REALLY BIG CHANGES... and repercussions (Part 133d)

REALLY BIG CHANGES... and repercussions (Part 133d)

Elle and I talked for quite a while about the situation before going to bed. I remember making a comment to her about Pat (the PTA lady) and how she was going to take the news of Wally as president. Elle actually made sense when she said it didn’t matter and we’d all have to live with it.

It was shaping up to be a really big week at work as the full Board of Trustees meeting was that Wednesday. One thing I failed to mention was that both Bret and I were up for our annual salary review. The idea of it had drifted in and out of my conscious thoughts for some time but I wasn’t obsessed with it like the last one a year earlier. The chairman of the salary committee was the attorney who seemed to have my best interests at heart and Hobie, my immediate boss, had dropped a hint or two about a favorable result. As the day got closer though I’ll admit I thought about it more.

 Hobie mentioned that each of the sub committees was on the Wednesday meeting agenda which meant it would be a long one. There was the salary committee;  the gift/new account committee; branch location committee; transaction processing committee; examining committee and, of course, the weekly mortgage applications. It also meant that each of those sub committees would be meeting prior to Wednesday and I’d be seeing most of the Trustees, coming and going, for the next few days. As far as lobby traffic and being busy was concerned it was about normal for the week before the ‘busy period’ was to begin. It did give me time to, again, place a call to Willy. All I wanted was to know if he was planning on spending any time during the Summer,  locally. As they say, ”three’s a charm“ and this time it was. He apologized telling me he’d been doing a lot of traveling, trying to open up new territories. I was encouraged when he said he’d make an effort to touch base with me because he wanted to check up on the family property. That information was enough for me to think about making an experimental pair of ‘dribble panties’ for him when he did show up. Another mental note.

When the written examination report from the examiners had arrived the previous week the one item I was told to get on right away was to hire an experienced person for the accounting area. We didn’t have any applications in the file that even came close to meeting the experience qualification that the report called for. That meant putting an advertisement in the paper, something I really didn’t want to do. I told Trish about my reluctance and she asked if she could speak to me, confidentially. That was rare for Trish as she would usually spit out what ever was on her mind. To say I was surprised is putting it mildly and when she got up and motioned me to follow her over to the corner by Hobie’s desk I was puzzled.

When I was hired I was met with some resistance from a group of long time employees that I dubbed ”The Polish Mafia“. Trish was one of the leaders followed closely by Laurie, the bookkeeping machine (computer?) operator and a teller who went by the nickname of Mala. Over time I’d managed to gain some trust from both Trish and Laurie but Mala was, at best, an arms length away. She’d left to have a baby a little over a year prior and when she left she made some statements that were less than complementary of the bank with the bulk of it directed at me. Having reiterated all that you can imagine my great surprise when Trish told me that Mala wanted to come back.

I’d gone out of my way to make things easier for her during her pregnancy and yet she still seemed hostile towards me so I was leery of the idea of taking her back. However, Trish said that she thought Mala would be perfect for the accounting department. I stood there facing Trish and, truthfully, thought it was a great idea. Mala had always shown that she was head and shoulders above all the other tellers, including Cara, as far as brains were concerned. I remembered my talks with Hobie when I’d made the comment that it was a shame she never had a chance to go to college. My mind, running at 100 miles per hour down a dirt road, felt that we (Hobie, Bert [the president} and I could) ‘sell’ the examining committee on the idea in spite of her lack of accounting experience. Since most of the Trustees knew her from her days as a teller I felt they would go along. On top of that she, in spite of the fact that she was younger than Bette who would be her boss, got along well with her. I really wanted to hug Trish but I just told her that she had come up with a brilliant idea and I promised that I’d fight for it. That got a smile from her (and you’d have to have known her to know how great an accomplishment that was).

My euphoria was short lived when early that afternoon I saw ”Polak Joe“ walking across the lobby. The look on his face never seemed to change. It was a half smile that one might’ve gotten after telling a poor joke. It didn’t even change when he spoke. It was, as Bret so aptly described it, ”painted on“. I was not privy to sub committee assignments so had no idea what meeting(s) he was attending. To me he was like a dark cloud. I now knew that he was part of the opposition to Bob’s candidacy for the school board but didn’t know the breadth and depth of it. J J’s dire warnings about him when he first appeared at the bank just hung over everything he was involved in.

Hobie got called upstairs to one of the sub-committee meetings and as he walked by my desk he made the off-hand comment ”Wish me luck!“. I didn’t like the sound of it and although I had no reason to stay late I manufactured some things to do while waiting for him to return. When he did his demeanor foretold of some less than good news. Since all of the sub-committees were in some way related to my areas of responsibility I wanted to know what had taken place. My primary hope was that a direction for transaction processing was going to be acted upon by the full board. That, to me, was the most important as here we were again, still saying prayers that our current equipment would make it through the' busy period'.

I got the impression that Hobie wasn’t expecting to see me still there when he returned to his desk. I didn’t say anything but put both my hands up as if I were asking ”What’s up?“ He hesitated before saying anything but finally muttered ”It’s going to be interesting.“ Of course that didn’t help me out and I asked what he meant. With a look of resignation on his face he said ”We’re back to square one.“  Since I had no idea what sub-committee(s) had met I was still in the dark. Finally, after a big sigh he said something about the new Trustees and how they were going to have to be ”educated“. Since one of them was ”Polak Joe“ it gave me a clue... and not a good feeling.

To be continued...