JOYFUL PIECE #8

Out of nowhere, unexpected help...

The Ninth Wave, 1850, Ivan Aivazovsky, Wikipedia Commons

As a professional in the construction field, working at Enron Engineers and Constructors gave me great latitude. For others at Enron, too much latitude may have been problematic and allowed them to be overcome by agendas focused on success at any price.

My personal fortunes were hurt during the sinking of the Enron ship in 2001, the year of the September 11 terrorist attacks. 

I had accepted an offer to work for Enron about a year before. The benefit package was built around slightly lower than market wages but huge performance bonuses in the form of stock options. At the beginning of 2001 I, along virtually all employees, received the bonus packages and financially felt rather secure. But the machinations at the executive suite had started a fire in the hold of the ship that would sink it.

In February of that year, stock market analysts began to question the financial health of the company. One of the top executives responded harshly, the analysts smelled blood in the water and began to dig deeper and deeper into Enron finances.

By August, the financial perils were evident to many long-term employees with access to the details of the functioning of the increasingly imperiled vessel.  

Outside the inner sanctum of the inner sanctum the corporate mantra sung to the employees was that we should not abandon ship, that we were the company’s most valued assets. On Friday, November 30, 2001, the CEO impressed on employees that a rescue was imminent and that we should not leave.

On Monday, December 3, 2001, Enron employees were summoned to meetings at each company office building. Thousands of us were informed by Human Resources Department representatives that the company was bankrupt and that we should leave the building immediately, taking minimal personal belongings. The stock options on which our future retirement counted were now worthless, and many fellow employees were near retirement age. The announcement not only caught all employees by surprise, but even the Human Resources Department was unprepared for the barrage of questions from employees with children in college, sick relatives, and pending surgeries.

Essentially all employees, except those with law degrees needed by Enron to defend the shipwreck, were tossed into the unknown waters of a sudden layoff with only hope as a life ring.

Into the above maelstrom sailed the Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson. Without undue fanfare he engaged the judge handling the bankruptcy case and managed to extract a significant severance package to keep employees, including me, somewhat solvent and afloat during the massive job search efforts that we all launched. Jesse Jackson did not question the color of our skins. He did not question if politically we leaned right or left. Jesse Jackson engaged the “powers that be” and made a huge impact on my life and family during this employment disaster.

Joy in this case was the unanticipated rescue from perceived perdition. And Jesse Jackson saved us on that day. He acted not as a politician, or an insurrectionist, or black activist— Reverend Jesse Jackson acted as an ordained minister is called to act, reaching out to those hurting in America, in the name of social and economic justice and moral urgency. I will always be grateful to this compassionate human being, regardless of the voices of those who would tarnish his reputation.

The following article may be entitled America Still Doesn’t Understand Jesse Jackson, but I do.