LIFE GOES ON... at home and work (Part 115a)

LIFE GOES ON... at home and work (Part 115a)

Elle and I had a serious talk about finances after the oil “situation”. I basically told her that no matter how much she wanted something for the house it would have to wait until after my birthday when I’d be able to borrow some money against the trust account. I didn’t give her a chance to even put in a “but”. I’d done a tally of just what I owed to various merchants and came up with what I could offer in the way of partial payments to each until then. I wasn’t looking forward to actually asking them. To me it felt like begging and I didn’t like that thought one bit.

Elle finally got a call from the local school for substitute teaching which certainly raised our morale a bit. The problem was that it would be almost three weeks until she actually received her pay. However, she did find out that it was the direct result of Pat (the PTA lady at our party) asking her friend, the school secretary, to do her a favor and to call Elle. We both felt good about that.

When I got my next paycheck, after taking out for food, electricity and insurance, I divided the remainder up up fairly equally between the local merchants and Sears. Sears already had a provision for partial payments so I didn’t have to ask about that one. I got a good reception from all but one and he was the one person I felt would be the most receptive since he had known my family since before I was born . I couldn’t believe it when he told me, straight out, to go borrow some money from “my old man because he had plenty". I looked at him and wanted to cuss him out right there but didn’t say a word. In my mind I knew that other than to pay him in full (it was about $30 as I remember it) after I got the loan that I’d never go in his store again. Even though I’d met mostly with success with the others I still didn’t feel good about it.

Work was going smoothly and I was especially pleased with Jerena. The customers loved her even to the extent that a few had written to the bank president praising the service they’d received. The one concern I had, and it wasn’t major, was that she seemed aloof to the other tellers. Even though she was still stationed next to Cara, the one who’d trained he,r she’d come to me or Bret when she had a question. On that I’d noticed, in most cases, she was questioning an actual policy. She’d phrase in such a way that she didn’t challenge it head on but would take a  round about way, asking how did it come about. One day, after he’d experienced a few of them, Bret turned to me and called her a ”pita“ (pain in the ass). I'd had somewhat the same feeling but on a couple of her questions I actually could see her point. I decided not to speak to her about it and to give some actual thought to the points she raised.

A necessary evil in all businesses in the audit done by an outside accounting firm. In banking you have to add two more to the annual tally... the State banking department  and the Federal examiners. Even though I’d only been in the banking field a short time I knew how much of a disruption their arrival could cause. For some reason the State examiners hadn’t made it in over a year. To make up for it they assigned a senior examiner to run the audit and he was a real ”PITA“, in capital letters. Fortunately, Hobie interacted with him freeing me up to concentrate on the customers. I had to feel sorry for Joanne as this was her first experience with this type of audit. She, as the audit clerk, and Liz, the auditor were put upon to provide the examiner staff with the documents they requested. There were nine of them in total and the only room large enough to hold them was the Board room. It was in the most out of the way place imaginable, on the second floor and way in the back. Joanne seemed to be going back and forth with different files and folders all that first day. It was approaching 3pm when we would close the doors to the customers when I heard a sound I’d never heard before.

It sounded like a bell but off key. It was very loud and was coming from the lobby in the area of the elevator. I looked at Trish and she put her hands up as if to say she didn’t know what it was either. Bret and I ran out into the lobby and, sure enough, it was coming from behind the closed door of the elevator. It only lasted for about 30 seconds and then we could hear a female screaming for help from behind the door. It took some screaming on out part to get her to stop. It was Joanne and it was obvious she was in panic mode. J J had come part way down the stairs to tell us that it, indeed, was Joanne. Hobie appeared a few minutes later and told us to get the emergency key and pointed to a little hole in the upper portion of the door. Bret and I looked at each other and had no idea where it might be or what it looked like if we were to try and find it. After a few seconds Hobie told us to go find Hank, the messenger/custodian as he was the keeper of the key. From the stairs, J J piped up that he was out on a messenger run.

In the meantime we could hear Joanne crying and pleading for help. I ran to the basement and brought up a ladder so we could get closer to the door to try and calm her down. We’d pretty much figured out the the car had stopped between floors. Hobie climbed the ladder and got Joanne to listen to him. Im not sure how long it was before Hank showed up but, by then, there were at least 20 people, including some examiners and customers, gathered around in the lobby. It didn’t take long for Hank to fetch the key. After he inserted it it took both Bret and I to manually move the door back. We could see about 1/3 of the interior of the car and that Joanne was hunkered down in a corner, on the floor, crying and wimpering. J J suggested that we open the door on the second floor to see if that wasn’t a better option to getting her out so Hank and Bret went upstairs with J J. It was quickly determined that our only option was to get her out down on the first floor.

To be continued...