a questionable life

by Luke Lively

  “That’s clearly insubordinate,” Bill said.

  “No, I was just wondering if you really knew everything that happens here,” I said. “I bought a new tie—it has a golfer on it. Rex liked it, but I didn’t know if that was professional enough for Merchants. Since you know everything I was just asking for your advice.”

  “Let me give you some professional advice—don’t rock my boat,” he said. “I see a bad attitude in you, and I’m not going to let your poor attitude affect my team’s performance.”

  “Thanks for the professional advice, Bill,” I said. “I’ll keep it in mind. ‘Don’t rock Bill’s boat.’ Where does that fit in the MMMs? Should I put that one at the top of my to-do list?”

  “I’m not a gambler, but if I bet on anything, I would bet you won’t be here much longer,” Bill said. “If you keep that attitude, I promise I’ll make sure you don’t.”

  Things only got worse afterwards. While I had to put on a good front, I had never been a good actor. It was frustrating to hand over one hour of my meeting to Bridgett, who was called the “Kool-Aid Kid” by the majority of my team. While almost all of her presentation lacked value, if you failed to at least act like you understood the corporate culture, your career was in jeopardy.

  How important am I? I wondered.

  Sitting in the meeting room in the back corner gave me an almost out-of-body experience. If I got up and left, who would notice? How easily could I be replaced? Does anyone care anymore? With all of those questions ringing in my head, I looked down at my guidebook and saw Bill’s name. He is worse than Rex, I thought to myself. Bill is Merchants.

  Bill was a few years younger than me, six to be exact. I had met him face to face only one time. He was probably no more than five feet tall. So while I was just average height, I towered over him, but so did everyone else. Most of the people I had met since joining Merchants called him Napoleon; but not to his face. His features may have made him appear Napoleonic but unlike Napoleon, he was no leader. Of all the people I had met in Merchants, Bill concerned me the most. There was something about him that made you think, “What is he after?” I didn’t trust Bill, especially after challenging him. He was dangerous.

  The only job he had from the time he left college was Merchants Bank, just like almost every executive in Merchants Bank. Bridgett called it being “homegrown.” I thought it meant that Merchants execs were spawned from an incestuous professional breeding pool.

  While Bill had little field experience, other than several years as an office manager and a business lender, he had made sure he was at the right place at the right time. In a company that was far outgrowing its own internal “homegrown” talent as it bought bank after bank in rapid-fire deals, Bill was recognized for being both homegrown and decisive. And being decisive stood out in the Merchants system. Decisive meant he not only did everything exactly as he was told, but he somehow got results from following orders.

  If you cut Bill, he would spill the corporate blue instead of anything that looked like blood. I was certain he could recite each of the corporate Mission and Service declarations from memory.

  Unlike Rex, there was no ADD detectable in Bill—he was focused on looking good to the corporate executives. His real skill and talent was for taking credit for the right decisions and being able to blame the faulty decisions on others.

  To maintain control of the Merchants culture, Bill’s job was much more like a policeman than a coordinator.

  While I reported directly to Rex, Bill’s name had a strong dotted line on the organizational chart to me. His job was to ensure his assigned cities and regions would hit their performance targets. While Merchants had grown in size, the real value of the stock remained pegged to growth in profits. As he loved to remind me every month, “Everything comes down to numbers.”

  To my detriment, the numbers had worsened over the past year. Behind the numbers was a near mass defection of the PT&G managers I had relied on for years. The best had left for greener pastures, with competitors willing to offer more money and less pressure. Without anything to hold them, like my bonus, they left and took as much business with them as they could to impress their new employers.

  I’m stuck with my employment contract, pretending to be part of Merchants, I thought as I continued to survey the room. Chad had left for Arizona, taking millions of dollars with him. I was the only executive from PT&G left to hold things together. I was getting tired of trying to work miracles.

  But Bill expected one.

  “And now Jack will review the reports for this month,” Bridgett said. It was my turn to take the stage and do my best to recite Bill’s talking points.

  After a PowerPoint presentation furnished by Bill’s team, showing our team as the worst in Merchants, I felt another twinge of pain across my chest, and I opened the floor for questions. I sat down on a folding table to field questions. The Q&A was very important in Merchants culture. Bridgett kept notes of who asked what. The questions were not as important as the questioner’s attitude. If the question was perceived as “questioning corporate culture,” Bridgett would notify Bill. “Bad attitudes equal bad numbers,” was something Bridgett often quoted. It was not quite Big Brother, but it was getting close.

  As I looked out into the room, I saw only a small number of faces of dedicated PT&G managers. I was dealing with a group of newbies—outsiders who had been brought in to fill the void left after the PT&G exodus. I felt alone. Still looking into the crowd, I saw a hand go up.

  It was Bruce.

  Bruce Kellogg was one of the newbies who had tried to paint himself as a Merchants clone. He nicknamed himself “Special K.” At first, everyone thought it was cute, but he used it to the point of annoyance. No one wanted to hear him speak in his weird third-person manner.

  “I’m Special K, and I’m here to save the day!” This was just one of his overused, self-promoting raps pulled from his repertoire. While no one liked it (other than Bridgett) in Philly, Bill loved it. Bruce’s attempts to be a Merchants kind of guy were working with the right people. He was now the highest performer in Philly on paper.

  I couldn’t stand him.

  “Jack, Special K has a quick question! I was wondering why we are having such a problem opening new accounts in Philly,” he said, seeing his name at the top of several reports in new accounts and wanting to make sure everyone realized he was the best on our team. “My team isn’t having any problems—if they have a doubt, Special K throws it out.” Much of the room did their best to avoid rolling their eyes.

  Before I could respond by pointing out that even though he was the best in our team, he was well below the company average, Bridgett jumped in and asked, “Special K, could you please share your success story with us?”

  “Special K is happy to share his success with everyone!” he said. You could hear the entire room groan. “It’s a super success story!”

  Success stories were something Merchants loved us to share, supposedly to motivate the team. But just like most stories, they were fictional. I could see this was something Bridgett and Bruce, the Merchants clones, had worked out ahead of time. Fifteen minutes into Special K’s storytelling, I felt another twinge of pain radiate from my chest into my neck. I winced. When is he going to shut up? I thought.

  After Bridgett and Bruce finally finished their preplanned impromptu performance, I ended the meeting, reminding everyone to “Never stop being the best!” This was another Merchants’ piece of scripting. I had hoped it was the last time I had to utter those words.

  It was.

  The world we live in is between our ears.

  —BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PRICE

  16. Who Cares?

  “WHO CARES?”

  I could almost hear my words echoing in the room. After finishing the staff meeting, I had returned to the top floor to meet with Rex. As usual, Rex was late for a meeting he called. As I sat and looked around at the space Chad had occupied as PT&G CEO (and the office I had intended to m
ove into) now cluttered with golf decor, I remembered one of the many strategy meetings we’d had in the office.

  “Who cares?” I had responded to Chad. “We’re going to make a ton of money in fees.” The conversation was one of many that played into the hands of Chad’s greed. I had told Chad about my idea for charging higher overdraft fees to the bank’s less fortunate clients. “Higher fees won’t drive good clients away—they never overdraw their accounts. But the people who overdraw their accounts don’t have an option; they will pay the fee and go on with their lives. It’s a penalty fee, not a service,” I argued. “They’re stuck, and we have every right to make money from the situation.”

  “I’m not so sure I agree,” Chad said, trying to mask his lack of care as a client advocate. “Can you imagine someone on a limited income getting charged three hundred dollars in fees because they overdrew their account by a penny? It doesn’t sound fair, Jack.”

  “Who cares about fair?” I said. “That’s business.”

  “That’s business,” I said aloud as I looked around Rex’s golf museum. Merchants had probably spent twenty thousand dollars decorating his office. It bore little resemblance to the space Chad had inhabited for years.

  I had trusted Chad. I had literally done everything he asked me, much of it bordering on unethical behavior. The debate over fees and fairness was basically staged. I was given information by Chad prior to the meeting and told to come up with a plan to increase income. This was a familiar role-play that grew out of the give and take in our work relationship. I did his dirty work and expected payment, but accepted promises. The promises disappeared when he sold the company to Merchants. He got what he wanted and left everyone else behind. I felt betrayed, as if I had been sold.

  Most of my team had left for greener pastures. Now I had an opportunity to do the same. But I didn’t want to quit. Aside from the money, I had something to prove to Merchants. Hearing Rex talking outside his office I decided that I would stick with Merchants, no matter what.

  Working with Benny was not an option. Jack Oliver wasn’t a quitter.

  Still waiting for Rex to enter, I saw a thick document package on the edge of Rex’s desk. It was from the corporate offices and even sitting back from the desk looking at it upside-down, I could see the RE: JACK OLIVER on the packet. Rex opened the door.

  “Jack, how ya doin’?” Rex said, entering the room as I stood up to shake his hand. He looked away and stepped behind his desk without shaking my hand. Classic ADD, I thought to myself.

  “I’m doing okay,” I said, still standing and anxious to get back to work with a renewed vigor for the first time in months. I felt a new focus and wanted to tell Rex.

  “I appreciate you dropping in. We should spend more time together, but I’ve been so damn busy,” he said, shaking his head and adjusting the golf balls sitting in a stand beside his desk. Without blinking he changed the subject. “Did you see Phil blow it yesterday? Mickelson is one of the best but gambles way too much.”

  Not knowing exactly what he was talking about, I said, “I didn’t watch any TV yesterday.”

  “You missed a heck of a golf tournament,” he said, shifting his gaze to the stack of golf magazines on the floor behind his desk. He picked up Golf Digest with Phil Mickelson on the cover.

  “Mickelson could have won twice as many golf tournaments if he had been able to control his urges to do too much with a shot,” he said. “Mickelson is in some ways a lot like you.”

  The comparison took me by surprise. Was he actually making a comparison of me to a golfer? Had he planned it as part of our meeting? I hated the game. “Like me?” I asked, still searching for an understanding of where he was taking the conversation.

  “Yes—it’s a lot like your difficulty assimilating into the Merchants culture,” he said, looking over my shoulder at something that caught his attention, distracting him for a moment. “I think Phil Mickelson is a good comparison. He’s got all of the skills but he lacks one thing—discipline. Phil wants to play the game Phil’s way instead of just playing along like everyone else. He tries to change the game, attempting shots that no one can hit. That’s when he makes mistakes. I think that’s your problem, Jack. You’re a gambler, and you think you can exert your will to change something you don’t like. All you have to do is play the game, but that’s the problem. You don’t like the game, do you?”

  While I would have never admitted it, he was right. But how do I respond to a golf analogy? I waited to see what he would say.

  “The game changed. I understand your frustration—I really do. You would have been CEO of PT&G. Chad told us he had groomed you for that position. But he also told us you were stubborn and would likely have problems fitting in at Merchants. He was right. You were great under the old rules and the old game, but this is something new.”

  My anger got the best of me. “I’m still a damn good banker but you won’t listen to me. We have lost our best people. Your company laid off people who were told they wouldn’t be laid off. The employees here in Philly don’t trust Merchants. Now you talk about my problems? I want to work and do my job. So why don’t you trust me and let me do it?”

  “I don’t trust you, Jack,” he said, looking around the room as if he was gazing at a buzzard circling over me. “For one thing you just said this was my company. Guess again—you’re part of Merchants now, but you don’t think so, and that’s one reason I don’t trust you. But there’s a much more compelling reason. The reason I don’t trust you is because the last thing Chad told me before he left Philadelphia was to not trust you. He told us about your affair with a bimbo that works at a coffee shop. He said it cut into your hours. He also said you would do anything to get ahead. I haven’t seen anything to think any differently than what Chad told me.”

  I was stunned. “Chad said that?” I asked. “Let’s call him and see if he’ll admit to that.”

  “It will do no good,” Rex said, smiling. “He’s probably out on the golf course right now, where I would love to be. But you really can’t deny any of that, can you?”

  He was right. I couldn’t deny anything he had just said without opening even more problems. “I wish you were playing golf, Rex,” I said, picking up a miniature golf club from his pen holder. “Then I could be doing some good for Merchants and you would be to.”

  He glared at me. “What are you implying?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I meant it exactly how I said it. By the way, no one trusts you—especially me. I hope that clears the air.”

  “No, it doesn’t, but this will I’m sure,” he said, pulling a document from the envelope I had noticed before Rex entered the office. “I thought while you were in here alone you might take a look at it.” He slid the stapled bulk of papers across the desk with his right hand while simultaneously reaching into his desk drawer and pulling a document from it.

  “What’s this?” I asked, picking up the document. Then I saw the title. It was a Performance Enhancement Plan or PEP as they referred to it at Merchants. It was basically a written warning, a document that would be placed in your personnel file for anyone of consequence to see. The warning positioned Merchants to be able to begin a process of delivering warnings that would ultimately end with the termination of the employee.

  “Jack, take your time and read it—then we can discuss it,” he said as he began to look at his copy.

  I leaned back and began to read the PEP. In my entire career I had never been “warned” or told I was “less than satisfactory” in anything. I had always been a star performer until Merchants. I could not believe what I was reading. The document asked me to complete a near thesis-type plan on how I was going to reach goals that were realistically impossible. It was like being shoved out of an airplane and told to fly. I did not have a parachute.

  I felt like I was ready to implode. My face was red hot, and my head began to hurt. “You know the challenges I’ve faced. Why are you doing this?” As I said the words I remembered the same p
hrase being said to me years earlier—by Henry—a man I fired for no apparent reason.

  “Honestly, you asked for it with your bad attitude. You said too many negative things about Merchants to the wrong people. You’re formally on notice. If you don’t improve, you will be released.”

  I wanted to say a million things, but none of them would be correct. I stared at the document. A quick pain shot across my chest. I kept looking down at the document even though I had quit reading it. My vision was blurred.

  “I’m sorry it’s coming to this, but you’re being given one last chance,” Rex said. “I know a lot of people still look to you for leadership here in Philly. I need you, Jack, on the team—but working for me, not against me. Understood?”

  I knew the process required for a PEP to take effect. I turned to the last page, pulled a pen from my jacket pocket, and signed and dated the document. “Do you have a copy for me?” I asked.

  Rex slid the copy he was holding across the desk as I slid the original back to him. “Now, I’ll wait for your plan. If you need any help, you know where to find me.”

  I got up with the copy and didn’t look at Rex. Instead I saw a picture of Ben Hogan in a framed picture by the door and stopped and looked at it. As if he had forgotten everything that happened, Rex turned his attention to the photo. “You like that photo? It’s my favorite. Ben autographed it, and I bought it on eBay. I got a good deal on it.”

  I read what was barely legible on the old photo above the golfer’s signature. “I don’t really care about the photo, but I like what he wrote. ‘Never give up!’ I think that’s something to think about,” I said.

  “Yeah, Ben made one of the greatest comebacks ever,” Rex said. “That’s something you should think about.”

  As I left the room I heard Rex’s secretary tell him Bill Hopkins was holding on the phone for him. I felt like I was a time bomb and the last second had just ticked. Somehow I made it to my office in the far corner of the building.