Letters To My Heart - Once Loved Company

This is another installment in my new book, Letters To My Heart.

To The Once Loved Company

How can anyone say they loved a company? Don't companies suck their employees dry, leaving the husks propped up in front of televisions watching ads for Fabreze? Aren't all government agencies stooges for their corporate masters? Don't corporate lobbyists no bother hiding their succubus relations with politicians? Surely only a fool or a madman could claim they ever “loved” a corporation in such a time.

I am both a fool and a madman. I can unashamedly say I did, in fact, once love a company. I loved it in the same way a son loves his father, with respect and longing for that father's pride in his accomplishments. You know who you are beloved one, or rather you know who you were. I do not need to write your name. You were one of eight major accounting firms that gave opinions on the financial well being of all the world's major organizations around the globe. You were the only one of these to be founded in the USA. You were created from the integrity of AA, a Norwegian immigrant proud to be a US citizen, a man who drank buttermilk, who was noted for saying, “Think straight, talk straight”; a man who was famous for turning away business when he did not feel it met his standards for honesty. His word became the gold standard for a company's financial well being. If AA said it was so, you could take it to the bank, and many did.

I loved you for what you stood for, for the way you acted, for the way you both challenged and nurtured those lucky enough to work for you. You were a company that placed honesty, trust, customer service and the public good ahead of short term profit. Your management team seemed to be made up of mentors, not preying mantises – men interested in building for the long term rather than voraciously devouring everything; their self respect, the respect of those who loved them, their very souls, for short term profit. At least, that is how I once saw it. Today that the company I once loved is no more. Like Patroclus at Achilles' funeral pyre, I weep for the passing of a giant.

You were my home as I traveled the world for decades. Under your not-always-kind but ever-challenging tutelage, an Iowa hayseed gained the courage and confidence to speak as an equal with the men in dark blue suits – those shadowy figures who always seem to lurk behind the figureheads who pretend to lead the world's governments. You gave me an opportunity to speak with the senior ministers of the Queen, the ancestral leader of a faded but once glorious empire – an empire upon which “the sun never set.”

It was heady stuff for someone born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I came to you in a corduroy suit and you showed me how to wear Dormeuil as casually as if it were the coveralls my Grandfather wore while pinching the suckers off tomato plants in the dusty fields of his farm in Glendale. I came to you loving fried chicken livers, and became an expert in the varieties of pate with a special affection for foie gras. I came to consider it my right to dine and wear the finest the world had to offer. After all, I was engaged in projects that would change the world, making it a better place for all mankind. Perhaps I was one of the chosen, those blessed with skills that allowed me to do things others could not, but once luxury turned into a right rather than a gift, a seed of discontent was sown in my new garden of delights.

I knew how to drink and party before I came to you. The money you gave me allowed me to upgrade. Black Velvet and Old Grandad were replaced by Johnny Walker and Laphroaig. I traded the teeth grinding buzz of white cross, the trucker's speed, to the buffered high of pink hearts and black beauties. I tried to save my heaviest drinking and drugging for the weekend, but surely you must have noticed my bleary eyes and dragon breath on more than one occasion. There were numerous times I, and my some of my co-workers, should have stayed at home; but, driven by the madness of a work-hard-play-hard philosophy we drove ourselves ever harder. We thought we lived in a world where “up or out” meritocracy was the only reality, and we were determined not to be one of those tossed aside.

My manic drive for success worked, for a time. I found myself on the fast track. I made manager in three years, when it normally took five. When you notified me of my accomplishment, I tried to act grateful, but inside I thought, “It's about time you realized the true talent of the one before you.”

As if sensing my thoughts you sent me on a tour of the world, with CR, a former director of personnel, who had known AA personally. We traveled the world studying the Firm's culture – the shared values – the glue that held all your offices together across nations and people spanning every continent. I led interview sessions with all levels from country managing partners to new staff. I wrote a report grandly entitled, A Question Of Balance. I don't know if anyone caught the reference to the Moody Blues, but I enjoyed making it. The report described the challenges facing you – challenges that were threatening to tear you apart – mostly competition for power and control among different countries, practice areas and “leaders” of the different areas.

We presented the report to your Board of Partners, the ones charged with preserving AA's legacy and ensuring your long term health. The report suggested ways to address the cracks that were appearing your foundation. It made an impassioned plea for balance and a return to first principles, the integrity and honesty embodied in AA's simple edict, “Think straight. Talk straight.” MS, the Chairman of the Board of Partners, and Head of the European, Middle East and African practice areas said, “This is one of the finest reports, I have ever read.”

It seemed that I was poised for the ultimate dream – entry into the hallowed fellowship of the Partners of AA. I was very proud that I might become a peer of the men who helped create the world's premier Firm in it's field. I came to believe that I deserved it, that it was my due, that the partnership was owed to me as a result of my immense talent. Any humility or gratitude in my heart was crowded out by a sense of pride and self-righteousness. Cracks were widening in my psyche just as they were in your cultural foundation.

The fractures in your foundation did not heal. Those responsible for carrying your dream forward were unable to keep the gaps from widening. Your bedrock, the part of you founded on AA's principles met an ignoble end. Mavericks, masquerading as members of your Partnership, “cooked the books” for E, a huge energy conglomerate in Houston, to make a buck. They lied and said E's stock was worth much more that it was. Thousands of innocent people, including my father and brother, lost their pensions. You, dear company; you, whose word was once the gold standard for honesty, perpetuated a fraud that scammed the public of billions. Those who once trusted your word lost faith in it, your opinion was no longer worth the ink used to print the glowing lies about E's financial health.

As for me, I was not even aware of the chasms opening in my heart and mind. I used my position to dominate others, within and outside of your walls. More drugs and power made it easy to overlook the fact that treating others as objects, meant that I was becoming an object myself. But the effort was exhausting, and each affair left me feeling more empty than the one before. Every time I forced others to do as I wanted, I was left feeling a little bit emptier.

I got a respite when I met MB, beautiful, wonderful MB, the one who showed me how to laugh and love after years of being alone. We opened our hearts to each other. As we grew in intimacy, my career was really taking off as well. I was asked to write the methodology for a new practice area. It was praised around the world, and I was sent to train offices across the globe in the new practice area. For a time, it felt like I had it all – golden boy with a career filled with promise and a beautiful woman at my side.

The promise was a false one. In what was one of the greatest ironies of my life MB was taken from me, or perhaps she just chose to leave. Who can say?

JL, your CFO, took an interest in MB and she took an interest in him. She ricocheted back and forth between us for two years. JL was married or she likely would have married him. Perhaps it would have been kinder to all of us if she had.

Driven mad by frustrated love, alcohol and drugs, I escaped to Dallas. I helped start a new practice area and was doing well even though my heart was dark as a moonless night. Then, after several months, MB called.

“I miss you,” she said.

I coughed. “Yeah, I miss you too.”

I heard her sniff. “You still love me?”

I froze, but heard myself say, “Of course, how could I not?”

“I want to come to Dallas,” she said.

“You know you are welcome to stay with me,” I mumbled.

There was a pause and then I heard, “There's just one thing.”

“Yes?”

“We have to get married.”

I was so lonely that I would have done anything to get MB back into my life. I quickly agreed. MB and her son AJB moved down and for three months we were married.

It was not to last. JL found reasons to come to Dallas. He and MB renewed their love, and likely made love in the same bed MB and I shared. JL divorced his wife and three months after we were married, MB left me. Words like devastated, crushed, and suicidal are too small for the grief I felt. I spent hours each night, staring into the dark, hoping that some miracle would cause me to stop breathing and end a misery so sharp that each inhalation felt like knives stabbing my soul.

You, beloved company, soon offered me a distraction. You said, “Pull yourself together. Go abroad. Work on the DHSS project in the UK.” JC, my managing partner, promised me partnership if things went well. I went. Things went well. I did not make partner.

Enraged, I left you, and buried my pain in banks of snowy cocaine. I was filled with a sense of being wronged and could not see how my reliance on external things kept me from any sense of internal peace. Internal peace was the far from my mind. I was more concerned with filling my bank account finding the best drugs money could buy.

I worked as an independent consultant. I did ever larger amounts of drugs. I wrecked havoc for those foolish enough to hire me, like JS and her company M. I stayed high on cocaine whether I was working or not. Often I was high in meetings with JS, M employees and their clients – state officials.

“Why not?” I thought. I had been betrayed by you, dear company, the one whom I once held in the greatest esteem. Now, I was nothing but a money grubbing consultant, like all the rest. I could not see how drugs and self pity had transformed my life into a world of black and white, and good versus evil.

I felt evil, but myself pity allowed me to see myself as a victim in a tragic play. Like Faust, I had made a deal with the devil, who tempted me with wealth and power. I had succumbed to the temptation, now I would die. I deserved to die. I wanted to die. I welcomed the end.

I would have died, but JS made a panicked call to SP, a lifelong friend. SP flew down and took me home to his house. He saved my life and placed me in treatment.

That was 20 years ago. This year I celebrated two decades of freedom from recreational use of drugs or alcohol. I also celebrated 10 years of freedom from kidney cancer, following the removal of my left kidney on 9/11/2001. Sadly, this year my marriage of 16 years ended. The pain from that often overshadows the happiness I should feel about the other anniversaries.

This year also marks the 10 year anniversary of the end of my second career with you. I went back to you after I got sober. That renewed career ended on 9/11/2001 when mental illness and your inability to accommodate it, meant that we had to part ways. The persistence of my dream of winning your favor astonishes me. Like gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe, I don't seem to be able to free myself from you.

My employment with you and your policies about what I am allowed to do after I left you define me and my future even now. Today, I would like to find out if I can do some part time work of the kind I used to do for you. You have a non-compete clause that may prevent this. Your staff do not seem to know the answer. Additionally, your LTD policies, may seek to take away my LTD benefit if I do any work that is remotely similar to that I once performed for you. Since my former work included all kinds of writing, visualizing, presentations, etc. I can scarcely think of anything that does not seem similar to the work I used to perform. Does my novel trangress the boundary of illegal work? How about my screenplay? Would doing a research paper for school or another company violate the LTD or non-compete clauses? When I think of these questions, and the fact that your agents seem unable, (or are being coached not to?) to answer them, I despair.

I want and need to do some part time work if I can do it without medical risk. Divorces are expensive, and my mental illness has not improved my money management skills. My cognitive skills still seem relatively sound – so long as I stay close to my doctors and avoid excessive stress. When we last parted ways in 2001, I offered to return to work as a manager rather than as an Associate Partner. I offered to accept less money and lower responsibilities so that I could keep healthcare benefits and keep an income stream. Instead, the only option offered seemed that I accept LTD. I accepted it. Now I want to live my life and be as productive as possible while doing so. I hope that you and your agents will help me do this. I do not want to be a burden to you or society, but at times it seems that you are more concerned about reducing your medical overhead. I accept this, but I hope that we can find a way forward that helps us both, I truly do. Next week, I will meet with yet another lawyer to try and figure out the best way forward. I do not know how things will turn out. Perhaps I am simply being stubborn and bull headed. Perhaps once again my self-righteous nature is overriding any gratitude and humility. I hope this is not the case. I truly do.

I have found creative outlets to help address the stress of dealing with these issues. I believe I still have a lot to offer my chosen profession – for example, I am working on a model of hypomania that could be used as a focal point for discussions among sociologists, psychologists and psychiatrists. I have shared it with a former research fellow at a major university. He said it is very interesting, and that it is worth pursuing further. Does my creating this model violate one of your policies or a provision of your LTD policy? Must I fear that thinking of such things or writing them down puts me at financial risk?

Please let me know if you can help. Also, let me know what I can do to make amends to you and any of your employees or clients that I have harmed. Often I am tempted to believe you are conspiring against me or that you do not have my best interests at heart. I cannot afford this kind of thinking. If I want to continue living, I cannot harbor hatred or anger toward you – it kills all joy in my life. The joy of life is very precious to me these days. In truth, it is all I have that is of any real value. Please help me to preserve it.