Life at Up Up and Away Investment Management International: Chapter 18 An eager beaver fool

Chapter 18

The eager beaver fool

When I joined Up Up and Away Canada it was new to the Canadian marketplace as an investment manager. When you join a new player in the market your enthusiasm can be extremely high particularly when you start winning business in a significant and impressive way.

Up Up and Away Canada required a client to have an asset base of $600,000,000 but its initial wins were accounts in the billions. The local investment management firms in Toronto were getting blasted off their feet by Up Up and Away Canada. As Up Up and Away in New York had many clients with subsidiaries in Canada those subsidiaries were flocking to Up Up and Away Canada. It was easy money!

So why was Up Up and Away Canada kicking ass in the market? Primarily because it had a small, highly motivated and driven Canadian employee base willing to go the extra mile and be part of a winning and growing corporation. This contrasted with the Canadian investment management firms that were rather clubby and old boyish and took savage competition as anti-Canadian. They realized rather late that Up Up and Away Canada was a powerful, aggressive and competitive force. In a matter of years Up Up and Away Canada had established itself as a major player in the market. The Toronto old boys club were caught with their pants down! Their mismanagement in failing to realize the threat of Up Up and Away Canada in the Canadian marketplace resulted in them losing many accounts and then terminating hundreds of jobs.

When you work for a gangbuster firm new in the market and you had a charismatic and down to earth CEO that gave a damn about employees and did not hesitate to promote and praise employees you give it your best.

I will admit I was caught up in the euphoria for 5 or so years staying late often arriving home in the early morning. I was negotiating big time high value contracts and getting a pat on the back and a promotion or two and was participating in the incentive plan which was of course chicken shit in comparison to what the Canadian and New York Senior Management Team was raking in. I was enjoying myself. I felt I was contributing, so I busted my butt.

I recall initially how small Up Up and Away Canada was. We all knew each other and celebrated our successes. We had regular quarterly update meetings with a free lunch thrown in. We would celebrate wins. We would celebrate promotions. There were separate adult and children’s Christmas parties. There were golf tournaments with clients. Money and success were flowing. Then the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008 suddenly changed everything.

By 2008 Up Up and Away Canada in Toronto had expanded to Montreal and Vancouver and was becoming a Canadian largecorp. Up Up and Away in New York had decided to outsource to Up Up and Away Canada a whole host of administrative functions due to the cheap Canadian dollar. India was not quite in fashion then as an outsourcing destination. Unfortunately after a few heady years Up Up and Away’s Canadian CEO had been terminated. His generosity and spirit were a bit alien to the tough New York boys particularly as Canadian operations had somewhat peaked and Up Up and Away Canada had little room for growth after capturing so much of the marketplace.

The mass terminations started a few months after the Lehman Brothers collapse. In one particularly spooky moment I was talking to my Up Up and Away American friend, Anne Kolodny, who had a solid Up Up and Away American Human Resources Department contact. That contact had advised her a big termination event had been planned in New York and Philadelphia for the next day. Offices were being booked for hundreds of New York and Philadelphia terminations. We said we would touch base the next day. Anne was terminated before we could have our conversation. I was devastated. A long-term friend and brilliant lawyer gone in the bat of an eyelash. I suppose in your late 50’s you have a bull’s eye on your forehead.

Morale at Up Up and Away started to plunge. I gave a moment’s reflection about my performance which was always solidly rated yet my boss Sally Self had never acknowledged or thanked me. Not only that I had filled in for her maternity leave and for those of colleagues ( and three disability leaves) without so much as ever receiving thanks for that hugely stressful feat. Can you imagine playing outfield on the baseball diamond on the parent’s association baseball championship for my son’s school with a Blackberry stuck to my ear trying to close out a deal in Scotland while filling in for a maternity leave?

My attitude began to change quickly. I felt abused and manipulated let alone massively overworked. I decided to be 9-5. And like when I was working with CRAP it really didn’t make a difference. Perhaps it was because our new hire, Shalla Makmood, announced she was pregnant several weeks after we hired her. Sally and Shalla were both young mothers and that sort of left me with no common connection to Self and Shalla really played that connection up. If Shalla was 9-5 I was going to play that game. What a fool I had been to fritter away my time for 5 years on late night deals. I felt I had cheated my children out of a father. No more. Fuck off Up Up and Away!.

If You are travelling and ill best not to lie!

Read the link below and think again by lying about your condition if you or your spouse thinks you are COVID contaminated and you conceal that before you board a plane. If anyone on that flight is sickened or dies it could be a possibility the knowing wife (0r husband) may face a manslaughter charge as an accessory to the death. Aside from criminal responsibility bear in mind a civil suit could wipe out the liar’s family wealth.

There seems to be truth to the maxim “Liar Liar your pants are on fire”.

https://sfist.com/2020/12/18/california-bound-passengers-on-united-flight-being-informed-of-possible-covid-exposure-after-man-dies-onboard/?fbclid=IwAR2bdUGUqwZro_-Q7wpOMjEKO9zi4lUACv33bTjywEXJ135g4U65cJqsU90

So Where Goes Donald Trump?

Do you recall President Donald Trump stating if he lost the election he would move from the United States? As he is not an essential worker the borders to Canada will be closed for him. Aw, what a shame! As he is not an imperial lifelong ruler it is doubtful Russia or China will welcome him. He is now a refugee from power. Well not exactly yet until his coup d’etat plans fail. Was it , “Stand back and stand by” or “Stand by and stand back ?”

As a travel agent and an entrepreneur I have a plan. With my secret sources I have an idea I have yet to work out with my non existent North Korean sources. But whomever the current leader of North Korea is will welcome the Trumper as a “special advisor for global relationship building” for the North Korean government.

Trump will receive a special permit to build a golf course at an unspecified North Korean location and build a resort to build up a sadly lacking North Korean tourist industry where guests will be assured complete privacy from spying.

There will be a television show “Feeding the Sharks” where political dissidents will be offered the chance to win freedom by swimming a lap in a shark infested pool. If they survive they will win their freedom. Not quite “The Apprentice” but a great idea for a reality show.

Melania Trump will be offered a fashion contract to design new uniforms for the North Korean army.

Barron Trump will be honorary comrade of the North Korean Young Pioneers to teach them golf to compete with the successful war mongering South Korean golfers.

American beef farmers, faced with a growing American vegetarian market, will be offered North Korean grants to teach bovine breeding and management to North Korean farmers to ease the burden on the North Korean bourgeois dogs being currently slaughtered for meat protein to try and mitigate the current North Korean famine.

It is going to take money to “relocate” DJT but I am planning a crowd funding effort to make this happen.

If I only had this idea years ago I could have starred on “The Apprentice” so I am trying to fraise funds on “Shark Tank” assuming they give me air time.

As for Mike Pompeo and Vice President Pence I am still working on plans for those esteemed gentlemen. But for Pence it may be a reinforcement training for subservience to political leaders and for Pompeo a training position for how to be a political bully in international politics.

Stay tuned!

Symptoms of COVID Distress: Don’t fall prey to the PIG embedded in COVID

I had written yesterday rather tongue and cheek about COVID Fatigue (CF). With CF one can experience a range of emotions but CF will mean you are not mentally distressed to the degree you require help from mental health professionals. As a journalist I simply can’t give you a diagnosis if you are suffering from COVID Distress (CD) as that you must obtain from a mental health professional. There are a multitude of phone lines and on-line tools to assist you in recovering or mitigating CD. However actually seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist in these days of COVID is very difficult given the rising caseload they are dealing with.

With so many resources being thrown to plague management an already inadequately funded mental health system is struggling to deal with CD and for that matter even the regular health system is faltering due to cancellation/reduction of very serious surgeries. COVID-19 is a merciless pig sucking up resources and in effect transferring mortality to the population not infected by COVID because of its inadequate resources.

One common theme I hear from what I read on COVID and mental distress it causes that the root cause may be isolation. If you are alone and not connected to any social group on a regular basis this loneliness can steamroll into something far more ominous.

What are some of the warning signs of CD?

Feelings of sadness
Feeling there is nothing to look forward to or that the future looks hopeless
Feeling a sense of failure
Being dissatisfied are bored
Feeling guilty
Feeling of being punished
Being disgusted or hating yourself
Blaming yourself for everything bad that happens
Thoughts of suicide
Crying or wanting to cry but having the inability to do so
Being irritated frequently
Losing interest in other people
Difficulty making decisions
Feeling of looking ugly or unattractive
Difficulty concentrating
Being fatigued
Difficulty sleeping
Poor appetite
Weight loss
Very worried about physical health
Lack of interest in sex

Of course, having serious thoughts of killing yourself is an alarm bell for immediate help. What if phone line or online help is not available one solution is simply to go to the ER room of your local hospital.

(The author is a Certified Contact Tracer (Johns Hopkins School of Public Health) and certified in COVID-19 Training For Healthcare Workers (Stanford University)

A Harvard Health Letter (12May20) Reminder on Blue Light!

Blue light has a dark side

What is blue light? The effect blue light has on your sleep and more.

Updated: July 7, 2020Published: May, 2012

Although it is environmentally friendly, blue light can affect your sleep and potentially cause disease. Until the advent of artificial lighting, the sun was the major source of lighting, and people spent their evenings in (relative) darkness. Now, in much of the world, evenings are illuminated, and we take our easy access to all those lumens pretty much for granted.

But we may be paying a price for basking in all that light. At night, light throws the body’s biological clock—the circadian rhythm—out of whack. Sleep suffers. Worse, research shows that it may contribute to the causation of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.

What is blue light?

Not all colors of light have the same effect. Blue wavelengths—which are beneficial during daylight hours because they boost attention, reaction times, and mood—seem to be the most disruptive at night. And the proliferation of electronics with screens, as well as energy-efficient lighting, is increasing our exposure to blue wavelengths, especially after sundown.

Light and sleep

Everyone has slightly different circadian rhythms, but the average length is 24 and one-quarter hours. The circadian rhythm of people who stay up late is slightly longer, while the rhythms of earlier birds fall short of 24 hours. Dr. Charles Czeisler of Harvard Medical School showed, in 1981, that daylight keeps a person’s internal clock aligned with the environment.

Is nighttime light exposure bad?

Some studies suggest a link between exposure to light at night, such as working the night shift, to diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. That’s not proof that nighttime light exposure causes these conditions; nor is it clear why it could be bad for us.

A Harvard study shed a little bit of light on the possible connection to diabetes and possibly obesity. The researchers put 10 people on a schedule that gradually shifted the timing of their circadian rhythms. Their blood sugar levels increased, throwing them into a prediabetic state, and levels of leptin, a hormone that leaves people feeling full after a meal, went down.

Exposure to light suppresses the secretion of melatonin, a hormone that influences circadian rhythms. Even dim light can interfere with a person’s circadian rhythm and melatonin secretion. A mere eight lux—a level of brightness exceeded by most table lamps and about twice that of a night light—has an effect, notes Stephen Lockley, a Harvard sleep researcher. Light at night is part of the reason so many people don’t get enough sleep, says Lockley, and researchers have linked short sleep to increased risk for depression, as well as diabetes and cardiovascular problems.

Effects of blue light and sleep

While light of any kind can suppress the secretion of melatonin, blue light at night does so more powerfully. Harvard researchers and their colleagues conducted an experiment comparing the effects of 6.5 hours of exposure to blue light to exposure to green light of comparable brightness. The blue light suppressed melatonin for about twice as long as the green light and shifted circadian rhythms by twice as much (3 hours vs. 1.5 hours).

In another study of blue light, researchers at the University of Toronto compared the melatonin levels of people exposed to bright indoor light who were wearing blue-light–blocking goggles to people exposed to regular dim light without wearing goggles. The fact that the levels of the hormone were about the same in the two groups strengthens the hypothesis that blue light is a potent suppressor of melatonin. It also suggests that shift workers and night owls could perhaps protect themselves if they wore eyewear that blocks blue light. Inexpensive sunglasses with orange-tinted lenses block blue light, but they also block other colors, so they’re not suitable for use indoors at night. Glasses that block out only blue light can cost up to $80.

LED blue light exposure

If blue light does have adverse health effects, then environmental concerns, and the quest for energy-efficient lighting, could be at odds with personal health. Those curlicue compact fluorescent lightbulbs and LED lights are much more energy-efficient than the old-fashioned incandescent lightbulbs we grew up with. But they also tend to produce more blue light.

The physics of fluorescent lights can’t be changed, but coatings inside the bulbs can be so they produce a warmer, less blue light. LED lights are more efficient than fluorescent lights, but they also produce a fair amount of light in the blue spectrum. Richard Hansler, a light researcher at John Carroll University in Cleveland, notes that ordinary incandescent lights also produce some blue light, although less than most fluorescent lightbulbs.

Protect yourself from blue light at night

Use dim red lights for night lights. Red light is less likely to shift circadian rhythm and suppress melatonin.
Avoid looking at bright screens beginning two to three hours before bed.
If you work a night shift or use a lot of electronic devices at night, consider wearing blue-blocking glasses or installing an app that filters the blue/green wavelength at night.
Expose yourself to lots of bright light during the day, which will boost your ability to sleep at night, as well as your mood and alertness during daylight.

Microsoft Patent Application to Monitor your body and brain for “compliance”

Microsoft has applied for a patent that will enable it to monitor body and brain activity rewarding “compliant humans” with crypto currency. Does this give you comfort? For the good of mankind or data mining for profitability?

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2020060606

Keeping Track of vaccinations or keeping track of you? Bill Gates to be trusted? Read this in the “Scientific American” of December 19/19

Invisible Ink Could Reveal whether Kids Have Been Vaccinated

The technology embeds immunization records into a child’s skin

By Karen Weintraub on December 18, 2019

Invisible Ink Could Reveal whether Kids Have Been Vaccinated — M.I.T. engineers have developed a way to store medical information under the skin, using a quantum dot dye that is delivered, along with a vaccine, by a microneedle patch. The dye, which is invisible to the naked eye, can be read later using a specially adapted smartphone. Credit: Second Bay Studios

Keeping track of vaccinations remains a major challenge in the developing world, and even in many developed countries, paperwork gets lost, and parents forget whether their child is up to date. Now a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers has developed a novel way to address this problem: embedding the record directly into the skin.

Along with the vaccine, a child would be injected with a bit of dye that is invisible to the naked eye but easily seen with a special cell-phone filter, combined with an app that shines near-infrared light onto the skin. The dye would be expected to last up to five years, according to tests on pig and rat skin andhuman skin in a dish.

The system—which has not yet been tested in children—would provide quick and easy access to vaccination history, avoid the risk of clerical errors, and add little to the cost or risk of the procedure, according to the study, published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine.https://b2af83b76ba0648a8a54d93c85c60015.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.htmlADVERTISEMENT

“Especially in developing countries where medical records may not be as complete or as accessible, there can be value in having medical information directly associated with a person,” says Mark Prausnitz, a bioengineering professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the new study. Such a system of recording medical information must be extremely discreet and acceptable to the person whose health information is being recorded and his or her family, he says. “This, I think, is a pretty interesting way to accomplish those goals.”

The research, conducted by M.I.T. bioengineers Robert Langer and Ana Jaklenec and their colleagues, uses a patch of tiny needles called microneedles to provide an effective vaccination without a teeth-clenching jab. Microneedles are embedded in a Band-Aid-like device that is placed on the skin; a skilled nurse or technician is not required. Vaccines delivered with microneedles also may not need to be refrigerated, reducing both the cost and difficulty of delivery, Langer and Jaklenec say.

Delivering the dye required the researchers to find something that was safe and would last long enough to be useful. “That’s really the biggest challenge that we overcame in the project,” Jaklenec says, adding that the team tested a number of off-the-shelf dyes that could be used in the body but could not find any that endured when exposed to sunlight. The team ended up using a technology called quantum dots, tiny semiconducting crystals that reflect light and were originally developed to label cells during research. The dye has been shown to be safe in humans.

A close-up microscope image of the microneedle array, which could deliver quantum dots into skin. Credit: K.J. McHugh et al. *Science Translational Medicine* (2019)

The approach raises some privacy concerns, says Prausnitz, who helped invent microneedle technology and directs Georgia Tech’s Center for Drug Design, Development and Delivery. “There may be other concerns that patients have about being ‘tattooed,’ carrying around personal medical information on their bodies or other aspects of this unfamiliar approach to storing medical records,” he says. “Different people and different cultures will probably feel differently about having an invisible medical tattoo.”

When people were still getting vaccinated for smallpox, which has since been eradicated worldwide, they got a visible scar on their arm from the shot that made it easy to identify who had been vaccinated and who had not, Jaklenec says. “But obviously, we didn’t want to give people a scar,” she says, noting that her team was looking for an identifier that would be invisible to the naked eye. The researchers also wanted to avoid technologies that would raise even more privacy concerns, such as iris scans and databases with names and identifiable data, she says.https://b2af83b76ba0648a8a54d93c85c60015.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.htmlADVERTISEMENT

The quantum dots after being administered in the skin of rodents. Credit: K.J. McHugh et al. *Science Translational Medicine* (2019)

The work was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and came about because of a direct request from Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates himself, who has been supporting efforts to wipe out diseases such as polio and measles across the world, Jaklenec says. “If we don’t have good data, it’s really difficult to eradicate disease,” she says.

The researchers hope to add more detailed information to the dots, such as the date of vaccination. Along with them, the team eventually wants to inject sensors that could also potentially be used to track aspects of health such as insulin levels in diabetics, Jaklenec says.

This approach is likely to be one of many trying to solve the problem of storing individuals’ medical information, says Ruchit Nagar, a fourth-year student at Harvard Medical School, who also was not involved in the new study. He runs a company, called Khushi Baby, that is also trying to create a system for tracking such information, including vaccination history, in the developing world.

Working in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan, Nagar and his team have devised a necklace, resembling one worn locally, which compresses, encrypts and password protects medical information. The necklace uses the same technology as radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips—such as those employed in retail clothing or athletes’ race bibs—and provides health care workers access to a mother’s pregnancy history, her child’s growth chart and vaccination history, and suggestions on what vaccinations and other treatments may be needed, he says. But Nagar acknowledges the possible concerns all such technology poses. “Messaging and cultural appropriateness need to be considered,” he says.Rights & Permissions

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Karen Weintraub

Karen Weintraub is a freelance health and science journalist who writes regularly for the New York Times, STAT and USA Today, among others.

Bill Gates Role Model or a Feared Leader of the “Inner Party”?

In George Orwell’s seminal “1984” there were the proles at the low end of the spectrum, the Outer Party in the Middle and the Inner Party at the top. It was a society based on surveillance.

I hear increasing reports from alternative media that perhaps Bill Gates should not be seen as a superstar of reason and trust.

Gates is a man, without any medical background, that is calling for digital passports proving vaccinations have occurred and even microchips to enable Orwellian Big Brother to keep tabs on you. In a June TED talk Gates called for global tracking of vaccine recipients by way of “digital immunity proof” but for some reason that was edited out.

This was pointed out in Robert F. Kennedy’s article in “The Defender” of 12/11/20,

“Here is the edited out portion of what he said Some chiseler altered Bill Gates’ June 2020 TED Talk to edit out his revealing prediction that we will all soon need digital vaccine passports (slide 1). But after considerable effort, we tracked down the original video (slide 2). “

Life at Up Up and Away Investment Management International; Chapter 17 Double trouble at Up Up and Away Investment Management International

Chapter 17

Double trouble at Up Up and Away Investment Management International

I recall at CRAP management decisions were generally implemented and executed quickly. There was only one set of Canadian management to deal with. However, at Up Up and Away there was a head office in the United States superimposed above Canadian management. The majority of key policy and operational decisions issues were taken in the New York. This is not to say there is no input from Canadian management but it’s quite evident the Yankees are making the key decisions. The Canadians are the loyal foot soldiers.

This has never caused me any political qualms. After all Canadian subsidiaries are the property of a US largecorp. If they respect Canadian law let’s not deceive ourselves by saying they then permit Canadian management to call the shots relating to Canadian business affairs.

So, Up Up and Away had its management team in Canada. They had a CEO and CFO and all the other management layers one might find in a largecorp. But at the end of the day Up Up and Away in Canadian management simply executed plans and goals set for them by Up Up and Away in New York. The bottom line is that Canadian management were well paid puppets. In today’s corporate world management sells themselves to the highest bidder. The chase for money and prestige trumps any nationalistic fervor.

Up Up and Away management in New York were by and large the meanest and most aggressive brutes I have yet to see. Bold, aggressive, domineering and demeaning. And there were no Vietcong or NVA in the Canadian corporate jungle to keep them in check, only provincial and federal regulators.

Initially when I joined up Up and Away in Canada the New York Senior Management Team was very much more relaxed than what it evolved into after 9/11, the Great Recession and collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

Where once they played to some small degree to employee growth and development they fell sway to the analysts and the new buzzword was “shareholder value” which meant a squeeze for the biggest profit possible. You knew when Up Up and Away in New York talked about “controlling expenses” that would mean the hatchet would fall and thousands would lose their jobs. With a global workforce of 26,432 what was a few thousand employees “downsized”? Terminations were done en masse. Never on a Thursday or Friday and never near Christmas and God forbid never immediately prior to American Thanksgiving! Employee sensitivity by a largecorp. Touching.

Yet having witnessed so many terminations over the years I worked at Up Up and Away executive compensation, particularly through stock option and enriched retirement plan options, was rampant. The New York Up Up and Away SMT was raking it in hand over foot! Up Up and Away Canadian SMT were poor cousins to the New York Up Up and Away SMT but they weren’t doing too badly!

I saw many friends and colleagues getting the axe to the point that near the end of my tenure with Up Up and Away I would sit at my desk and just shake my head in disbelief and try figure out who was going to take up the responsibilities the terminating employees had formerly been undertaking. The butchery was so bad people were fleeing to other jobs if they could which was not easy in the 80’s and 90’s as there were few jobs to escape to. The stress of waiting to be next was too much for some. But after a never-ending succession of terminations numbness of employees as opposed to paranoia prevailed over Up Up and Away employees.

Strangely it was the Up Up and Away Canada employees who were being axed not Up Up and Away’s Canada’s SMT. Since most decisions were made in New York why bother with a Canadian management team at all! I never realized why the Canadian SMT were spared. What value they added other than window dressing for clients was never apparent to me.

There was duplication in much decision making. For example, if there was a severe or threatening legal issue in contractual negotiations or arising in daily operations I’d have to explain it to Canadian management and then inevitably New York management. Not only that, New York management almost always had existing relationships with the companies I was negotiating contracts with. They had a vested interest in pleasing those clients which wreaked havoc with my prioritization which in turn was based on what Canadian management expected me to focus on. Poor Tony Hornet was caught in the battle of Canadian vs. New York priorities. The hell if the New York client was half the size or far less profitable than the Canadian client I was dealing with. It was almost as if politics between Canadian and Up Up and Away New York management was commandeering my legal work. I was expending exorbitant amounts of time explaining the situation to different Up Up and Away management in the United States and Canada to the extent that the practice of law was being replaced by politics and incessant duplicative explanations.

The majority of Up Up and Away Americans were bullies however there were some exceptions and strangely enough they were often those senior client relationship managers with some of the hugest global clients. Perhaps they were comfortable with their power. They were the easiest Yankees to deal with. The nastiest were those servicing the less than global leaders of clients. Perhaps they were peons struggling for scraps of Up Up and Away SMT recognition and had to put on a big performance for recognition purposes.

I suppose the lesson might be in dealing with largecorp International as a client is that in Canada you have to be just as huge as they are to receive the servicing attention you deserve. As a puny Canadian largecorp you are second fiddle to Yankee clients of a largecorp International.

Life at Up Up and Away Investment Management International: Chapter 16 A lucky jump into Up Up and Away Investment Management International

Chapter 16

A lucky jump into Up Up and Away Investment Management International

It is so remarkably interesting just how much fate and luck play a part in landing a new job. Sure, you follow all the same old advice as to networking, resumé writing and how to conduct yourself at an interview. But you know, sometimes it is just a question of being at the right place at the right time.

My contract with the insurance regulator was winding down so I was delighted to receive a call from my old colleague at CRAP, Sally Self. She was now a lawyer at the Canadian subsidiary of Up Up and Away Investment Management International which was owned and headquartered in New York. She was handling both compliance and legal affairs for Up Up and Away in Canada while Tim Beavis and Anne Kolodny both lawyers for Up Up and Away in New York, were handling the negotiation of Canadian contracts.

I was no stranger to Up Up and Away. In fact, I had persuaded Sally to apply for the job she landed at Up Up and Away in Toronto. I thought now she might have wanted to return the favour. Not only did I know Beavis and Kolodny but I had negotiated contracts with them as well as Beatrice Tuff (to whom Beavis and Kolodny reported to), also in New York, who was a bit of a scattered and eccentric lawyer. Kolodny was a friend to me. She was older than me and exceedingly practical and knowledgeable with a cutting sense of humour. I really enjoyed dealing with her. Beavis was also a great person to negotiate with. Now Beatrice Tuff was another thing altogether! When I was with CRAP I had said no to one of her proposed business relationships in Canada which involved CRAP contracting with Up Up and Away’s Canadian clients and then completely delegating all of CRAP’s responsibilities back to Up Up and Away in Canada as CRAP’s agent. The reason was that Up Up and Away did not yet have the necessary license to carry on the business proposed but CRAP did. I had a bad gut feel about the legitimacy of such a transaction as you should not do something indirectly that you were prohibited from doing directly. We tried all sorts of work-arounds but none were acceptable to Tuff and myself and the deal died. Although I had made a decision that was supported by CRAP management, I had made an enemy of Tuff at Up Up and Away in New York.

Up Up and Away required a Toronto based lawyer to negotiate Canadian client contracts. Beavis had pissed off a powerful Canadian based largecorp most likely because he was swamped negotiating far bigger deals in New York and could not devote time to a Canadian “small potato” deals. Also, Canadian clients were voicing their dissatisfaction with how long contracts were taking to get negotiated. Furthermore, some were surprised how Up Up and Away was having contracts negotiated out of New York rather than Toronto. This Yankee imperialism was perceived as a bit anti-Canadian by the Canadian marketplace and whispered a lack of commitment to the Canadian marketplace.

Up Up and Away needed to act quickly so to placate Tuff I was offered a 3 month contract instead of a full-time position. A “try-out”. Years later I was to find out I had jumped from the frying pan into the fire however the fire was a rather a long way from being lit.

In many respects there was not much of a difference from working at Up Up and Away than working at CRAP. Both businesses were heavily regulated and both were in the financial services industry. Both had an annoying Human Resources Department and both had a greedy Senior Management Team.

I was so happy to be earning a decent paycheque I just hoped I could sweep all the annoying corporate bullshit out of the way. Boy, talk about being delusional.

So, my new job made me a contract employee in the Up Up and Away Toronto Legal Department

Up Up and Away was a monstrous largecorp that dwarfed the size and market power of CRAP. One thing I didn’t miss was the plethora of small fry clients CRAP had. They were not very profitable. They were demanding as all clients have a right to be but they just ate up massive amounts of time. Up Up and Away had the biggest and best clients very much like the ones Felicity Poker had serviced when she had been with her law firm Ooze & Ooze.

Up Up and Away’s clients may have been powerful but I can’t say I had any problems in dealing with their lawyers and business teams. Law can be a bit of a compromise game. There are certain points you can give on some you couldn’t. Those lawyers could have been pushy, aggressive and obnoxious but when they heard I had been an American and attended the Ivy League equivalent McGill University it almost seemed as if I was one of them. York University and University of Toronto were unheard of in the United States. McGill was up there with Harvard and Yale. Did they know the phrase, “Pick up a fork and you can go to York?” Even the graduates from York University’s faculty of law never ever say they received a law degree from York University but rather from “Osgoode Hall” which was the building in York University where the law faculty was located. It was if they were ashamed of any association with York University. To make a long story short whilst I suffered prejudice in Toronto for not graduating from a local university American and European lawyers immediately doffed their hat in respect of my education.

As a last comment I will say Penton Academy and the McGill Faculty of Law were not the nicest places in the academic world but unlike other law faculties and secondary schools in Canada they certainly did not suffer from mark inflation.

Up Up and Away was almost burnt out of business decades ago in the United States due to poor compliance and regulatory mistakes it made that took it close to bankruptcy. It smartened up mighty quick and created a bureaucracy that was designed not to repeat that mistake.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

CRAP was willing to do business with just about anyone. Sort of like a smell test made them happy. Up Up and Away had a rigorous client review process that took weeks to analyze each client to ensure it was reputable, solvent and legitimate. They had a “New Business Review Committee” with representatives from client servicing, risk and compliance, legal and two senior executives with Up Up and Away in New York that had to “sign off” on each deal. It was cumbersome and slow but at least it prevented doing business with bad apples. Over time it choked itself to death.

Another significant difference was that Up Up and Away had a contractual policy which set down certain terms and conditions that could not be agreed to in any contract such as not receiving an indemnification from a client in a client contract. Now one could bypass all or part of this contractual policy by obtaining “senior management approval” which meant a Senior Management Approval Memo (SMAM) had to be written and approved justifying why Up Up and Away could bypass the relevant provision of the contractual policy. The required approval had to be received from a plethora of members of the SMT both in Toronto and New York.

Unfortunately, I had to write countless of these memos. My drafting style was short and sweet but Sally Self was a CYA specialist and rewrote and over-edited to the point of being ridiculous. It was not uncommon for me to rewrite the SMAM memo 15 times. Self had an ability to make one feel like an idiot. Great leadership qualities.

The contractual policy was somewhat of a joke because every SMAM I wrote was approved. Big clients have clout.

I should say I did manage to move into a full-time position with Up Up and Away as a Vice President of Legal Affairs. CRAP employees always used to joke about Up Up and Away as they said everyone was a Vice President there. That wasn’t far from the truth however I am sure it was said with some amount of jealousy because at CRAP being a Vice President meant a company car, club memberships, exotic management trips and an opportunity to get your hands in the cookie jar of executive compensation. Nowhere near the looting levels of the SMT but a far cry from the stock purchase plan offered to the regular office tower employees and the rather paltry pension plan they were given.

A Vice-President at Up UP and Away in Canada had free parking, a car allowance and a token incentive payment plan. At least it was a step up from being a contract employee.

The crowning glory was that my former Up Up and Away enemy Beatrice Tuff had come full circle and said I was the best legal hire Up Up and Away Legal had ever made!