Friday, April 17, 2009

I haven't written on this since I "retired".  I really didn't retire.  My boss and his partner were given a 2 year contract with a large corporation.  They were allowed to form their own company under their roof and had 2 years to show they could produce revenue and potentional for future revenue.  After 2 years the parent company could either renew their contract for another year or pull the plug.  Well they pulled the plug and we (8 of us) were all terminated, including my boss.  I had never wanted to retire and had always said that it would be taken out of my hands.  He (the boss) has a name that is still considered good in the investment banking business.  Most of the people remember him as a hot shot banker that had done one of the biggest mergers in the Media industry 20 years ago.  However, he is no longer that hot shot and has become lazy and hasn't done a big deal in the past 10 years, but they don't seem to know this.  He is very wealthy and very frugal.  His money is invested wisely and he hasn't been affected by our current recession.  He was offered several new jobs and accepted the one he felt most comfortable with.  

He called me into his office and said "You know you can come with me to P's if you want, but you'd have to take a big cut in salary.  You make much too much money and they don't pay that kind of money.  I looked at him and thought fast and told him that I appreciated the fact that he wanted me to go with him but that I was tired and really couldnt do this anymore.  I didn't feel like getting into a discussion about money because I realized at that moment that I didn't want to work for him anymore and that it had been taken out of my hands.  I made him look good in the weeks that followed when all the clients and vendors we had dealt with over the 20 years we had worked together asked "why wasn't I going with him".  They were shocked  He was able to say "H is retiring".  Hence the word retire has become the key work in ending our relationship.''

I had hoped for a decent monetary settlement but he and his wife presented me over lunch in a very nice restaurant with much fan fare with a huge box from Jay Mendel.  The entire restaurant was privvy to my embarrassment of having to open this box, remove a very beautiful mink coat, put it on so they could see how I looked in it and have all that watched clap.  I so DID NOT need this coat, but there was nothing I could do but accept it because it was the first time in 20 years that I have witnessed him doing something where he actually got pleasure in "giving".  

I'm getting tired so I'm ending this now.  Tune in again