A LOT OF WORK... & play too (Part158c)

A LOT OF WORK… & play too (Part 158c)

While waiting, the sales rep for the telephone company called wanting to set up an appointment to go over what new equipment we’d need to replace the obsolete PBX board. Listening to him I had visions of a vulture hovering over his prey as he started a sales pitch not 30 seconds into the call. I shot him down by telling him that before anything got started a survey of our current needs would be required. The present configuration was, by no means, adequate. We’d added at least five new employees since I’d started who needed their own phones. We agreed that he’d bring an engineer on Friday. Just another project to add to what seemed like a never ending list.

I was meeting with Jerry to see how his ‘list’ of required forms was coming when Trish came over to tell me Hobie was on the phone. I didn’t know what to make of that and when he asked if I could arrange for Morris to come to meet the branch committee the bank and explain just how the billing would work, I could’ve given him the answer right then and there… “No way!”. Disorganized as Morris' operation was, on the surface it had appeared to be a ‘one man operation’. The surprising thing to me had been  that many of his customers were big banks. He’d done me a favor by letting me come to his office and agreeing to supply, by comparison, a piddling amount of premium/gifts. However, I told Hobie I’d call.

As expected, Morris was in his office. At least the laugh I got from him when I asked sounded good natured. Before he hung up I did get him to agree to talk with Hobie. I connected the two of them and dropped off the line. Back to waiting again but this time with a definite negative bent. Five o’clock came and then five thirty. I’d just called Elle to tell her to ahead and eat without me when the first of the Trustees started across the lobby. I was the only one left to let them out the door and it was almost as if I was invisible. It was Gee, the Trustee/attorney, who finally acknowledged me. It was just one sentence… “Good choices and we’ll do well with them.”

My analysis of the makeup of the branch committee members was right on target. When Hobie told me who pushed for the proposal I had a hard time to keep from letting out a little chuckle. It was the same Trustee who was a member of my church and a ‘power broker’ behind the scenes with the school board. I knew how he operated in both those organizations and fully expected to see the same with the premium/gift situation. When Hobie finally appeared and said it was a “Go!” it was a bit anticlimactic. But the decision took one major headache off my list.

The next morning we were back up and running as far as being on-line with the data center was concerned. However, we had a real backlog of transactions that needed to be posted. Bruce, from the data center, called to say that the phone company had found some “glitches” in how they’d configured some of the switches and the service should be better. That was the good news… the bad was that the interruptions would continue. As the phone company added more and more customers who would be using data transmission, each time a new customer got ’switched on’ there was the potential for a disruption. It was like a cloud over my head.

It was Thursday that I finally got back to meeting with Jerry and his ‘assignment’. I could’ve saved him the time because I had a folio of every form the bank used but I wanted him to do the actual research. I almost knew before we started that he wasn’t even close to having a complete set of the forms and I was right. He didn’t have even one form from the mortgage department. I was laughing (at him) when I asked how could he, running a branch of a bank who specialized in mortgage loans, not have application forms to offer the public. In my mind the guy was a loser and there wasn’t anything I could do to change the Trustees decision to hire him. By the time we finished up I’d identified, off the top of my head, at least a dozen missing forms he’d need. Walking back to my desk I had the feeling that I’d be making any number of trips to the branch to clean up ‘messes’ that he’d create.

Speaking of messes, I had one of my own. Because we were now into May and the ‘books’ of the bank had to be closed as of April 30, I had to see that all the deposit and withdrawals for the last few days when we’d been off-line were posted. I asked for volunteers to stay after hours to get it done and had a fair response. The one who I didn’t expect was Lorie. Now a supervisor with no teller experience, she stepped up to see the project through. The only caveat to her offer was that she needed a ride home. Her father’s car had been totaled by a drunk driver right out in front of their house. He was a night foreman at a local aerospace facility and had needed her car to get to work. Knowing the importance of getting the posting done I ‘bit the bullet’ and said I’d stay and give her a ride. As her home wasn’t all that far away she would sometimes walk. But, since it would most likely be dark by the time she was finished and there were no sidewalks, she wanted the safety of a ride.

To be continued…