Albert Camus “The Plague”: The plague does not disappear it hides

“And indeed as he listened to the cries of joy rising from the town, Rieux remembered that such joy is always imperilled. He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could be learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come for the bane and the enlightening of man, it roused up its rats again and sent them forth to die in a happy city.”

Albert Camus (1913-60) first published “The Plague” in 1947.

Albert Camus “The Plague”: The new order

“Through this sudden setback of the plague was as welcome as it was unlooked for, our townsfolk where in no hurry to jubilate. While intensifying their desire to be set free, the terrible months they had lived through taught them prudence. and they had come to count less and less on a speedy end of the epidemic. All the same, this new development was the talk of the town and people began to nurse hopes the less heartfelt for being unavowed. All else took back place: that daily there were new victims counted for little beside that staggering fact: the weekly total showed a decrease. One of the signs that a return to the golden age of health was secretly awaited was that our fellow citizens, careful that they were not to voice their hope, now began to talk-in, it is true, a carefully detached tone-of the new order of life that would set in after the plague.”

Albert Camus (1913-1960) first published “The Plague” in 1947.

Life at Up Up and Away Investment Management International: (A serialized novel by Robert K. Stephen)

Chapter 3

Back from vacation under the control of Felicity Poker

It was a beautiful July day in Toronto and I could see the harbour below with the sun shimmering off the placid waters of Lake Ontario. Beautiful puff clouds switched the sun off and on like some psychedelic light show. Terribly refreshed I felt or so I thought I was for the first couple of hours after returning to work from a two-week Euro vacation.

One of the advantages of working in a high rise in Toronto is that if you were proximate enough to Lake Ontario and with the necessary altitude you benefitted from a spectacular view. And if you were high up in the CRAP hierarchy like the Senior Management Team (SMT) in the executive suites you also benefitted from a spectacular if not a highly obscene salary. How does it feel when these lucky SMT members earn more in a year than I would make in my entire career? Jealous you might say? Rational and insightful?

Although I was high enough to enjoy a wonderful view I was not high enough to be greedily gobbling at the shareholder’s through of course that being thoroughly justified by an” objective” team of external employee benefit consultants retained by CRAP (and countless other largecorps) legitimizing enormous compensation packages for the SMT that were “what was required to recruit and retain top talent” and “in accordance with industry standards”. Having an employee benefits firm review and “justify” executive compensation was like having a fox in the chicken coop!

I remembered reading a New York Times article many years ago explaining the enormous differentials of salary for the ordinary office worker to that of a CEO. At one point a CEO in the United States in the 1950’s was making ten times what the average office worker was making. Now it was hundreds of times greater salary. Each year the spread between the “ordinary worker” and SMT was widening. There was no Robin Hood in sight but there were plenty of Sherriff’s of Nottingham supporting King John!

In Canada for 2016 a study which was released in 2018 by The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives the differential between the highest paid CEO’s at 100 Toronto Stock Exchange listed companies in 2016 was more than 209 times that of the average worker. The average compensation for those CEO’s in 2016 rose 8% as opposed to 0.5% for the average worker.

I am not a bitter person but the facts of my working existence were beginning to annoy me. Here I was as a lawyer for CRAP for the past nine years yet unionized workers for General Motors in Oshawa or for Chrysler in Windsor were making the same as me with a bit of overtime tacked on plus an indexed defined benefit pension plan. Unlike the SMT in the executive suites I had no parking spot. No health club. No access to “executive medical care”. No free home computer and a stock purchase plan that had decreased to extinction exponentially to the dramatic rise in share option plans for the SMT. Furthermore, SMT members had a top up pension arrangement. The SMT up in the executive suite were making out like bandits. I was really beginning to feel like one of those poor Mexican villagers in a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western.

I was finally realizing that despite the exhortations of CRAP’s Human Resources Department about how well I was taken care of the SMT was not being taken care of by anyone. They were taking care of themselves in a grand fashion. It was saddening to see CRAP’s SMT loot the corporate coffers. Of course, the self justification, as mentioned above, was that it was what was needed to attract and retain “top talent”. This was all somewhat like the Newark Riot looters comparing themselves to the Detroit Riot looters.

Those not fortunate enough to be in the anointed SMT crowd will most likely be the readers of this book. For what will follow will grill the hypocrisy and greed of the SMT that may reign over you in your largecorp. You may have been suffering in silence or quietly gossiping in trusted groups about how much you are getting exploited. However, you are smart enough to realize criticism of largecorp governance and greed of its SMT will get you terminated because you are “not a team player”. It is akin to criticizing dictatorial leadership where instead of execution you will be terminated from your position. Like me for so many years I suppose get the shit piled up all over you, smile and take that paycheque because you must survive.

Today those on the SMT in the executive suites are the 1% and you and I are often part of the marginalized 99% working in well lit and poorly ventilated conditions. We office workers are the coal mining children of “The Affluent Society” a term coined by Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith in the 1960’s.

As you can see I am attempting to be a clever writer trying to garner your sympathy, so you’ll continue to turn the pages. By now I hope you are saying this guy is making sense. I understand what he is saying.

Nothing like a good vacation and a tremendous view to lull you away from the daily grind of making a living. I quickly realized this daydreaming was not a particularly good strategy with a rumoured takeover of CRAP’s institutional insurance business.

It was all rushing back to me. Being honest with myself that the vacation had been great but I was still bone-tired? Of course, I could play the game for awhile, but mental and physical fatigue was gripping me. I had been putting long hours in, was cranky and snappy at home, becoming increasingly stressed and was becoming so extremely sick and tired of listening to the doublespeak and reengineering jargon that said all hail to the joys of market strength and repositioning to become more competitive.

Quite frankly in addition to feeling like a poor Mexican villager I was feeling like some member of the “Outer Party” in George Orwell’s novel “1984” compelled to listen to endless propaganda and doublespeak announcements spewing from the telescreen without any benefit of “Victory Gin”. Are you sensing a rapidly deteriorating mood? Good for you. You are right.

I have told you that I had been transferred into the Legal Department under a reporting relationship to Felicity Poker the new General Counsel of CRAP. A good looking corporate commercial lawyer recently brought into CRAP by the SMT as she had been, within the confines of a top Calgary law firm, Ooze & Ooze, doing work for Bleedco which was the holding company owning CRAP.

From the little I had seen of Poker she knew how to play the game well in her big Ooze & Ooze law firm. She racked up huge hours billing Bleedco and that really was the core of her life. Billable hours and money. No man would dare approach her as she had no time for them. Even her beloved dog Tennyson was in boarding most of the time due to the late-night deals she was pulling down for Bleedco.

She was a two-faced double dealer like most of her SMT masters at CRAP.I rather think the CRAP SMT was frightened of her thinking she might be a spy for Bleedco. She had fantastic interpersonal skills with those at the top but total indifference if not haughty superiority to the minions that eventually fell under her control in CRAP’s Legal Department.

I remember attending a cocktail party hosted by Ooze & Ooze for Poker when she had been appointed as General Counsel for CRAP. Her law firm colleagues gushed that she was “the heart and soul” of their corporate commercial department. If this were true such a nasty, two-faced SMT lackey lacking a heart being the heart and soul of Ooze & Ooze’s corporate commercial department made we terrified of what a monstrous soul sucking and dangerous organization a law firm could become! My God this “heart and soul” compliment was like Charles Manson complimenting Ted Bundy! And here I was under the control of Felicity Poker.

I had noticed prior to my vacation Felicity Poker had been ignoring me more than what was reflected in her usual distaste of “inferiors”. Where her superiors were concerned, it was all charm if not flirtatiousness. As far as she was concerned everyone in her department were all lowlifes and failures as they were in-house counsel as opposed to lawyers in the big law firm like she used to be in. Her door was closed, her mind was closed and there was not an inkling of heart and soul except for the SMT in the executive suites. She started hiring a few more lawyers from guess where…Ooze & Ooze!

I was not particularly in the mood of meeting with her every Wednesday to discuss what I was working on. Instead of constructive and helpful dialogue it felt like I was always on the defensive. This was the era where large corporations were raiding their pension plans to scoop up “pension fund surplus” and trying to recoup expense monies they had paid to the recordkeepers of their pension funds, like CRAP. These large corporations were the bread and butter of Felicity Poker and to say no to them was equivalent to slapping the faces of her old masters.

I will not bore you with the legal technicalities of a pension plan sponsor scooping up pension fund expenses. I will tell you this was at the time a particularly complicated area of the law and fraught with legal and reputational risk. It was a minefield for CRAP to repay any expenses to a sponsor of a pension fund. I was the legal gatekeeper to ensure those poor working stiffs in the pension plan were protected in accordance with the law and court rulings and to prevent CRAP from being hauled into court for improperly repaying to the employer sponsoring the pension plan pension fund expenses the employer had paid into the pension fund. Poker was becoming increasingly frustrated with my negative responses to senior executives of some of her ex-clients and their lawyers who demanded repayment of their pension fund expenses. Wow talk about a rampant conflict of interest on the part of Felicity Poker! The lawyers I dealt with on this topic were aggressive and belligerent feigning ignorance of the evolving law in this area. Usually I get along with my legal brethren but with these refund of pension expenses I saw the nasty side of the big firm lawyers. Quite frankly willful blindness to the law trying to bluff me out of millions.

I had told you in the previous chapter about my meeting with Brian Cochon, Poker’s former partner at Ooze & Ooze in Calgary. You may recall that Cochon was representing a huge oil producer corporation wanting its pension fund expenses repaid to it by CRAP from the pension fund. When I said I had problems with handing over the pension fund expenses due to the current state of the law he replied, “If you don’t pay out that expense I’ll have you terminated.” Now presuming good faith on the part of Cochon I thought he meant CRAP would be terminated as pension fund recordkeeper if it failed to pay the expenses to his client. It took only a few weeks to realize that “you” meant Tony Hornet and not CRAP!

I should add that I was a new addition to Poker’s legal department. I had been a lawyer for some 10 years with CRAP but acting within a business unit which had a dim view of the Legal Department as always putting roadblocks up to it. It was perceived by the business unit that the Legal Department was far removed from the actual client front lines while when I was within the business unit I was right up there with the business unit trying to devise win-win situations.

Felicity Poker was but a product of her time moulded by the big law firm mentality where customer service often focused on restraining the arrogance and pomposity of their high paid lawyers who were retained for their technical excellence and even more important their billing abilities and not for their inter-personal skills and true value-added services. Their lawyers were also coal mining children except they were very highly paid and they were mining billable hours and not coal.

I thought if I gave her some Italian coffee I purchased on my vacation she might at least say thank you. Why at Christmas time Felicity Poker had opened her steel vaulted heart and given all her minions a Tim Horton’s coffee coaster! Perhaps my nice little package of coffee might soften her heart? She had even installed a coffee machine in our cafeteria which was rather an old law firm trick of providing all manner of refreshment and even meals to keep staff at their desk instead of wasting precious time by grabbing a coffee downstairs at the many coffee shops in their office towers.

My demise was shortly at hand. The Blessed Event was at hand!

Albert Camus “The Plague”: The power of the graph

” But it seemed like the plague had settled in for good at its most virulent, and it took a daily toll of deaths with the punctual zeal of a good civil servant. Theoretically, and in the view of the authorities, this was a hopeful sign. The fact that the graph after its long rising curve had flattened out seemed to many, Dr. Richard for example, reassuring. ‘ The graph’s good today” he would remark rubbing his hands. To his mind the disease had reached what he called high-water mark. Thereafter it could but ebb.”

Albert Camus (1913-1960) first published “The Plague” in 1947.

“The Donut King”: Cambodian Congestion in the California Donut Scene!

After reading the autobiography of Ted Ngoy titled “The Donut King” I was delighted to see there is now a documentary of the same name and its executive producer was Ridley Scott so there must have been some serious money behind its production.

Ted Ngoy was a Cambodian military officer in a non-combat position that was training troops in Thailand. While the Khmer Rouge were about to capture the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh as it was collapsing, he managed to grab a flight on a military plane out of the capital to join his family in Thailand. With $3,000 in their pockets they made it to a refugee camp at Camp Pendleton in California along with 50,000 other Cambodians. America under Ford and Carter were much kinder than the United States of today.

Ngor’s sponsor was a pastor at a Lutheran Church where he worked for $500 a week as a custodian until he obtained a job pumping gas. Then one evening he smelt the most fragrant smell wafting over the gas station. It was from a 24-hour donut shop so bingo a light went off in his head that perhaps selling donuts, which reminded him of one of his favourite Cambodian cakes, was his ticket to the American Dream.

So he took a three month training course at Winchell’s donuts a Californian mega donut chain and they were so impressed they gave him his own store to manage. So with gruelling tenacity he built up the donut shop’s book of business and then left to start up his own shop. California was a great beneficiary of the 1955 US Highway Act and the drive-in culture of California launched the donut business to new heights. In California today there is one donut shop per 7,000 people while in the rest of the United Staters it is 1 for every 30,000 people.

Ngoy opened many donut shops using cheap Cambodian labour of other Cambodians wanting to make the American dream. Then he started leasing donut shops sponsoring many Cambodian refugees. His great legacy is that of the 5,000 or so donut shops in California 90% are owned by Cambodians.

By 1985 Ngoy was making over $100,000 a month and had a net worth of close to 25 million. Therefore he earned the name Donut King and lived like a king until that fateful day he visited Las Vegas and was drawn into the life of a high roller loser losing the shirt off his back admittedly cheating the Cambodian Donut crowd shabbily even forging signatures to fuel his gambling addiction. His wife divorced him and believe it or not he resurged into the donut business a second time making and losing yet another fortune a fact the book reveals but the movie does not. I seem to recall from reading his book after being disgraced he returned to liberated Cambodia for some land development deals and did eventually return to the United States where many forgave him harkening back to the fact he gave them a start.

While the book was more focused on Ngoy the documentary pays more attention to the cloistered Cambodian donut community and the choice many of the sons and daughters of successful donut shop owners about working in the family shop or using their higher education in a more prestigious workplace. Many did stay revolutionizing the conservative Cambodian donut clique with new packaging, new donuts, donut festivals and of course the cronut.

This is not only an interesting documentary about the American Dream but a snapshot of American and Cambodian history and what it takes as a small operator to make the American Dream happen. It is also a warning about the dangers of gambling.

For $9.99 you can see the film here until the end of 2020 https://watch.eventive.org/filmswelike

You can catch the trailer here https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-norton-ext_onb&hsimp=yhs-ext_onb&hspart=norton&p=the+donut+king+trailer#id=2&vid=9690e83ddbb852f1cefe745dad09b3fd&action=click

Directed, written and produced by Alice Gu.

Albert Camus “The Plague”: The lack of individual destinies

“Thus week by week the prisoners of the plague put up what fight they could. Some like Rambert, even contrived to fancy they will still behaving as free men and had the power of choice. But actually, it would have been truer to say that by this time, mid-August, the plague had swallowed up everything, and everyone, No longer were there individual destinies: only a collective destiny, made of plague and the emotions shared by all. Strangest of these emotions was the sense of exile and of deprivation, with all the cross-currents of revolt and fear set up by these.”

Albert Camus (1913-60) first published “The Plague:” in 1947.

Israel Awaits Approval from FDA Before Administering PFIZER COVID Vaccination According to Jerusalem Post

FDA announces deaths of two Pfizer vaccine trial participants

Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center’s director-general said the hospital was planning to vaccinate staff even before FDA approval.

By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN DECEMBER 8, 2020 18:52

A refrigerated truck leaves the Pfizer plant in Puurs, Belgium December 3, 2020.(photo credit: YVES HERMAN/REUTERS)AdvertisementAt least 110,000 doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine candidate are expected to arrive in Israel before the end of the week and the medical staff at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center will likely be the first inoculated.On Tuesday, Sourasky director-general Prof. Ronni Gamzu confirmed for The Jerusalem Post that the hospital could begin vaccination even before the vaccine receives US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. He said he could administer the vaccine early because it had already been approved in Britain.However, Health Ministry director-general Chezy Levy told the Post that beginning vaccination in any place ahead of FDA approval was forbidden. He added that the country had still not finalized the list of who would be prioritized to receive the vaccine first.”We hope that in the coming days, there will be FDA approval,” Levy said.The FDA advisory panel is set to review the Pfizer vaccine on December 10.”The vaccine is safe for every person on an individual level and for us as a company at the national level,” wrote Gamzu on Twitter. “I am proud to receive this treatment first as part of the global technological advancement. I am convinced that leading by personal example will help gain public trust so all citizens take the vaccine for their health.”https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1336276338798432259&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jpost.com%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftwo-individuals-die-from-pfizer-vaccine-651488&siteScreenName=Jerusalem_Post&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
Gamzu received sharp criticism from the Israel Medical Association, whose head Zion Hagay said in a statement that the move was “irresponsible” and will have the opposite of its intended effect – that it will “erode public trust.”The exact day that the Pfizer vaccine will land in Israel is still unknown. The Hebrew website Ynet said Tuesday that the first doses could arrive as early as Wednesday. Kan News reported their arrival would be Thursday.The vaccines are supposed to arrive on a special flight via the DHL shipping company and be directly transferred to the Teva SLE Logistic Center, where they will be stored and then distributed throughout the country.Pfizer vaccines are made of messenger RNA (mRNA) and are required to be kept frozen at negative 70 degrees Celsius. Israel has purchased eight million doses of the Pfizer vaccine – enough to vaccinate four million people.Last week, Levy said during a video meeting with the country’s hospital administrators that some four million doses could arrive before the end of the month. But he said then that although they could come even before they are approved by the FDA, no one will be inoculated before approval.Ahead of the Thursday meeting of the FDA on the Pfizer vaccine, the administration announced Tuesday that two trial participants have died after receiving the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine. One of the deceased individuals was immunocompromised.This information was obtained from documents released on Tuesday by the FDA.The documents were released ahead of a meeting on Thursday of outside experts who will debate whether emergency authorization for the vaccine should be granted.The FDA also said on Tuesday that the data they’re presented with is in line with emergency use authorization, raising hopes for Thursday.At the same time, the FDA said that there currently is not enough research to guarantee the vaccine’s safety for immunocompromised groups, pregnant women and children.Israel’s Midaat Association responded to the report on the deaths, explaining that when vaccines are administered to at-risk populations “there may be unfortunate cases. One should not infer from this about the safety of the vaccine but welcome the transparency required from the pharma companies in the drug approval process.”The association noted that in large trials of tens of thousands of people, death can occur without any connection to the trial, but that companies like Pfizer are required to report those deaths.“According to the published data, six of the participants in the experiment died, two of whom received the vaccine and four of the control group,” said Dr. Uri Lerner, the scientific director for Midaat. “After an in-depth examination, no connection was found between the experiment and the cause of death.”Hospitals across the country are preparing to receive the Pfizer vaccine and inoculate their staff. Baruch Padeh, Barzilai, Wolfson and Soroka medical centers all announced that they were ready for the vaccine to arrive. Baruch Padeh held a preparatory meeting Tuesday morning and sent the it’s 1,500 staff members a message, “We are all getting vaccinated.” “We who are at the forefront of the war against coronavirus should be the first to be vaccinated,” said Erez Onn, director-general of Baruch Padeh, “so that we can continue to give professional and dedicated care… We are the ones who should serve as an example to the entire public.”Wolfson’s Dr. Anat Angel said that the vaccination process for its more than 3,000 employees would be documented and carried out “immediately and without any delays.”“Having succeeded well above average in previous years with staff vaccinations against influenza … I am sure, beyond a doubt, we will also lead in vaccinations against the coronavirus,” she said. The hospitals said that they would receive the vaccinations and inoculate staff with their first does right away. There would be a 28 day waiting period before administering the second dose. Getting the vaccines to the hospitals will be handled by the Teva SLE Logistic Center, which the Knesset’s State Audit Committee visited on Tuesday. “The eyes of the entire State of Israel are here,” said committee chairman MK Ofer Shelach during the visit. “This is the most important and extensive national project since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis.”He said that the visit left him feeling that “the company is unusually prepared and professional. I sincerely hope that it will continue like this.”Yossi Ofek, CEO of Teva Israel-SLE, agreed and said, “there is no room for error here. We understand the magnitude of the responsibility.”Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also spoke about the vaccines again on Tuesday, stressing that although the vaccines are almost here and the country is starting to hopefully see the end of the pandemic, “as in war, when we see the end of the war, we must not lose people. People will die and will be stricken with a serious disease for no reason – it is possible to prevent this.”He called on the country to continue social distancing, wearing masks and following the Health Ministry rules even as the first vaccines arrive in Israel.
Reuters contributed to this report.

COVID-19 Vaccine: Not Perfect But the Odds Appear Fair: FDA December 8th Briefing Document Shows the Risk of “Fatal Outcomes”

Fatal COVID Vaccination fatalities are on many minds except those that blindly believe a fast tracked FDA or Health Canada approval acts like a magic protective bubble. Yet a December 8th FDA briefing paper for a December 10, 2020 meeting of the Vaccine and related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) on page 41 reveals fatal outcomes of COVID-19 vaccines on page 41 reproduced below. What did the Duty Sargent say in the long deceased “Hill Street Blues”….”Be careful out there”.

Perhaps a fairer point of comparison would be what is the risk of a COVID death if one isn’t vaccinated? And one must of course not use death of COVID-19 control group members but also the 21 adverse affects in the control group reported in the October 22, 2020 VRBAC meeting.

Then as a last point what is the risk to the hospital system of non vaccination.

Of course there is always the civil rights question of mandatory vaccinations and non mandatory vaccinations with social penalties attached to that such as lack of mobility, restricted access to health care and denial of social benefits that in reality may force vaccinations even where governments say the vaccination is not mandatory?

Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine
VRBPAC Briefing Document
Serious Adverse Events
Deaths
A total of six (2 vaccine, 4 placebo) of 43,448 enrolled participants (0.01%) died during the
reporting period from April 29, 2020 (first participant, first visit) to November 14, 2020 (cutoff
date). Both vaccine recipients were >55 years of age; one experienced a cardiac arrest 62 days
after vaccination #2 and died 3 days later, and the other died from arteriosclerosis 3 days after
vaccination #1. The placebo recipients died from myocardial infarction (n=1), hemorrhagic
stroke (n=1) or unknown causes (n=2); three of the four deaths occurred in the older group (>55
years of age). All deaths represent events that occur in the general population of the age groups
where they occurred, at a similar rate.

Life at Up Up and Away Investment Management International: Chapter 2: (A Serialized Novel By Robert K. Stephen)

CHAPTER 2

It all started out not too badly at my first largecorp

My first legal job was in the mid eigthies with an up-and-coming insurance company in downtown Toronto by the name of Canadian Reassurance Assistance Providers Ltd. or as many referred to it simply as CRAP.

CRAP was initially a regional insurance company in Southwestern Ontario but a series of very innovative advertisements touting its easy accessibility seemed to grab the attention of the retail customers it sold insurance to. It was a revolutionary approach in the 1980’s where insurance companies were big, fat, rich, customer unfriendly and arrogant.

CRAP was held by a holding company, Bleedco Ltd., that controlled its various companies like a stack of cards. Bleedco was what one might call (by today’s standards) an unethical company as some investment managers categorize companies to invest in as aside from holding CRAP it owned companies in the armament, tobacco, South African goldmining, coal, Las Vegas casino and alcohol sectors.

I distinctly remember a colleague of mine at CRAP was making small talk in the CRAP Toronto office elevator to a senior management type visitor from Bleedco. The man from Bleedco reeked of alcohol and somehow let it slip, “We are going to clean you up and sell you off.” Prophetic words for a young buck like me! Why he blurted that indiscrete comment still puzzled me but I took it as a valid and potentially dangerous statement.

I worked in the institutional division of CRAP but there was also the retail division that sold insurance to the public. The retail division was pulling in an increasingly burgeoning profit while the institutional division was its poor cousin.

The institutional division had a half dead Montreal office, a thriving Toronto Bay Street office, a once powerful and now notional head office location in Waterloo, a decent Calgary office and a struggling Vancouver office. The retail division was present in every province of Canada and had many bricks and mortar locations.

So here I was at CRAP newly recruited and knowing virtually nothing about our institutional main lines of businesses being that of selling insurance policies of diverse types to mid size businesses and even better to largecorps. We also sold annuity policies and recordkeeping services to employers sponsoring pension funds and other types of employee benefit funds. Most importantly we also provided segregated funds as investment options to defined contribution and defined benefit pension plans. These segregated funds were managed by professional investment managers CRAP retained.

My notional boss was Mr. Thomas Bang who was a lawyer but had made the jump to management as an executive vice president. He loved nothing more than to roam the floor asking where that miserable wretch of the day was. All in good humour that took a bit of time to get used to. He was a quirky but almost a likeable man. Unlike his Senior Management Team (SMT) colleagues, he was not afraid to take the elevator down from the CRAP executive floor and occasionally mingle “with the troops”.

Bang inhabited the executive suites on the top floor of the building. This was the home of SMT for both the retail and institutional divisions of CRAP. A sacred sanctuary with each office having its own bathroom and shower not to mention a splendid high-tech boardroom, well stocked refrigerators and liquor cabinets.

The cadres of the institutional division of CRAP were all in cubicles except for the Assistant Vice President of CRAP’s institutional division Frank Flansky who rarely showed his face as he spent all day crunching numbers cloistered in his office. He was obviously very awkward dealing with people and left that to my real boss Tommy Afar who was chief manager of the CRAP institutional division. Flansky recently arrived from Poland and his English was exceedingly difficult to understand. What he lacked in English and social skills he certainly made up for in mathematical abilities.

My job was to provide solutions on how CRAP institutional could do its business in accordance with the law. Afar was initially very frustrated with me as I simply gave options without making recommendations which was the preferred solution. He had a valid point! It was time for me to move from theory to reality.

I was a new legal resource to the business unit for the institutional division. Although I was called “Legal Counsel” I was working with and as part of the business unit. The business unit had vehemently complained of the arrogance of CRAP’s Legal Department and its incapacity to provide coherent and timely legal advice to the point that the SMT caved in and brought me into the business unit.

Apparently, John Beluga, CRAP’s General Counsel, was furious about having someone with the title of “Legal Counsel” operating outside his Legal Department however I had the impression those in the executive suites took him as a bit of a buffoon and used him to get approval to do business in a questionable fashion. He started his day in the gym and popped in the office at 10. a.m. went for long lunches and left promptly at 5. He struck me as, intellectually weak, easily manipulated and totally out of his league.

On important legal matters I was to deal with Sally Self in the Legal Department. With the backing of the SMT and according to Beluga’s demands there was no power struggle I had to fight. I lost right off the bat. Sally Self was my informal superior on all legal matters deemed significant by Self. This was rather hurtful to me as I had more than five year’s experience than the newly minted Self. In retrospect I should have walked out the door.

Working in the business unit, I gained valuable experience about how to get the job done within acceptable legal parameters. I was the go-to guy. Approachable, friendly and useful so unlike the service they were previously obtaining from the Legal Department. In the right circumstances with the right people CRAP life was not bad. I worked hard and enjoyed myself for close to a decade.

But after a few years I began to see what CRAP enjoyed doing to its employees For example there were the countless non-monetary incentive programs invented by CRAP’s Human Resources Department.

I recall one of them was the Service Award Games where gold, silver and bronze medals were handed out based on set criteria and medals were hung on the necks of the winning team. Another one was the weekly Client Delight Letter ceremony where we all gathered to hear a letter written by a client praising some aspect of our service. Of course, no monetary awards just subtle pressure to show how wonderful you were. What were those clowns in the Human Resources Department thinking of?

Although these campaigns were initially comical to the novice, they became annoying then obviously oppressive particularly with one campaign where employees were required to wear Mickey Mouse ears. Whatever for I am not quite sure. Being a lawyer, I was fortunate enough to be on the edge of most of this palaver and largely unaffected by it. Morale boosting it was thought to be but morally degrading was more like it.

After 5 years as Legal Counsel I received a promotion to Manager of Compliance for the institutional division. However, in addition to this new onerous position I continued to provide legal services to the business unit. Another largecorp lesson which is to load up as many responsibilities on an employee as possible at minimal cost. I had no one to delegate to and all this new responsibility for an extra $2,000 a year.

Speaking of money, a competitor offered me a position for $10,000 more than I was currently earning. I had the job offer and just had to sign the offer but upon reading the offer there was a probationary period. This for someone with close to 7 years of experience! I wanted this clause removed in their offer but their wonderful Human Resources Department insisted upon keeping the probationary clause in so we parted our ways.

CRAP’s Human Resources Department was also whittling down a once generous stock purchase plan where initially there were matching contributions by CRAP to those made by employees. Year after year CRAP’s contribution requirements dwindled and then a vesting period was imposed to get your hands on the shares whereas previously once the shares were awarded to you they were yours. Eventually they terminated the plan without raising salaries. Perhaps that inebriated Bleedco guy on the elevator had more truth than the vodka fumes would otherwise suggest. When you sell a company you cut costs down to the bone so your profit looks bigger than ever. A stock purchase plan with generous matching contributions by CRAP made CRAP a more expensive acquisition target…less of a bargain you might say.

CRAP’s institutional division was really doing well running from fourth position to a dead heat with the competition for first place all done in just short of a decade. Profits had quadrupled in 10 years. To be part of the team that accomplished this was rewarding to many employees despite no true financial rewards being extended to CRAP employees contributing to this remarkable growth.

All in all, I had an enjoyable time working in the business unit aside from the service campaigns and the poor compensation.

Then three things happened that caused me concern.

The first was that a new Vice President, Myra Pigall, was appointed for our division. She had no experience in the industry as she had been an accountant in her previous positions and spent all her time behind closed doors. She started interviewing employees asking them what they did. Suddenly there were a rash of terminations. Once again cost cutting and cleaning up. As a target for purchase a business unit making a billion dollars in profit with a low expense ratio is more attractive for a purchaser than one with a higher expense ratio. It soon became obvious Pigall’s snout was rooting out expenses to be trimmed like a pig hunting for truffles.

The second event was the termination of Beluga as CRAP’s General Counsel and his replacement being Felicity Poker. Poker was a hot shot corporate lawyer with a law firm that was Bleedco’s major external law firm in Calgary, Ooze & Ooze. I was commandeered into her Legal Department and no longer reported into the business unit.

The third was dealing with a major client of CRAP that wanted a refund of expenses it had paid us as a recordkeeper for its pension fund. Ooze & Ooze was CRAP’s legal counsel for this matter. The lawyer from Ooze & Ooze, Brian Cochon, had stated to me, “You repay that money or we will have you terminated.” I assumed “you” meant CRAP. As Cochon was once a partner with Poker at Ooze & Ooze my assumption should have immediately be seen as incorrect.