Day 227 – Spilling the Beans, Paying the Price

          I was very excited one evening several weeks ago to get a call from a CFO who had seen my résumé online, and wanted to talk to me about a controllership at his company. I was excited for two reasons. First he was not a hyper-caffeinated recruiter trying to make a name for himself by pulling the trigger hundreds of times in rapid succession without discerning a clear target (an actual job) or checking his ammo (reading my résumé.) I’m beginning to think of this as the video game approach to modern recruitment. No, the guy who called was a real executive with a real company who wanted to discuss a real position and thought I might be a real possibility because he had really read my résumé.

          The second reason I was excited is that we seemed to get on famously. We had similar attitudes, similar aptitudes, and our business sensibilities seemed to me to be as in tune as they could be. The more we talked the better it got.

          The company was a second generation décor jobber that had carved out a nice little niche for itself in the international hospitality industry. They weren’t looking to grow exponentially. They didn’t have unreasonable expectations. They weren’t acquisitive. They weren’t interested in selling out. They were interested in growing in profitability by improving their purchasing, service, and delivery efficiencies. They wanted to take a methodical and systematic approach to these improvements. I thought they were perfect for me.

          To add to the intrigue, the CFO wanted me to send him a one page letter on any topic whatsoever. If I was passionate about cars, for instance, I should write about what cars appealed to me and why. If I was interested in the cultivation of exotic orchids, I should write about that. He didn’t really care what it was about. It didn’t have to be about an interest. It could be, quite literally, anything under the sun.

          Some people would be intimidated by an open ended assignment like this. I was not. I am not afraid of a blank page. I love creative writing exercises. Not only that, I excel at them. I’ve participated in enough of them to know. If performing well in creative writing exercises were all that was required of men in order to attract women, I would have a harem of beauties that would be the envy of every randy mogul and every over-indulged sultan in history. Fortunately, both for me and for womankind, more is required. If people were generally compensated for excelling at timed, impromptu writing exercises in a competitive environment, I could quit looking for a job and just attend writer’s conferences for the rest of my days, thus assuring myself of a comfortable living. I’m not throwing down a gauntlet. I’m just saying that this little exercise assigned by the CFO, who I was sure was about to become my new boss, was well within my comfort zone.

          The CFO and I ended our conversation on that note. I would provide the required letter via e-mail the following day. He would call me back as soon as he had read and digested my brilliance. We would proceed from there.

          I set to work immediately on the letter. I decided that what he really wanted was a window into the soul of me. He had proposed writing about a passionate interest because he thought an avocation that burned with some intensity would better illuminate the dark recesses of my inner self. I have two such passions. One is for writing. The other is my faith. I decided to write about both of them and, in what I thought was a stroke of self-promoting genius, to discuss how they informed and guided my working life.

          I reasoned that ultimately this CFO was going to have to make a choice about my qualifications, skills, and values and how those would frame my suitability for the job he needed to fill. Making those connections for him seemed to me to be the surest way to convince him that I was his man. My letter was a masterful mix of subtlety and candor, deftly connecting the lessons of my pursuits to my professional development and to the ethical foundations of my life at work. Beyond this it was calculated to make me seem as interesting, intelligent, humorous, temperate, equable, and humble as I, on my best days, believe myself to be. Apparently it was not enough.

          Two days went by with no word. I sent another e-mail—return receipt requested—inquiring as to whether or not he had received my submission. Another two days went by with no response. I called. The new custodian of my future was in a meeting and not to be disturbed. I hadn’t asked that he be disturbed, so I thought this information, relayed to me by a brusquely efficient personal assistant, was, if not suspect, at least a little heavy-handed. I left a message. A week went by. I sent another e-mail stating that, at the risk of becoming a pest, I was anxious to get some feedback on my assignment. I have yet to hear anything in return.

          This turn of events is a mystery to me. The guy indicated he was going to move quickly on his decision. We had rapport. We were simpatico. I felt that I had acquitted myself in exemplary fashion on the letter writing assignment. I can’t imagine that I was so far afield in my assessment of the situation that I don’t even merit a courtesy response to my inquiries. Even a perfunctory e-mail telling me they had decided on another candidate would be better treatment than I got.

          I have gone as far as I am willing to go. Not only that, I have gone as far as the guy I described in my letter is willing to go. I am interesting, intelligent, humorous, temperate, equable, and humble. I am not annoying, and I am not interested in becoming so.

I am annoyed, however. I have officially had it up to ‘here’ with folks who lead me down a path only to abandon me deep in the woods without apology or explanation. This is something I would never dream of doing to someone else, yet it seems that it keeps being done to me. What’s up with that? 

Day 164 - Conspiracy Theories

          The job boards are bleak for the Treasure Coast area. I should have thought to check before we moved, not that it would have made a difference under the circumstances. We still would have come here because we’re needed. Still it would have been good to know how bad things are here. This is a depressed area. St. Lucie and Martin Counties have unemployment rates that are 40 to 50 percent higher than the rest of the state. There don’t seem to be any jobs listed around here at my level and damn few even at entry level. My thought had been to only look for work in this area so we can stay here as long as we’re needed. I might have to rethink that.

          We switched out the cable service when we got here so that my wife and I could have high speed internet service for our computers. Nelson had a satellite system, and we changed to a cable provider that also offers fiber optic internet service. They finally got the last of it hooked up today. It’s been a struggle with a series of contractors to get the cable run, buried, hooked up, and programmed. Apparently all those things have to be done by different people. Lean they are not.

Nelson’s been grousing through the whole process. He hates change. The new remote is giving him fits. None of the buttons are in the same location they were on his old remote. He doesn’t remember that he has a new device in his hand until he’s already pressed a button according to its placement on the old one. Then, when he gets an unexpected result, he gets peevish. I spend a lot of time listening to him cuss at Mother Angelica because he accidently got to EWTN and can’t figure out how to get back to the Western Channel.

          He was adamant about the Western Channel. He’s been talking about it all week. He likes his western movies, and he needs to see one every night or his day is incomplete.

* * * * *

          As I work through my career history in accounting it becomes increasingly obvious to me that I have spent a great deal of time working for fools, charlatans, thieves, and scalawags who seemed bent on bringing me low. Even so I have always been able to exert a certain amount of influence over my circumstances, and there as always been a certain amount of leverage involved in knowing, because of my familiarity with the books and records, where all the bodies were buried.

          You could argue (as I’m sure the guys who fired me would) that I had a hand in my own undoing at my last company. I wasn’t what they hoped I would be, although, to be fair to myself, what they hoped I would be changed over time as evidenced by two years of positive performance reviews leading up to getting fired. But even had I been what they were hoping for at the end, I don’t think the outcome for me would have been very different. My real problem, I think, was expressing aloud my opinion that our CFO was too prone to knee-jerk hysterics, and that our corporate accounting manager was an anal-retentive myopic who couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

          Of course all that is water over the dam at this point. My current problem is not that I lost a job, but that I can’t get a new one because 1) there aren’t any jobs to speak of in the area where I have chosen to reside, and 2) there aren’t very many jobs anyplace else.

When I first lost my job, I thought I would get another in fairly short order. I had a pretty good résumé, a stable work history, and a boatload of experience. When I lost my last job, the result of a wholesale reduction in force to reduce overhead pursuant to a pre-packaged bankruptcy plan, I found a better job in just a few months. I had the sincere hope that things would not be materially different this time. As the global economy crumbles around me however, I am being forced to give up the notion that I will get a job quickly and easily. My hope for another job depends on an economic recovery more than it depends on my acumen, credentials, and persistence. To make matters worse, the hope of an economic recovery seems to grow more remote every day.

I honestly don’t know how we got into this fix. I’m not sure anyone else does either. There are lots of opinions being floated in the financial media, but not very much of it makes sense to me. As an accountant I want to be able to make the numbers work. I want to be able to follow and quantify the logic. I can’t.

Many analysts are blaming the sub-prime mortgage debacle—too many bad loans made to borrowers who did not adequately demonstrate their ability to repay. The sup-prime problem has been with us for over a year now, and everyone is talking as if we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. If we’ve known about the problem for over a year, how is it that the smartest kids on the block—the MBAs and analytical wizards on Wall Street, graduates of the finest institutions of higher learning in the country who are knocking down salaries and bonuses that the rest of us can only dream of—weren’t able to foresee the collapse and mitigate its effect?

How is it that, of the total of all mortgages outstanding, the percentage that is actually at risk of default is sufficient to tank the entire global economy. How is it that a relative handful of bad loans—bundled and securitized with good loans, rated investment grade by respected rating agencies, discounted to accommodate a historically reasonable rate of default, collateralized by real estate, guaranteed with sophisticated derivative contracts, and purchased and held by the very investment banking institutions that had a hand in their creation and so should have clearly understood the inherent risks—how is it that those loans were sufficient to cause the complete collapse of some of the largest banks in the world?

None of it makes any sense to me. I don’t think we’re being told the truth about any of it. We’re being spoon fed bits and pieces that seem to make sense in and of themselves, but they don’t add up to a coherent and believable whole. We’re not getting the whole picture. We’re getting a cubist Picaso. It may be art and it may be genius and it may be distracting, but no way in hell does it look like what it purports to represent.

The guys responsible for this ‘art’ have taken the rest of us to the cleaners. They took huge profits in their firms and huge bonuses personally while they built a house of cards that collapsed on the rest of us. After the collapse they took bailout money to make themselves whole again while the rest of us are left wondering how we (and our children) will pay the bill.

I’m not looking for a grand conspiracy behind all this. My personal feeling is that the captains of Wall Street are just another enclave of venal, self-serving, socially inbred fools, charlatans, thieves, and scalawags. The only real difference between them and the bottom-feeders it has been my misfortune to work for is that the Wall Street bozos play with much bigger numbers.

Others of my acquaintance do see a grand conspiracy here, whether real or imagined. I’ll grant them that their theories are at least as logical as mine. My theory depends on a confluence of coincidence, a perfect storm as it were of events and circumstances that worked together to undermine the foundations of our economic systems. The conspiracy theories depend only on the collusion of a small band of bad actors who already know each other, who work in the same industry, came from the same schools, and reside in the same geographical area. A grand conspiracy is much easier to orchestrate in this instance than an unfortunate confluence of coincidence.

I’ve already mentioned my brother-in-law who believes that there is an effort afoot by the extremely privileged to eliminate the middle classes. I find it hard to believe that this is a coordinated enterprise with and agenda and regular meetings, but, whether or not there exists an actual conspiracy, it grows increasingly difficult to argue that the middle classes are not at risk of disappearing.

Another conspiracy theory has been advanced by author, Sara McIntosh, in her novel, Shell Games. McIntosh is a former accounting consultant and forensic auditor in Chicago who sold her successful business to indulge her love of writing. Shell Games is a laudable first effort. She calls it a financial thriller, and, unlikely as it may seem to those whose eyes glaze over at the mention of accounting issues, she makes good on her promise by delivering a sexy page-turner.

The premise of Shell Games is that the current financial collapse is the result of a large-scale and exactingly orchestrated fraud that has been effectively covered up by the sudden availability of TARP funds. Of course there is more to it than that, and I won’t spoil the plot by revealing it here. Suffice to say that McIntosh has worked out a cogent explanation for the gaps in logic that I have found in the explanations being offered up by our government and by the financial media. Who is to say that McIntosh hasn’t hit on the real deal?

What sets her novel apart from other novels featuring large-scale financial fraud is the author’s intimate knowledge of the details of searching for accounting anomalies in huge volumes of transaction data. It takes an unusual and focused mentality to get a thrill from the discovery of emerging patterns in financial records, but there is perhaps greater skill involved in being able to convey that thrill to the uninitiated. The excitement of accounting is not something easily conveyed to an audience that has largely been persuaded that accountants are a uniformly boring bunch of socially inept slugs. McIntosh is anything but, and her book may do much to dispel the myth. If my TV producer friend, Wendy, had found Sara McIntosh all those years ago when she was looking for ‘interesting’ accountants, she may have been able to come up with a show.

Day 84 - On the Cuff

          I got a call today from a recruiter in Colorado about a controllership with a juice packing company here in Orlando. We talked for a brief time. The recruiter asked all the usual questions, and decided that he would submit me to the company. The job actually sounds pretty good. This is surprising and encouraging given the paltry number and dismal quality of the job postings I have seen lately. I am not optimistic, but I have to say that this development has lifted my spirits some. Before the call I was feeling bad about passing on Henry’s offer. Scoundrel though he has been to me, I hated to disappoint him. I know that seems ridiculous, but it’s true nonetheless.

*****

                                           Ivan tries to strike a deal.

Albatross was a wonderful place at first. Everyone was happy to have me. I was there about a month when the HR director told me, “Everyone who has taken a meeting with you has told me that we hit a home run when we hired you.” I felt pretty good hearing that. I felt like I had found a home at last.

Toward the end of my first year at Albatross, Ivan came to visit from Quilnutz. Ivan had been building trawler yachts along the St. John’s River in Florida. They built their own hulls, and had several models based on either a 45 or 60 foot length.

By this time Ivan had tanked Henry’s company and closed it up. I had predicted to several of my friends there as I was leaving that Quilnutz would probably shut the Arkansas facility down in six months time. In spite of many emotional protestations to the contrary by Ivan’s henchmen in the interim, Quilnutz had finally announced they were closing the Arkansas plant, making my prediction come true almost to the day. Now he was looking for another smaller and less expensive hull to build on—something to fill the place in their product line that had been occupied by the Henry’s Arkansas boats.

He thought it would be a good idea to buy these hulls from Albatross, since we had excess capacity, and to finish them out in Florida. Everyone at Albatross thought that I ought to weigh in on the decision. If this were an e-mail, I’d be writing “LOL” right now. I love it when someone else’s bad karma looks like retribution and vindication for me.

I didn’t even have to stretch to make Ivan’s idea a non-starter. This wasn’t purely vindictive on my part. It was a bad idea from Albatross’s perspective, at least to the extent they wanted to stay in the boat business. It wouldn’t have made any sense to sell hulls to Ivan knowing that he was then going to be competing directly with the Albatross boats for retail sales in an already shrinking market. It seemed for a while though that I was the only one at Albatross who fully understood that. Executive management was anxious to try anything that might boost unit sales in the short term, and, to them Ivan’s proposal represented just such an opportunity. That we would find ourselves competing with our own hulls was not the only problem though.

The other problem had to do with Ivan’s solvency. I knew that Ivan was in hock up to his eyeballs. I knew the market for Quilnutz yachts was stagnant. I knew that Ivan’s floor plan lender was putting pressure on him to pay curtailments on his older boats, that they had refused to bump up his line of credit, and that there was significant risk that he was going to default.

Ivan wanted us to provide him hulls on the cuff—that is he wanted us to ship him hulls consignment that he wouldn’t have to pay for until he had sold the finished boat. In effect he wanted us to extend the credit that his floor plan lender would not. If we did a deal like that we would not only be assuming the considerable risk that he would default on us as well, but we would actually be increasing that risk by putting his balance sheet further under water.

The solution was pretty simple. I suggested we tell Ivan that we would sell him hulls, but that we price them high enough to make him choke and make the terms cash on delivery. Ivan went away. I haven’t seen or heard from him since.

Day 56 - Interviewing in Disheviledekistan

          I donned my new suit this morning, and drove downtown for my interview with the recruiter. It was a truly odd experience. I was resplendent (if too brown) in superbly coordinated colors set off by a crisp white shirt. The recruiter, on the other hand, in addition to being late to work and therefore late to the interview, looked like a refugee from a failed Eastern European state.

His shirt was dingy, frayed, and wrinkled. It had a broad stripe in a depressing shade of purple that matched nothing else in his ensemble. He wore no jacket. His tie looked as if it had been tied by his palsied, arthritic grandmother and kept in his closet in its knotted state since her death some years ago. It featured a stain that I imagined to be beet—the first and only vegetable suggested by his impoverished appearance. His trousers were even more wrinkled than his shirt and pooled, two inches too long, around derelict wingtips. He was a mess, and had I met him on the street I would have been moved to offer him a few bucks to buy himself a meal. As it was I was visiting him in a posh office as a supplicant, hoping to persuade him to submit me to one of his clients for a job. I was not encouraged.

          To make matters worse the recruiter asked such basic and obvious questions that I suspected after a short time that he had not actually read my résumé. This was more than a little unnerving to me. The guy had called me to come for an interview based on the contents of my résumé, but he had no clear idea of what was in my résumé. Extrapolating from what I’d read about how résumés are searched online I came to realize that he’d found me by way of a keyword search of various job boards. Having matched the key words his search program was looking for, he apparently didn't feel the need to actually read the résumé. He was in his mid twenties—presumably with an abbreviated attention span honed on a variety of video games and cell phone texts. Reading two pages of the job history and accomplishments of a dried-up old geezer such as me was not likely to trip his trigger.

I like to chalk failed interviews up to learning experience. Even if you don’t get a job or at least move forward in the process toward a job, you can learn something. You can get some practice fielding questions, gain a greater level of comfort talking about yourself, and get better at pretending to be upbeat and confident. I’m afraid this one was just a waste of time.

Day 54 - Ivan the Terrible

          I got calls today from two recruiters who saw my résumé on line. This is encouraging. They wanted to talk about my experience. This is something of a problem. It’s not that I don’t have relevant experience. It’s that my relevant experience didn’t take place at my last job. My last job was a step down from the level of responsibility I’d had before. I had a lot of responsibility and autonomy at the Alabama company, even more when I worked for Henry. When I worked for Henry I made good things happen and I kept bad things from happening. I managed a lot of people, not the least of whom was Henry himself. I made decisions about systems, staffing levels, financing arrangements, banking relationships, and facilities. I did this because I knew how and because Henry trusted me to do a good job of it—at least insofar as he didn’t want to be burdened with the nuts and bolts of running the place. He left that to Mike and me while he schmoozed the customers and chased the skirts.

My sphere of influence began to shrink rapidly when Ivan’s company took over. I could manage those bastards not at all, and that’s exactly the extent to which they trusted me. The day after closing I went from being an executive of some importance to being a second class citizen. My every decision was questioned, second guessed, and ultimately undone. My every opinion was held in such low regard that I began to wander why they even kept me on the payroll. I thought they were interested in buying our business because they thought that we brought something to the table in the way of knowledge, experience, expertise, and or good sense. That wasn’t the case at all. I don’t know why they bought our company. They didn’t like us. They didn’t like our boats. They didn’t even care very much for our customers. Ivan thought most of them would die before they ever bought another boat. They were just that old.

Not long after I began to notice my influence slipping away I had the bad judgment to disagree with Ivan on what I thought was a small matter. It was just the two of us in an office so it’s not like I caused him to lose face or anything like that. I offered no disrespect. My comment started out something like, ‘well yeah, but don’t you think…’ I never got to finish the sentence. Ivan went off like a grenade. In the space of several sentences he used every swear word, every vulgarity, and every obscenity I had ever heard and at least two that I had not. I was so shell-shocked by the whole exchange that I cannot remember to this day what it was about. I never disagreed with him again or even offered my opinion. To the extent that my opinion had any value to him at all, he did not, nor would he ever profit from it. I suspect he’s missed out on a lot of reasonably good conjecture in this way from almost everyone who’s ever had the misfortune to work for him. Henry would at least listen to you before he chalked you up for stupid.

Day 53 - Job Search Reflections: The Heart of the Deal

          The job boards were discouraging this morning. There were only five jobs even remotely applicable on Indeed. None of them were a good fit for me, nor I for them. I fear that my profession has passed me by. While I’ve been toiling away trying to make the companies I’ve worked for succeed, I’ve not paid enough attention to bolstering my own credentials and skills. Now that the job market favors employers, and so many desperate souls are searching for meaningful work, the experience I bring to the table seems woefully underwhelming.

In addition the economy is seriously skittish. The news seems a little bleaker each evening. Now that the housing bust has exposed the cancer at the heart of our financial systems, hundreds of billions of dollars of debt on the brink of default, we seem to be spiraling into some final cataclysmic adjustment. We’ll have to wait to see just how bad it really is.

My wife is tired of listening to it. She doesn’t care much for the news anyway, so I generally let her have the remote. I tell all our friends, anyone who will listen really, that I am not authorized to operate the remote controls or the thermostat in our house. My wife doesn’t think this is very funny, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a grain of truth in it.

          I’m not used to having to look for work. I was at the same CPA firm for thirteen years after I graduated college. Then I owned my own business for a year. Then I went to work for Henry who had been one of my clients at the CPA firm. There was no job search, no resume, and no interview. I knew Henry and he knew me. I went by to see him. He told me he was looking for someone to get his bookkeeper caught up. I told him I could help him out. I started the next day. It didn’t take me long to realize Henry’s problems were way deeper than he imagined. We came to terms, and I stayed with him for 8 years. When we sold the company I stayed with the company that bought us out for another 2 years. Then I got recruited to an Alabama company. I was there for 6 years. That is 30 years of work without ever having to go beat the street for a job. I ought to be able to retire, but I can’t. I’ve had thirty years of managing other people’s money like it was my own while I managed my own money like I was the federal government.

*****

          I thought I had everything figured out when Henry sold his business to a company that traded on the NASDAQ exchange. I thought all my little personal financial transgressions would be fixed by a momentous bit of serendipity. The buyer came to us. One of their customers had recommended that they give us a look because the customer thought we knew what we were doing. We didn’t know what we were doing, but I guess it looked as though we did to someone.

Our sales were flat. We were having quality issues with a new design, and rework and warranty claims were costing us a fortune. Henry had already tried to shop the company around, but he had tried to do it without disclosing what kind of financial shape we were in. He was shopping us to another publicly traded group that was also one of our direct competitors. When I pointed out to him that, even if he did manage to generate some interest, they were going to expect to see his financials and to be able to come in and do due diligence on our books and records before they would settle any largess on him.

Henry knew that there would be two things that would happen if a competitor started nosing around our books. One, they would lose interest in buying us, and, two, before they had got very far they would know enough about our business to make it difficult for us to sell any more competing product. Sure they would sign a letter of intent with a non-disclosure clause, but that wouldn’t stop them from dropping a hint here or making a disparaging comment there when the heat was on in a potential sales deal. Henry would do it, and so would just about everyone else in our business. Henry backed off.

          Then one day comes this new company—also a competitor in one of it’s divisions—and its CEO. Let’s call him Ivan. They were a trucking company. They had already bought one boat company in Florida and wanted to diversify their product line. They thought we had a line that complemented their own products and would allow them to compete over a broader range of price points. They thought we were a good manageable size and that we had good potential for growth. Henry told them that he wanted $6 million for the company. They said they were interested at that price. They did their own due diligence. A lot of firms use consultants to do their due diligence, but consultants cost a lot of money and they sometimes tell you things you don’t want to hear. I believe that Ivan had already made up his mind that he was going to buy us and that he didn’t want any $1,200 dollar suits charging him a couple of hundred thousand dollars to tell him it was a bad idea. Ivan and Henry were cut from the same cloth.

          Henry was very excited. He thought he was going to cash out, have himself some real net worth for a change, and be able to pursue some other investment interests. He came to my office bubbling over with goodwill. The VP, Mike, was there. Henry sat down and started rhapsodizing about how he figured he’d finally made something out of all his scrabbling and worrying. He felt like Mike and I had been a big part of his success and he promised to give us a little something for our trouble when he finally had his money. “I’ll make it worth your while, if you know what I mean,” he said.

          Mike and I looked at one another. We knew exactly what he meant. He meant he needed us to help him do the deal and if he succeeded Mike and I were going to get the ‘bidness’. We’d both been there before. I decided I didn’t want to go there again. If Ivan was going to give Henry $6 million for a business upon which Henry had committed ‘bidness’, Mike and I deserved a fair share of the meringue without having to depend on Henry’s ethical sensibilities.

          I made a modest and logical proposal to Henry. I gave him the following facts:

1.     Since he had no remaining basis in the company, any cash he managed to get out of the deal was going to be taxable income to him.

2.     Absent any compelling business reason for his giving Mike and me any money, those payments were likely to be construed as non deductible gifts.

3.     Ivan’s company was surely going to want to structure the deal as a tax free exchange of stock, and to put some restrictions on Henry’s ability to sell the shares he got to avoid diluting the value of the shares they already had outstanding.

4.     The only way to make sure that Mike and I got the reward he was so generously offering was to give us a share of his valueless company now, before the sale, so that our distribution would come directly from the deal and not be dependent on Henry’s personal tax circumstances.

Henry bought it. I’m sure he didn’t want to, but he really had no choice. To balk would have been to admit that he really meant to stiff Mike and me when it came time to divvy up. He needed us to get the deal done. For the first time in my association with Henry—Mike’s too—I had him penned up and unable to cheat me out of what he had promised. Too bad I couldn’t have penned Ivan up at the same time, because he turned out to be every bit as slippery and duplicitous as Henry.

          Before Henry could change his mind I drew up all the necessary documents. We had a board meeting and a stockholders’ meeting, executed the appropriate notices and minutes, and signed, issued, and recorded stock certificates to Mike and me representing one twelfth of the company each. In an hour or so we had locked in a share of the deal, however it turned out, that Henry could not undo. There would be no ‘bidness’ as usual at the end of the road, not from Henry anyway.

          The rest of the deal was not nearly so easy as Henry had been. There was more back and forth than I imagined possible. Ivan’s people finished their due diligence in pretty short order. Everyone they sent to look us over had other things to do that they were anxious to get back to. Although they asked some hard questions and acted properly skeptical, for the most part it was a lick and a promise. They all knew the result Ivan expected and they weren’t about to deliver anything short of that. It was the negotiations over price and structure that got dicey.

          As soon as Henry understood that Ivan and his board were willing to give us $6 million, he decided that he hadn’t asked for enough money. Henry had thought they would give him $3 million. That’s why he asked for six. When they rolled over on six he decided that was too easy. He must have left money on the table.

          “Call Ivan and tell him we need twelve million,” he said to me.

That he’d already said he wanted six didn’t bother him a bit. It bothered Ivan of course. He thought we’d taken complete leave of our senses. Ivan told me to forget it then. “It was a stretch at six,” he said. It was a stretch at one, I thought; but then I didn’t know that we were going to be paid with smoke and mirrors.

We went through a lot of other machinations and maneuverings. I hired a law firm and a CPA to make sure we structured the sale to get the tax result we wanted and to make sure our private lender was protected. Our lawyers kept throwing their weight around at inopportune times. I think they were trying to justify their fees. They almost killed the deal several times by acting intractable on points that really mattered very little to us. I finally had to rein them in—one of them anyway—by yelling at him in a conference call with all the players in the deal.

I’m not used to having to do stuff like that. I hate yelling almost as much as I hate being yelled at. I am not a loud and assertive person by nature. I don’t think I should have to be. I’m a smart guy. People should pay attention to me because I have good sense and good ideas. I shouldn’t have to act like a jackass to get their attention, although sometimes I think that if I did I would make more money.

We finally got over all the hurdles. The deal died several times along the way, but whenever it did I resurrected it with sweet talk and the grace of good sense. When Henry went off on a jag, I placated him. When Ivan came up with a new twist to screw us, I found a compromise to make it palatable. I was motivated by my one twelfth share. I figured it was worth $500,000 to me. It should have been, but I had no notion of Ivan’s capacity to devalue it. I was just building castles in the air.

We were going to do a stock swap just as I had suspected. Ivan’s company would give us a number of shares equal to $6 million at the market bid price at the close of business the day before closing. At the last minute they wanted to make the whole distribution subject to an earn-out. This was not unexpected, but it wasn’t something we wanted to deal with. An earn-out meant the company would have to post profits for a period of time before the stock would be distributed to us.

We had never posted profits, but we had always thought that we could if we only had sufficient cash. I reasoned that, with Ivan’s executive team effectively taking over management, Henry wasn’t going to be able to tie up our cash flow anymore with his whacked out deposit deals. Besides Ivan’s Florida division, because it operated at a higher echelon of the market than we did, would give us access to markets we hadn’t been able to tap before. For this reason it also seemed reasonable that they would invest in improvements to our manufacturing efficiency and to our products.

We had already talked with them about these issues, and they were excited about the prospects for substantial profits under their guidance. We needed the deal so we took the earn-out. We might as well have walked away at that point. The end result was the same, and we wouldn’t have had to endure nearly so much heartache and abuse.

Day 48 - Joblessness, Homelessness, and Other Scary Prospects

          Today I redid my résumé and boiler-plated a couple of cover letters. I checked the job boards and updated my profiles yet again. The last time I went looking for work I used Career Builder and Monster. I still have accounts set up on both those sites. I added a new one called Indeed that somehow combines listings from multiple boards including Career Builder and Monster into one super board. This seems like the way to go to me. The more they do to make finding a job easy, the more I’m going to like it. I did a search to see what’s available. I limited the search to jobs that contain the words controller, CFO, and accounting. I further limited it to jobs paying over $100,000 annually. No sense taking a cut—at least I hope not. Who knows how bad the economy is really going to get? Still it’s early in the game to be lowering my expectations. Last year I made over $132,000 including a nice bonus. I need to do that well again to maintain my lifestyle—not that my lifestyle is very lavish.

I’ve got a huge amount of credit card debt, and just making the monthly minimums has kept me from accumulating any appreciable net worth for the last 20 years. It’s a sad tale, best saved for another time. I don’t like to talk about it or think about it. It’s depressing as hell—especially if you consider I have paid Bank of America something like $180,000 in interest over that period of time, and have nothing to show for it. 


(If you find yourself in a like situation, you may want to consider visiting Dave Ramsey's Web Site and taking advantage of the many resources he has available to help you get your financial life back in order.)

          
          The search yielded about 7 jobs worth looking at. None of them were stellar. That was kind of troubling, but even more problematic—the less than stellar jobs all wanted an MBA and/or an active CPA. I’ve only got a Bachelor’s degree, and I let my certification lapse. I shouldn’t have done that, but it’s too late now. I applied to the two best jobs, hoping that ‘former’ CPA and 30 years experience will make up for the short credentials.

I have to say this didn’t leave a very good taste in my mouth. Hopefully what I saw today was an anomaly. The last time I was looking, the job listings ran hot and cold in spurts. I’m still just testing the waters. Monday I have to get after this job search. I’ve only got 3 months of severance left. I still hope to book two incomes for a while, but if I don’t have a job by the end of January I’m going to have to move. At the current amount I’m paying for rent and utilities I’ll last about 6 weeks. Then I’m in a cardboard box under a bridge somewhere. I’m not ready for homelessness. That’s a scary damn prospect. 

Day 34 - Clothes Make the Man

          I’ve always been something of a dandy—not a fully realized one as that requires considerably more disposable income than I’ve ever been able to muster—but I do appreciate and wear nice clothes to the extent practical. I like to think that I’ve got a good eye for color and texture, and I’m not afraid to take a fashion risk. I was the first of all my friends to adopt and abandon bell bottom trousers, Nehru jackets, double breasted suits, pleated pants, suspenders, cowboy boots, black tee-shirts with a sports jacket, two-tone shirts, jewel-tone dress shirts, Hawaiian shirts, and a raft of others over the years. I came by this condition honestly. My dad liked to dress up as well, and had a collection of ties that I covet to this day. His dad, my grandfather, was a tailor by trade and was always immaculately turned out.

          It is with considerable excitement then that I set out to get myself a new suit. It is with considerable chagrin that I realize that I am going to have to spend more money than I am comfortable spending to dress myself in a fashion equal to my aspirations. Not having that kind of cash, I’m going to have to compromise. That means a trip to a discount clothier. Not so bad really, but under the circumstances I’d rather be able to deck myself out smartly—to look as successful as I think I need to feel to get the job I think I ought to have.

            There’s been a lot written and said about how to dress for an interview, a job, success. Most of it has been less than helpful in the situations in which I’ve found myself over the course of my career. What’s written and popularized in the press pertains to, as a rule, big firms in big cities. My experience has been with small firms in small cities, and in these places anything too fashionable is viewed with a certain amount of suspicion.

          A company in Alabama was a case in point. When I started there all the men in the finance department were required to wear ties. Jackets were optional, but a dress shirt and a necktie were the uniform of the day. The CFO at the time was an older gentleman, always impeccably dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and silk tie. The dress rule was his, and though there was some grousing from the good old boys, there was no real dissention. When the old gentleman CFO retired and the company brought in a younger, hipper, more assertive, and less gentlemanly replacement, the first thing to go was the necktie rule. A collective sigh of relief went up as the ties came off and the dress shirts were replaced with a diverse collection of colorful knits and short sleeves. Comfort was the new order of things, and given the Alabama propensity for 100 degree days from July into September not a minute too soon.

          I myself relished the new freedom. I spent a lot of time on the plant floor, and I felt that my effectiveness there was improved once I no longer had to worry about the possibility of ruining my ‘good’ clothes. Nothing spoils your day like getting machine oil on a $40 silk tie. Things went along swimmingly for a while, but gradually my internal sartorial discipline began to flag. This is perhaps because my waistline was expanding at an alarming rate, and the expense of accommodating it with ever larger clothing was getting to be a burden on the household budget. Rather than limit my intake of calories I opted for the less restrained but wholly more satisfying approach of buying cheaper clothes.

          So one day I found myself on the way to a meeting with executive management in the company of my boss, the division vice president—he resplendent in pressed wool slacks and a stunning sports jacket and me in a fleece sweater, brogans, and extremely commodious jeans. My boss took the opportunity to comment on my deteriorating mode of dress.

          “You know,” he said, “whenever someone asks me who is the baggy-pants clown that I’m always hanging out with, I have to tell them ‘That’s no clown. That’s my controller.’”

          I didn’t say anything at that point because, let’s face it, there was nothing I could say that would reflect well on my character. I could have advanced the arguments my children used on me when they were teenagers trying to get out of the house dressed as street toughs—‘It’s not how you dress that’s important; it’s what kind of person you are inside.’ As adults and parents we all understand that not only is that statement irrefutably true, it is utter bullshit. Why? For the simple reason that the world does not work that way. The world works on appearances. The world cares little for substance and character, nor has it since Machiavelli published The Prince in 1513. It is important to cultivate the appearance of character and virtue in the world, but if you want to prosper you need to stop short of actually possessing character and virtue. If it were otherwise accountants would flourish while politicians and salesmen would toil in oblivion.

          My boss went on, “If you would dress professionally you might be surprised to find that you are taken more seriously. You might even find that there is a place for you over in the corporate finance office. You’ve certainly got the talent. You just need to look the part.”

          Well there it was in plain language—Machiavellian principles fully realized in the less princely world of corporate America. You’re not going anywhere on talent and intelligence, not until you look the part. Appearance trumps ability…almost every time. The famous baseball player, Ted Williams, once said “I’ve found that you don’t need to wear a necktie if you can hit.” I wouldn’t say that this is the exception that proves the rule. The statement sounds remarkably similar to the arguments of my children. The only thing it proves to me is that baseball is not nearly the consummate metaphor for life that we would like it to be. It is a game played by boys who have never liked to wear ties. The workplace may like to talk about baseball around the water cooler or in the break room over coffee, but it is not an environment in which boys thrive who will not put on a tie and pretend to be grown-ups.

          I know when to take a suggestion. That night I went shopping on the way home from work. I stocked up on dress shirts, tailored slacks, and conservative neckties. Next day I showed up at work decked out in my splendid new duds. The reaction of my peers was less than comforting. Most thought that I must have scheduled a job interview. It occurred to me that if that’s what the executive management team thought, I probably wouldn’t be getting the kind of attention to which my boss had alluded. More likely I would be viewed with suspicion so long as I continued to overdress for my station. I was suddenly trapped between second and third, and baseball had become a more appropriate metaphor than I imagined just a paragraph ago.

          There is another apt Ted Williams quote: “God gets you to the plate, but once you’re there you’re on your own.”

          On my own I decided to keep wearing my new professional attire. If new clothes weren’t going to get me promoted, at least they seemed to be getting me noticed. If I wasn’t going to be taken seriously, at least I could keep them guessing. In the end I got the axe and the knit shirt boys got to stay. Sometimes it’s just hard to draw pertinent conclusions.

          An interview suit ought to be dark blue, either solid or in a muted pattern or stripe. In a pinch you may substitute black or dark grey. The shirt should be white. The tie should be striped. Everything I’ve read on the various job boards is in pretty specific agreement on these points. I don’t own a blue suit because I don’t look that good in blue. I do own a black suit, but I haven’t been able to button the jacket or the trousers for at least two years. This is the beginning of the compromises I am going to have to make.

          I don’t want to buy a blue suit because I don’t like blue suits. I don’t want to buy a black suit because I already own a black suit, and, like most overweight people, I live with the fantasy that one day I will begin to exercise and eat sensibly and lose the few pounds required to get back into my old clothes again. What I want to buy is a brown suit. I like brown. I’ve read that it is the new black. I think I know what that means, but I’m not sure that it was meant to apply to me. Because I like brown I’m going to apply it to me anyway.

          Job hunt gurus like blue because it is a sincere color. Wear blue and you come across as solid, substantial, sober, thoughtful, and mature. I’m not sure what brown says. No one has anything to say about brown because they’re all on the blue bandwagon. I think brown is sincere as well. I think brown is at least as sincere as blue—maybe more so, and here’s why. Every politician I’ve ever seen was wearing a blue, black or grey suit. Every stockbroker, banker, and insurance executive I’ve ever seen was wearing a blue, black or grey suit. Every lawyer I’ve ever seen was wearing a blue, black or grey suit. Now it’s just possible that in some utopian state of existence some of those politicians, stockbrokers, bankers, insurance executives, and lawyers may in fact be sincere, but the odds are certainly against it. Yet, owing to the blue, black or dark grey suits, all these charlatans appear to be sincere. There has to be a better litmus test for sincerity than the color of one’s suit if every scheming sneak thief bastard in the world is using his suit to proclaim his ethical worthiness.

I like brown. I think it is sincere, but even if it is not, at least it doesn’t proclaim sneak thief trying to look sincere or scam artist trying to disarm you with the appearance of inner merit. When I read over these last sentences and allow the full implications of what I think and what I’ve said to register, I begin to think that I may never get another job.

Day 33 - The Search Begins in Earnest

          At last the fever’s gone. The pain’s gone. I feel better than I have in ages. I went to the doctor today for blood work, urinalysis, and x-rays in preparation for Wednesday’s procedure. All the nurses and technicians were happy to see me. A place this friendly almost makes you want to stay sick forever.

          It’s time to start thinking seriously about getting a job now. I’ve updated my résumé and all the various information on the job boards relating to my experience, salary requirements, addresses, skills, etc. I’ve initiated automated job searches in several categories so that I will get updated lists of available jobs each morning. I’ve already started applying to jobs, but I haven’t really made a full time effort of it yet. I have, after all, been still working—up until Friday anyway. Now is the time to step up the effort. I’ll still be hampered somewhat by the continuing medical procedures to bust up the gravel in my kidneys, but I will have more time to devote to the search than I’ve had up until now.

          I also need to buy a new suit for any interviews I might get. I’ve put on enough extra pounds since I last had to dress for business that none of my suits fit anymore. I suppose I could try to lose some weight, but what if I get an interview right away? Better to get a new suit now and be ready.

Day 22 - Breaking More Rocks

          The second lithotripsy was a breeze. It’s only been a week since the first one. Everything looks good. I can keep using the stint that’s already in there. I’ve had a little discomfort from the stint, but it’s easily managed with the fabulous batch of oxycodone that the urologist prescribed for the pain. I’m still getting some blood in my urine, but it’s diminished. The doctor got all the rest of the stones in the right kidney.

          Life is good. If I only had a job it’d be damn near perfect. I called the Oklahoma recruiter to see what’s up with the Aerospace firm. She promised to call me as soon as she hears something. I’m beginning to think that if they were interested I’d have heard something by now. It’s easy when you’ve been fired to get eaten up by self doubt. It doesn’t matter how arbitrary the decision or how unfairly you think you were treated. At some point you’re going to begin to think that you had it coming to you.

Everyone knows that companies use economic downturns, reorganizations and the like that result in lay-offs to get rid of the bottom ten percent—the least productive and most incompetent of employees. That’s what they’re supposed to do anyway. Because people with all their prejudices, imperfections and frailties ultimately make the decision as to who will get fired, companies often get rid of very good employees along with the legitimate culls. I know this is so because I’ve seen it happen time after time—not just to me. Still when you’re on the receiving end of a reduction in force, you have to think that someone in management must have felt that you were not pulling your weight. Somehow you have to rise above these feelings of inadequacy every day in order to function, in order to get another job, in order to get past the set-back. The longer you go without work, the harder it gets to stay upbeat about your value to the rest of the world. Trust me...I know.

Day 19 - Back to Work

          I went back to work today. I’m feeling good. There have been no ill effects from the lithotripsy Friday.

Bill told me that my replacement starts next Monday. That will be the 1^st of the month so we’ll be jumping right into the month-end closing routines—baptism by fire for the new guy. I hope he’s a fast learner.

I went to the urologist this afternoon for a follow up. They did another x-ray. It sure seems like I’m getting a lot of those. Anyway, everything looked good, so the doctor decided that he will do the second lithotripsy this Friday. That’s quick turnaround, but he’s so pleased with the amount of sand I’ve passed already that he thinks I’ll tolerate the accelerated schedule. That’s okay by me. I’ll be happy to have all the doctoring over with so I can concentrate on getting another job.


Job prospects in general remain dim, but hope exists for those willing to risk a creative career change.

Day 14 - Exit Strategies

          I told Bill that I am going to take Thursday and Friday off this week—Thursday because I have an interview, and Friday because I am having some of my kidney stones blown up. He did a little double take over the interview news. Suddenly it’s feasible that I will get a job before they get my replacement hired. Then I will be unavailable for the all-important transition, and the new guy will have a terrible time settling himself into our recalcitrant and user-antagonizing systems.

The interview is going to be over the phone, so things with the aerospace firm haven not actually progressed to the point where I’m excited yet. I wasn’t about to tell Bill that though. Better to let him stew a little.

          Bill stopped by my office in the afternoon with a new draft of the severance agreement. I guess the prospect of my taking another job this soon got them rattled enough to speed up the severance deal anyway. Bill tried to get me to sign it while he was waiting. I told him I’d like to read it first. I asked him if I still had seven days from the new date in which to sign. I knew that I did, but I also knew he wasn’t going to relish hearing the question while he was busy trying to get me to sign it blind. I wondered secretly if, because I was deliberately trying to make him uncomfortable with his choices, I might also be a jerk. I decided that I was not. Bill said that they have made an offer to another candidate for my job, and they expect an answer today or tomorrow. I asked when the guy was likely to start. Bill didn’t know.

          “Soon, I hope,” he said, shaking his head. “Soon.