ENDING THE YEAR... Odds & ends (Part 167d)

ENDING THE YEAR… Odds & ends (Part 167d)

Things settled down as the afternoon wore on with the examiners working on their first full projects and I was able to tackle some regular bank work. Before they packed up to leave for the day I reminded the lead examiner that they’d have to vacate the Board room by 2:30pm the following day. Melissa, the woman I’d had a ‘run-in’ with was standing right beside him as I made my point. The look she gave me was definitely not a friendly one. It told me there would be more confrontations before the examination was over. I gave some thought to trying to have a talk with Woody but in my present frame of mind decided not to. I was hoping the following day would be less stressful. It wasn’t.

Previous examinations had taught me to get to the bank early. I’d been ‘ambushed’ one morning in the parking lot by one of the examiners and it wasn’t fun. At least, while in the bank and at my desk, I had built in ‘escapes’. I arrived at 8:30am or so and settled in to make sure I had everything I needed from J J for the mortgage committee meeting. I figured I had a little time to sort things out and before I really got started there was Melissa standing by my desk. I quickly looked around to see if more of their audit team had arrived and saw no one. That’s when I knew I had a ‘buzz saw’ assigned to me. I looked at her and asked what she wanted. I was ready to bite my tongue if she wanted to go back to the same topic she’d attacked me with the day before but it was something new. She’d been assigned to check how the bank had handled the transition from ledger cards to being on-line with the service bureau.

I’ll admit that until we got started with the service bureau I had no idea of just how much paper would be generated by them. The bank was already short of storage and we (I) had to come up with a solution. Some of the reports had to be readily accessible for at least six weeks. Then I had to find a ‘home’ for the older reports and keep them at least two years. I had two choices… the attic or the sub-vault in the basement with neither one being a good one. The accounting department chose the attic. The one good thing about that was it forced J J to go through all the mortgage forms that were stored there, cull out the obsolete ones and then to find a new home for those the department still used. That process freed up most of the shelves that had been built there many years before. However, getting the cartons of reports up there was a problem because the stairs were narrow and a bit steeper than normal. Mike, the messenger/custodian was tasked with getting the boxes up there and Bret or I would go up and periodically organize them. The request from Melissa meant either one or the other of us would have to go up to the attic to find the reports she needed to do her audit. Bret hadn’t arrived and the doors weren’t yet open so I ‘bit the bullet’ and headed that way.

The only access to the attic was through the second floor bathroom that was pretty much designated as for the ladies. When you walked in the door the toilet was right here to the right with the sink next to it. But the door to the attic was straight ahead. This arrangement had created some embarrassing situations (me included) when someone was up in the attic and a person using the facilities would close the door and forget to reopen it. The person in the attic upon returning would reach the bottom of the stairs and have to open the door, sometimes only to find someone on the ‘throne’ or in some state of undress. I’d put up warning signs but like I’d been told, “Who reads signs?” With Melissa following me I headed up the stairs. Once there I tried to find the specific range of reports she wanted. It entailed removing a number of cartons from the shelves and then going through them while they were on the floor. Once she saw the way the reports had been boxed combined with the poor lighting she became ‘testy’ and impatient. I don’t remember how many cartons were on the floor but when she couldn’t readily find what she was looking for she demanded that I arrange to have all the boxes taken down to the Board room. I’d been ‘biting my tongue’ up to then but that request was totally unreasonable and I let her know my feelings. I surprised her with my brusqueness and she took a step back. In so doing she tripped over one of the cartons and I stood and watched her fall backwards. It only took a quick second and there was no time to reach out to try and catch a hand. I, myself, had to step over a partially opened carton and in the few seconds that it took I could see she wasn’t moving. I also saw that the way she ended up was flat on her back on the floor with one leg splayed out to the side and the other still draped over the carton that she’d tripped over. There was one other thing… a patch of pale blue intermingled with some white on top of the grey material that was her skirt. I swear I didn’t pause for more than a split second as I climbed over her to get to her head. I could see she was breathing but she definitely wasn’t conscious.

The bank had a fairly well stocked first aid kit in the bathroom right below where we were. With so many of the Board members up in in age it was felt that it was appropriate to locate it outside the Board room. Knowing this I headed down the stairs to fetch it and to get the smelling salts I knew were inside the kit. I never gave the closed door a thought. All I wanted was that kit and to get back up the stairs. I pushed open the door and there was ‘upstairs’ Sandra with her skirt up around her waist trying to pull her blouse down. I don’t know if she yelled or not but I do remember telling her to get the lead examiner right away and then bolting back up the stairs. Melissa hadn’t moved. I, again, made sure she was breathing and then popped open the kit. The capsules with the smelling salts were right there and because I’d witnessed someone breaking one open had no trouble doing it. Just about the time I was putting it up to her nose the lead examiner popped his head through the floor opening. It took Melissa a few seconds before she started shaking her head to get away from the scent of the salts and that was what I wanted to see. I stood up to let the guy in to talk with her and as I did I stepped back. In thinking back on the scene I’m not sure what she was trying to do but what I do know is that after she got her one leg off the box she sat up and pulled both her legs up to her chest... and I didn't look away. The light blue color I'd seen right after she fell were her panties and the white was her slip.

The lead examiner had his hands on her shoulders and was shaking her trying to get her to talk. I was torn between looking at her crotch and trying to hear what her reply were to the questions she was being asked. It only took a few minutes for a bunch of other people to show up. Realizing the examiner was fully focused on Melissa I took charge and asked for all the others to go back down the stairs. I’m not sure how long it was before he decided that she was OK to be led down the stairs but when he did I knew it was going to be somewhat difficult with how steep and narrow they were. It took a fair amount of time to accomplish the task and once there we sat her in one of the plush Trustee chairs. It was decided to have one of the other examiners drive her to the emergency room at the hospital (back in those days we didn’t have EMT’s) rather than to call for the ambulance. By then it was after 10am. What a day! And it was still morning. As they helped her into a car I had no idea that it was the last time I’d see Melissa. The only thing we were eventually told was that she was sent home “to rest”.   

To be continued...