The Bad...

I was thriving in the new environment and the President (one of two owners), and the Vice President (the other one) and I got along wonderfully. I was hired as their Marketing Director and did a lot of sales training , restructuring compensation plans, and streamlining a lot of the tracking procedures. I worked very closely with the sales manager (she became a very good friend). I had just remarried, and Mary Jo and Robert had dinner together with us on a regular basis. Robert was from Scotland, was a professional soccer coach, and a gourmet cook. He and I were constantly attempting to outdo one another with the dinners we cooked and the way it was presented . We really enjoyed each other’s company and had a lot of fun.
The company created a voice mail division and I became its General Manager…I ran both sales and operations for the division, and occasionally had a chance to do some direct selling. We sold a very large voice mail system to a large national bank, and it was constantly “hiccupping” or incurring new “glitches”. I became very close friends with their Senior Vice President of Operations (as a matter of fact, he was one of my son’s mentors in college).
The Vice President of our company was about sixty, Jewish and funny enough to have a career as a comedian “on the borscht belt “. Marvin honored my wife and me by asking us to attend their Satyr dinner (the meal that marks the beginning of Passover) it was an honor because we were the first Goys ever invited.
The President of our company was also Jewish, a few years younger than the Vice President, and extremely intense. Sherman and I used to close the door and scream at each other (it was the type of relationship that we had). Everyone else was totally intimidated by him and he really enjoyed the fact that I wasn’t. We had lunch together at least once a week (just to catch up on the things that we both need to know , but hadn’t had time to discuss).
It was just at this time that I had either four or five minor MI’s (heart attacks) within a year’s span. At one of our lunches, Sherman told me that they were not going to renew my contract for the following year…it “blew me away” because I never saw it coming.
And I say again that this is the absolute truth…give or take a lie or two.
Until next time…