One Company – Four Men: Part III

Joseph, our division president, had wanted to be a Roman Catholic priest in his early life. However, after graduating from college he went into sales for a national company and then moved into sales with our firm. He had been with our company virtually all his working life. I imagine Joseph was 45 or 50 when I met him – when you’re a young adult it seems that you have your chronological peers, then there are the old people, and everyone else is in-between; but I’d say Joseph was late 40’s or early 50’s.

A comment folks would often make after having met Joseph for the first time was, “He is professorial.” And indeed he was; slightly built and around 6’1”, dark neatly trimmed brown beard with hints of gray, glasses, soft-spoken, relaxed, and he even wore Harris Tweed. Being president of a division in our firm was a BIG deal, lots of money and, of course, lots of responsibility.

Joseph treated me well. He was always courteous and when I worked on the litigation project and he and I were meeting with lawyers and other executives he made sure I was part of the discussion. Considering I was shy and unsure of myself in social and some business settings this meant a lot to me – it means even more now in hindsight.

One day I was informed that Federal auditors were coming to the office and that they’d be with us for a while. I also learned that Federal auditors were at our national office and at other division offices. It appears that during the economic downturn that had resulted in personnel layoffs, that when our sales were “in the tank”, that some of our salespeople had taken some liberty with Federal regulations in order to close deals – taking “liberty” with Federal regulations is illegal – it is criminal, and the Feds frown on the practice.

I don’t recall how long the audit took, but after it was done I was told by Sammy that Joseph would be leaving the company – someone had to be the corporate fall-guy for the regulators and it was Joseph – there may have been similar scenarios at other divisions, I don’t know. What I do know is that a prince of man was destroyed.  To be continued….