

The person put in charge of Fiddle-Faddle was Greta Regreta. She was very rigid and was certain that Apple would always be the only small computer for business. She saw Fiddle-Faddle growing to as many as a dozen such devices, but these computers never expanding beyond a timeshare arrangement. 

The Old Goat said to Ross if these computers ever caught on they would see if Apple could keep the market when the big boys like IBM jumped in. The Old Goat also still pushed to have desktop computers put to use in Ross’s division.

IBM did jump in and immediately sprained its ankle.  For some reason IBM couldn’t get a good handle on marketplace, but the box, the PC did get into the hands of others, such as Compaq. After about two years the Apples were gone and Compaqs were in at WAIT.  About six months after that Greta was gone. In a couple years Fiddle-Faddle was gone. Within a half-decade the PC dominated everywhere at WAIT.

By the time the Apples went made into sauce, The Old Goat had a Compaq PC on his desk, one of the first, if not the first employee to have such. In all those years to come, The Old Goat always had the biggest and baddest machine in WAIT, although the powers-that-be always dragged their feet on technology and always went for the least capable boxes. They never understood the potential of these machines, never grasped they would expand in capability and that every year or so the company would have to upgrade. In would have been cheaper to buy the bigger power and storage and memory capacities available, but they never thought that added space or speed would be used.

Of course, The Old Goat had an even bigger box at home.

His first home computer was an Atari. Yes, an Atari 401. It couldn’t do a lot, such as print. He had to save his work to tape cassettes, which were slow to use. There was no monitor; it hooked up to the TV. You could play Atari games on it naturally, but you could also write programs in Basic. You could get some little bookkeeping applications, too. The Old Goat taught himself Basic and wrote a couple very rudimentary games.  Then The Old Goat went out and got an Apple II.

This didn’t have a lot either, but a lot more than the Atari. It had a monitor and two disk drives using the 3-½ floppies for storage. No hard drive for storage on home computers yet. It also had an impact printer.  It came with AppleWorks software, which had a combination of word processing, spreadsheet and database. Most important of all, the thing worked well and was easy to learn. The used manual was clear and used humor. The Old Goat loved his Apple.

But the business world didn’t. The wisest and brightest minds of big business kept looking at Apple as if it were covered with brown spots. How could some gizmo put together by three geeks in a garage be trusted? When the PC appeared, they took it as the “real deal” and ended up married to the bride of Microsoft.

The Old Goat, too, eventually moved to PCs and had a series of Compaqs, but he always carried a flame in his heart for Apple. It was easy to use, and always seemed ahead of the PC world in technology and reliability, but remained rare in business and incompatible with what The Old Goat had at work, so The Old Goat ended up switching loyalties so he could do his job both at home and in the office.

Back to our story:

Sales Uplifting staff worked closely together on the Silly Pilly program. The Old Goat was sent to Access classes, although these lessons only skimmed the surface. The Old Goat really learned Access by buying the program and installing it at home.  The Old Goat then sat down and went straight through the manual.  Well, long-story-short, The Old Goat did build the Silly Pilly database, did get the data out of the old “DRAGON” dBase system, and did save Ernest Healthstriver’s rear end. More importantly, The Old Goat had a job he liked and people he enjoyed working with. Dynamic and The Old Goat became good friends and still are.

And then the world shook again and things changed; another reorganization at the top of the house. Makingit Sell was removed from the Administration Department and made its own, and named to be the first Senior Manager Makingit Sell Department Head was one Lydia Metermaid, the first female Senior Manager of We Are Independent Trust. And Sales Uplifting was removed from Hobart Wazza Goodguy and given to Lydia Metermaid.  A Makingit Sell Section called Makingit Sell Research was also now to report to Ernest Healthstriver. Ichabod Longfellow managed this section. Now Ichabod and his assistant, Horst Headless, joined the little Uplifting group at staff meetings

The Old Goat had known Ichabod for some time. The Old Goat first got to know him when The Old Goat was Project Manager over the development and institution of Do-It-Yourself-or-Else Banking. (It was his managing of that project that led to him being named Chairman of the New Products Committee by Hobart Wazza Goodguy.  Ichabod Longfellow was also a member of that committee.) Ichabod and The Old Goat developed a close acquaintanceship over the years.  They sometimes went to lunch together and discussed ethics in business.

There was irony in this new reorganization, which will be seen later.  Still, even though some things changed. (We couldn’t get things we wanted so easily anymore), The Old Goat still liked his job and working with Ichabod and Dynamic.  His Silly Pilly System was well designed, easy to use and though The Old Goat only had six months left of the eighteen months before he would be exiled to Numbing Numbers, The Old Goat was hoping Ernest could pull strings and keep him safe in his present lair.

Then on another dull and drear January day, one year after The Old Goat had left All Things Deposited, Yard Perimeter showed up at the lair door and snatched him away to Numbing Numbers, stolen away six months early.

The new hot button at We Are Independent Trust was cost and profitability.  The Old Goat had been pushing for knowing costs for fifteen years, had built an Activity Based Cost System on my own initiation that had been a success in All Things Deposited.  But as they say, no good turn goes unpunished.

How Did We Come to This? Chapter 3: Greased Skids and Death

3

Greased Skids and Death

Administration of The All Things Deposited Division had been a close group of people. At the time Ross Rollins was nearing retirement, The Kid was still the junior member after 14 years.  Ross Rollins was vice president and division manager. He had five section managers reporting to him, Smokey Stover, Amy Tubman, Freda Fireplace, Teah Plucker and Dina Gass, who managed Wire Send and Bend. In the last couple years though, the Wire Send and Bend group had been suddenly moved out of All Things Deposited to Numbing Numbers Division.

It was starting.

Next came the splitting of the division into two smaller divisions and the pushing aside of Teah.  Not long after this, Freda Fireplace died. (She was only in her late fifties at the time, but was a heavy smoker and died of lung cancer.).  She was replaced by another long-term Unit Manager and chain smoking partner, Daisy Amuzapark.

Then Amy Tubman decided she needed to be free, free at last and retired. A thirty-something named Dudley Doeswhat replaced her. The others in administration were The Old Goat and Viney Thorn. Viney was something called Yak-yakings Coordinator and also The Old Goat’s assistant. The Old Goat had had another assistant named Madonna Honda for several years, who was a contracted agent, not an employee, but Madonna had left to pursue her second job as a Cleric.

You know what they say about whom you know.

It must have been something of the who-you-know magic, because The Old Goat was always mystified about guys like Dudley Doeswhat and now such people jumped over everyone else with such ease. The Old Goat didn’t dislike Dudley. Dudley at least was a worker, but The Old Goat never understood why he was chosen for better things rather than himself.  Dudley had graduated from university with a degree in Food Services. I mean, Food Services? He worked in the cafeteria at We Are Independent Trust, but then somehow landed a job working as a proof operator in the Spittin’ Out Data Division.  Next thing you knew, he’s moving here and there, much like Flip, magically moving steadily up, while The Old Goat was being kept where The Old Goat was. And now Dudley suddenly comes back to All Things Deposited as a Section Manager, two levels higher than The Old Goat. 

The Old Goat came to We Are Independent Trust as The Kid, age of thirty-nine. Fifteen years later at 54, was The Old Goat considered too old for glory?

Meanwhile, Penn Letterer finally does retire fully and reorganization occurs at the top. Cuddy Bear is named the new Chairman, and he will oversee the financial future of WAIT right into the ground a decade hence and be the voice out in the world. Hobart Wazza Goodguy is named President and will be in charge of internal operations.  Gil Ferret becomes Senior Manager of We Got Your Back and Wallet Division and another old buddy of Cuddy Bear’s, Gabe Guitar, is named Senior Manager over Numbing Numbers.

And finally Ross retires. It is expected that Smokey Stover will be named the new Vice-President of All Things Deposited by Jim Herring, the new Senior Manager of Info Machine Processing, the Department All Things Deposited Division was then in. Ross had been grooming Smoky as his successor for twenty years. Then came rumors that Jim Herring isn’t going to be the one to make that decision. It will be made higher up, which means by Cuddy Bear really. Cuddy’s selection for the new head of All Things Deposited is Flip Wineberry, who has just turned 33 years of age.

Not long after this Jim Herring also chooses to retire and Gil Ferret is also given responsibility for Info Machine Processing.

This seals Smokey Stover’s fate.  Everyone knows he will go no higher.

Now Smoky had “come out of the closet” in the past year and he and his wife went separate ways as he moved in with his lover. Did that have anything to do with his not getting the position he had long dreamed of? That is an unanswered question. It did answer some questions about Smoky and his wife. They had married out of high school and they had two children twenty years apart. Smoky always attended various bank social functions alone, never bringing his wife. The Old Goat met his wife eventually and she had a problem that led one believe it could have been a marriage of convenience.

 (Smoky himself died a few years later of cancer. He had been Freda Fireplace’s longtime puffing partner. He was about 55 when he died.)

As Smoky faded in his career, Dudley’s power was growing. He was actually starting to get assignments that normally would have gone to The Old Goat. Flip just didn’t seem to know what to do with The Old Goat it seemed.  Meanwhile, older Unit Managers in All Things Deposited began to disappear into early retirement. Their backups weren’t necessarily replacing them either for most were replaced by outsiders. In some cases their units disappeared with them. Some like Mulie Ragingbull, left in a cloud of bitterness, which included the disappearance of all her computer files.

The clear replacement for Mulie was a woman named Mello Yellow. Mello knew everything about the unit, was great at handling people and as nice a person you could meet. But Flip hired a young woman out of Numbing Numbers named Rapunzel. Rapunzel knew nothing about the Unit she now headed, absolutely nothing. She was the manager, but in reality Mello was running everything. Mello just didn’t get the salary or title. It was a mystery why Rapunzel was there. She was an accountant with a CPA for gosh sake. Why would she want a job managing this little paper shuffling Unit? Rapunzel did eventually leave the bank.

Next Viney Thorn had her 55 birthday and suddenly decided on early retirement, and she was gone and not replaced.

Then in January, Flip calls The Old Goat to his office and introduces him to Ernest Healthstriver, another young man on the fast track at the bank at that time.  Healthstriver had replaced Flip as head of Sales Uplifting and Ernest was in trouble. The Silly Pilly Program was being rolled out and it was the big buzz word at the bank, the number one priority, and Ernest was having his butt chewed off because he had no way of providing the data needed or of getting needed information out of the old referral system that was to be joined with the Silly Pilly Program. Flip had met with Cuddy Bear and Hobart Wazza Goodguy and they all said The Old Goat was the perfect fit to save Ernest from corporate death.

How was The Old Goat a perfect fit? The Old Goat knew nothing about Sales Uplifting issues or about the Silly Pilly Program. The Old Goat wasn’t a systems guy. The Old Goat had created a cost system in Excel, something of a feat actually, but they needed someone to create an Access Database and tap into a dBase System. The Old Goat had never heard of either.  But there was some comments that Flip made that told the The Old Goat he better take this job or The Old Goat might be leaving right behind Viney Thorn.

There was another little catch.  The Old Goat was only going to work for Ernest Healthstriver short-term, about 18 months, and then The Old Goat was going to be transferred to Numbing Numbers. Flip had worked out that deal with Yard Perimeter, the new Division Manager of Numbing Numbers.  (And The Old Goat had never wanted to end up in the Numbing Numbers area after The Old Goat began working for Ross.)

But off The Old Goat went.  Packed his desk contents and moved them to a new desk in a new office in the headquarters downtown. A much nicer office, actually, wood trimmed with windows overlooking the street and another big window overlooking the lobby. Still, The Old Goat lay in bed at night convinced they were “greasing the skids”, that The Old Goat was being set-up to fail and to be forced out the door.

But The Old Goat fooled them all.

How Did We Come to This? Chapter 2: Twenty Years in a Flash as The Kid Becomes The Old Goat

We Are Independent Trust took off under the guidance of Benny Terrific. Business expanded and stock climbed, yet down in the dark, cool heart of the windowless recesses of Info Machine Processing (IMP) it stubbornly clunked along on outdated systems and over-the-hill sorters. But the Climbers and their Sherpas at the higher peaks of WAIT Mountain were proud of their antique equipment, arrogant in fact. They bragged about how they climbed this multibillion-dollar baby on four-point crampons and frayed manila rope (NOTE: That is just climbing equipment from way back when. I just wanted a different kind of trope here than my original “Modal T Ford” as my metaphor. Just trying not to be too cliché here, but then maybe it doesn’t work when you spend more time explaining it than it was to write it because you think most people probably won’t know what crampons and manila rope is. Anyway, I digress.))

The Kid didn’t share IMP’s smugness. The Info Machine Processing Department might be married to its 16-bit world; he was not. The Kid had stepped into a hand-on labor intense world and was set on modernization.

He didn’t know if he knew what he was doing, but he did it anyway.

For his first project he automated the lockbox operation after a lot of working the numbers to sell Senior Management on the value of remittance machines and envelope extractors.

Now for the uninitiated, we will define lockbox. What The Kid knew at the time as a lockbox might be what a lot of people picture, a big contraption that looks much like a giant padlock that Realtors hang on sale property doorknobs. These contraptions open by a key the Realtor has and hold inside keys to the property.

Lockbox in the bank was something else altogether. Let’s say you receive your electric bill with a return envelope. You write a check and mail it in that envelope. The address on the return is a post office box number. You may think you are sending this payment to the utility company, but actually you are sending it to their bank. It goes to a box at the post office and someone from the bank, with a key to that box (see lockbox again) picks it up and all the other returned envelops in the box. [Remember now, we are talking 30 years ago. There was no online banking and very little pay-by-phone. There wasn’t an Internet, no Email. Bills were received in the mail and paid through the mail with paper checks.]

All those bits of paper had to be handled and in the case of WAIT, these handlers were people, many, many people, who sat at desks all night long tearing open envelopes and reconciling checks to accounts.

Now before we cast The Kid in the villainous role of putting people out of work there are two things. In those bygone days of yesterday WAIT was a benevolent dictator with a no fire policy. Yes, you heard me correctly; they did not fire the people when the machines were plugged in. Places were found for them. Secondly, because of the machines WAIT could market their lockbox operation to more clients than ever and in a few years as many people were sitting at machines as once had been sitting at desks, They were just able to open more envelopes and process more checks in the time they sat there.

Over the next few years, The Kid converted check statement storage from account basis to bulk filing over a weekend even though everyone in the industry said it couldn’t be done. He got rid of keypunch and moved up to key-to-disk and then moved further directly to mainframe. But The Kid was looking beyond mainframe.

He was pushing for PC usage. It was a tough fight, for the Masters of IMP were dedicated to the mainframe. PCs might be nice for home users and their little Pac-Man games, but would never be practical for business use. The Mainframe would always rule.

The Kid was also campaigning for image storage, for check safekeeping, for many other projects that others always seemed to find reasons why they wouldn’t work. There are stories to tell of those efforts, but not here, not now. Someday we may.  In any case, Ross Rollins’ Division had gained a reputation for being the innovator and the rule breaker, and The Kid was known far and wide (well far and wide within WAIT anyway).

Meanwhile the Eighties were drawing to a close and Benny Terrific had grown rich and suddenly a trumpet sounded, a scroll was unrolled, and it was declared throughout the kingdom that Benny Terrific was going to retire.

Benny passed the reigns over to Penn Letterer.  Letterer was a long term We Are Independent Truster, an old time lender and Senior Manager of the Business’ Best Friend (as long as they can pay) Department. He took over the crown and WAIT dripped back into a period of steady-as-it-goes.

One thing that went when Letterer assumed the top loft was that Assistant-to-the-Chairman position (originally Assistant-to-the-President position).  Perhaps Letterer just didn’t feel he needed an assistant; perhaps he saw it as an indulgence and added expense. Difficult to say why he axed the position, but it meant Flip Wineberry had no more cozy office next door to the throne.

But don’t concern yourself with the fate of Flip Wineberry; he has a major role at the end of this story. He didn’t go away, he simply slithered from Department to Department as the years slipped by.

Lydia Metermaid remained relatively quiet during the Letterer years.

Meanwhile, The Old Goat was doing fine. He had become well known throughout WAIT as kind of the shadow behind Rollins, which suited him just fine. More important to him was being both liked and respected by people.

The Kid was chosen as one of the bank representatives to ACES (American Commercial Enterprise System). This was a training program for schoolteachers, who earned continuing education credits for taking a semester of ACES. Each week they would visit a different corporation. It might be Delmarva Power & Light (which became Conectiv which became DelMarVa) or Rollins Cablevision (which became so many different cable companies I’ve lost track until it is now Comcast) and so forth.

The teachers liked visiting We Are Independent Trust better than anybody in the whole universe. I’ll get to why in a moment. WAIT’s ACES presentation was a series of short talks given by four or five people describing different areas of the bank, usually one from BBF (Business’ Best Fiend – oops Friend, All Branches and Vaults, Trust Us We’re Trust, Human Resources and IMP.  The Old Goat was the representative from IMP (Why this was so is yet another tale for another time.).  Each would talk for about fifteen minutes, describe what their area did, what kind of attributes were looked for in staff and then answer questions.

Afterward, all went to dinner, which is why the teachers loved WAIT.

In those days on the top floor of the headquarters was an upscale exclusive restaurant. Its exclusiveness was determined, of course, by money. If you could afford to pay a couple thousand dollars a year to buy a membership, you got the privilege of dining there, paying for overpriced expensive meals, and gaining exclusivity from those who were smart enough not to pay two thousand dollars a year just to eat at a stuffy diner.  Since it was in the bank’s building and also served for that right to be there by servicing the Officer’s Dining Room. Officers of the bank could invite business guests to a meal at the Restaurant, all on the bank. The ACES Representatives, officers all, took the teachers.  They were treated to a charming private room, attentive service and delicious food. Why wouldn’t they love WAIT the most.

The early Nineties continued to be bright times for The Kid. But beneath this seemingly solid footing ran a fault line about to be shaken.

By the mid-Nineties, Penn Letterer was thinking of retiring. He decided to remain Chairman and give up being President.  But instead of doing the sensible thing and naming a new President in his place, he created a co-presidency and named two men to fill this two-headed monster: Cuddy Bear and Hobart Wazza Goodguy. A revolution was thus fused.

Flip Wineberry continually moved here and there during these changes, somehow always plopping into a leather chair in a high-minded sounding position, never really doing anything earthshaking, just floating about under the radar. In the near mid-Nineties he found himself in the Sales Uplifting Division, manager over a black woman named Dynamic Jones, who was creating a new staff development program for WAIT, and over a white woman named Tilda Childspeak, who administered a sales tool database called Twinning.

The head of Operations for the Bank, Craig List, Master of the Mainframe now running a fiefdom of desktop PCs, retired even though he was only in his fifties. Although he had not been very visionary about the role of PCs, he was astute enough to see a future coming he wished to escape. He took his marbles, and by now he had many, many marbles and left to enjoy life. He was The Kid’s boss’s boss (that being Ross Rollins).  List’s protégé, Jim Herring became Senior Manager of IMP.

Something happened that should have reminded The Kid of something important to his own future.

Herring split All Things Deposited Division in two.

Ross Rollins remained the Head of All Things Deposited, but lost half his former venue of rule, a section now made its own division called Spittin’ Out Data. The Kid continued as Operations, Methods and Project Manager for both divisions. (He was now also the budget coordinator for both.)

The Spittin’ Out Data area had been under a woman named Teah Plunker since the year The Kid came to WAIT. She was a most wonderful gal who had started at We Are Independent Trust the year The KID turned four years old.  The Kid was playing sandbox at Kindergarten and Teah was already spittin’ out data. Yeah, she spend her whole adult life in that same department, although when she started it was more sort bins, comptrollers and spreadsheets than the electronic and mechanical marvel of the Nineties. By the time The Kid came to The Bank 35 years after her, she was running that area.  But fifteen years later, just after publically trumpeting her 50 years of service, a bonanza of positive imagery for WAIT, Teah was brutally shoved into a corner and given busywork for the remaining decade of her life.

An applications manager from IMP, Romeo Casanova, replaced her as Spittin’ Out Data Manager.  The Kid had worked with Romeo on projects, served with him on the Security Committee and liked the man, but Romeo was in over his head and did not last long heading Spittin’ Out Data. While Romeo’s mind seem unable to twist itself around the business subtly of his division, he had no problem wrapping himself around the available ladies. Within weeks he began an affair with one of the women working for him, which eventually resulted in his own divorce. He did marry this woman and presumably they have lived happily ever after, but neither of them did so in Spittin’ Out Data. She was transferred to some other far corner of the company.

While Romeo was being successful in romance he managed to butcher the golden goose, botching up the profits from Lockbox by over-hiring and under-controlling costs. He went back to IMP and was replaced by Willy Doitagain.

And then The Kid looked in the mirror one morning and saw all these gray hairs. He had turned somehow into The Old Goat. It was then he remembered that important thing about Ross Rollins and himself. Ross Rollins was eleven years his senior.  That was the fault line in his working life.

Ross Rollins announced he was going to retire.

Everything was about to change.

How Did We Come to This? Chapter 1: Casting the Characters

Once upon a time I promised I would tell what happened to The Old Goat at We Are Independent Trust, so having read since of others’ travails it is time to tell this tale.  I have to go back to the beginning, because it has the making of a movie or soap opera in how the characters came together in that same place that last September.  I will write this in installments.  If that was good enough for Stephen King's "Green Mile", it's good enough for me.

Back yon, when The Kid was on the cusp of forty and his transformation into The Old Goat, there was a staid institution called We Are Independent Trust Company, which for brevity sake we will often refer to as WAIT. It had been founded in ye olden days to accommodate the exploding fortunes of the kerBoom Family so dominate in that region in that time.

By The Kid and The Old Goat’s era, three-quarters century later, WAIT had made the Top Twenty on the Cashbox Hot One Hundred List, which gave it some gravitas in certain circles, but as a commercial bank it was simply stuck on stodgy. WAIT was but a quiet country conservative clod plodding along. It was as steady and exciting as a rock stuck in mud and so was its stock, which neither went up or down. WAIT was about as dynamic as a frog crocking on a lily pad. Well, perhaps it wasn’t quite that energetic. Income was dependable, but modest, totally an automatic function of the spread between rates. The Fed said, “Listen up toadies, today’s prime rate is what we now say”. WAIT’s Loan Officers would nod their heads, add a few basis points to that and put their feet back up on the desk and wait. WAIT in those days was not just a name; it was a business stratagem.

Then a-sudden there was the need for a new Bank President, as the old chief lifted a putter with a firm grip, declared this was his future and retired. The Board blinded by the sunlight reflecting from the golf club and dazed by the whole idea of change hired a dynamic gentleman named Benny Terrific from a financial establishment in Philadelphia. Thus a new morning dawned and from its first rays on We Are Independent Trust became a player in the financial whirlwinds of the eighties and nineties.

Around that time there was a young, pretty and ambitious file clerk named Lydia Metermaid, who took a flyer when the job of Assistant to the President was openly posted. Despite the ho-ho-ho derision of those who considered themselves her betters, being more educated and more experienced, and her own low station as folder filer, she applied and found favor in the eyes of Benny Terrific and got the job. There has remained much jealous gossip and snide rumor about this amazing career leap ever since.

In that same pivotal year, WAIT hired an accountant by the name of Cuddy Bear to head the Financial Division. Cuddy Bear reorganized the Division and some Financial Analyst jobs were created and advertised in newspapers far and wide.

The Kid had recently suffered nunification (a term which you will not understand and it is too long to explain and will be a subject another time, so to keep things simple, The Kid was unemployed) and was searching these very same newspapers daily seeking a job. Seeing an ad for Financial Analyst, and thinking he knew enough to fake…I mean fill the bill, he sent off his resume and much to his surprised was called to interview.

 The Kid interviewed, but the interviewing manager said Financial Analyst did not seem the proper position given The Kid’s background. But all hope was not dashed upon these rocks of reality. There was another position, a brand new job that no one really quite knew what it was or how it worked, but whatever it was The Kid seemed perfectly suited. That interviewing manager took him to meet Ross Rollins, Vice-President of the All Things Deposited Division.

There was an immediate feeling of synergy between Ross and The Kid. As a result, The Kid was hired for this strange new job that no one understood called Project Manager.

Best job The Old Goat was ever to have in his life. As he morphed in the next two decades from The Kid to The Old Goat he was to understand how his love of that job contained the seeds to his own version of Greek Tragedy. Like a December-May marriage the ultimate end is clear at the start, but one’s commitment to the relationship closes one’s eyes to that and they sometimes cling to what is when it would be in their best interest to let go and move elsewhere. But The Kid liked the job and he liked Ross so much he turned down opportunities to go elsewhere within WAIT. He ignored lessons he had learned years ago. Most of all he ignored the age gap between himself and Ross.

Over the years as The Kid morphed into the Old Goat, his duties and responsibilities expanded and he had a great variety of interesting things to do beside oversee mere projects. He introduced new concepts in employee-employer relationships based on a management fad called Quality Circles. (This was the day of the great anything Japanese Management Style must be God inspired.) Oh, he altered some of these concept, did some things the masterminds of management said you could never do, but in the end the program worked. As a result The Kid was contacted by the American Institute of Banking (AIB) to design an educational program in employee involvement programs, which he did.

He created and edited the divisional newsletter, introduced a training program called "Lunchtime Videos", even coordinated the move of operations from the downtown headquarters to a brand spanking new Operations Center in a suburban corporate mall.

He initiated and created an innovative cost system in his division based not on units, but on activities. He had been annoyed WAIT had no real costing system, and was told costing systems weren’t suitable for banking functions, so he invented his own. He had never heard of what he was putting together, but in his mind he thought it would work, so he created it using Excel and then introduced it and it worked. (Several years later WAIT paid big bucks to an outside consulting firm to install what? Why this innovative new system called Activity-Based Costing of course.)

He introduced and promoted (actually fought tooth and nail for) PCs as a tool. The Titans of Technology laughed and told The Kid PCs might be fine for home use, but were impractical for business, that the mainframe would ever be king of banking information manipulation. Uh huh, and The Kid became one of the very first in WAIT to have a PC on his desk. He introduced and promoted image technology. And now years after The Kid became a project manager, a job no one knew how it should be done, The Old Goat was a recognized pioneer of project management in banking as the industry as a whole became interested in the concept; he was even asked to speak on Project Management at a BAI productivity conference in New Orleans.

The Kid/Old Goat’s efforts brought him grade level promotions and eventually he was made an Officer of the Bank.

There is another important character we need to introduce at this time.

WAIT began an Intern program. This was made up of fresh-faced college graduates looking for the fast track. The first such group contained ten such people, mostly white males.  They would go to each area of the bank for training over the course of one year. They were paid a low salary for their time with no guarantee of a job at the end.

The training of these Bigwigs-in-Waiting in his Division fell to The Kid. He designed the training and supervised it. He wrote a guidebook for their use and even developed a final exam that they had to take at the end. He and all the other divisional managers had to rate each Intern after the program (this was required by Human Resources).

Within that group was a brash young man named Flip Wineberry. The Kid found him aptly named, he was flip, disruptive and inattentive. He would come late to meetings and then have the gull to hold everyone up while he made phone calls. He received the worst rating of all from the divisional managers. He also scored the lowest on the final exam.

After the end of the training two Interns were hired, one of whom was Flip Wineberry.

About the same time that this initial group of Interns was winding down their training, changes were made to the Marketing Division. Benny Terrific never really liked Marketing as it was constituted when he arrived, so he reorganized it. At that time Marketing was part of the Administration Department. It had a division manager, named Jack Inboxx, who was forced to the outbox. Benny named a new Marketing Division Manager -- one Lydia Metermaid.  Soon most of the Marketing Staff packed up their poster paint and  story boards and left the bank in protest, for what could a former file clerk like Lydia possibly know about Marketing, and soon more speculative and snide rumors were circulating.

Since Benny, who was now not only President, but had also been crowned Chairman of tAll he Surveyed, needed a new Assistant to replace Lydia, he turned around three times, put a hand over his eyes and plunged the dart of fate into (you guessed it) Flip Wineberry.

At about this time a new committee was created sponsored by then Vice-President of All Branches and Vaults, Hobart Wazza Goodguy. This committee was necessitated by that fleeing mob of Marketing people who resigned when Lydia was named their manager.  It had the charter to oversee advertising, design new products and services and give guidance to Marketing during the chaos of change. The Kid/Old Goat was named Chairman of this New Product Committee, a seat he warmed for the next ten years.

And now our play is set with the necessary characters needed for its end some years yet down the road. 

Photo is still from the 1927 German film, Metropolis.