Do not spindle, fold or mutilate.
These were the famous words printed on every utility bill form the 1940s all the way in to the late 80s.
Why were you not supposed to “not spindle, fold or mutilate” your bills?
Because then they were damaged and could not do their job correctly. (To allow an 80 hole card reader to process them automatically.)
This is my story about what happens to a person who is “spindled, folded and mutilated”?
Every layoff from my job came as a total shock, regardless of how many “vibes” I ought to have picked up at work.
I despised my first job as a new immigrant in Canada and wished I was somewhere else every minute on that job. A few months after my arrival, I was called to the personnel office. There I was handled my pay cheque for the next two weeks and a yellow form saying that I was “let go for cause” and was not eligible for any Unemployment Insurance.
I walked all of the 500 metres home to my apartment, not entirely downtrodden. It was a great relief to be “otta there”.
A problem, my wife had just given birth to our first daughter. This was not a good time for a family man to suddenly stand at the front door without money or any prospect of any more, soon.
She was a strong woman. Then as later said, “we can handle this”.
I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”
Time to execute “Plan B”, finding a job again.
I did and found a job.
A few years later I sensed that our business was about to take a turn for the worse. Our target customers were having really hard times and not about to make any new investments in the foreseeable future.
I was called into the president’s office and told,
“I am really sorry, but we cannot keep you on staff. I will give you three months notice, from today. Good luck in finding another job, soon.”
I was totally stunned, I never expected that. I was a company man, true and true. I even carried a corporate logo on a pin under my lapel, to show how devoted I was to my company and our customers.
I took the customary commuter train home but forgot both my book and my house keys on the train. I guess I was in a total state of shock.
My wife was in the eighth month with baby No.2. She was totally surprised.
She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.
I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”
A couple of months later, the entire office gathered at a popular restaurant for a going away celebration for me and Al G. He was in the same field of business and had no better future in the company than I.
I worked for my three months of notice. Al and I left in a state of glory, we were both going to far more responsible and well-paying jobs than we’d ever had.
A few years later our family lived in the not-so-great metropolis (?) of Port Hawkesbuy, Nova Scotia. The smallness of the location and the people who lived there really started to get to us, my wife and I was toying with the idea of finding another job, away from there.
My plant manager, Ted LeMaistre, invited me for another family dinner at his house. We were good friends and he had helped me tremendously, and I him, over some rough patches in the operation of the power plant.
He convinced me, over some whiskey, that leaving the plant, and him, would be a very poor decision.
I agreed to stay on for a while. Then, quite furtuitously, the plant got a new operations manager, one who really knew his engineering-stuff. Here was my opportunity.
Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.
I started my search and had a new position secured in only a few days.
Ted LeMasitre and his wife had us in for one last, somewhat sorrowful, dinner at their home.
Then I left.
No, this was not a sob-story at all. Nobody was angry, but I felt quite guilty for leaving Ted to the “great forces of intra-company politics". He was soon displaced and served out his remaining years to retirement as a rather sad staff-engineer at the head office.
We moved back to Montreal.
A few years went by and I had become the darling of my San Diego, California based company. I could do nothing wrong and felt the “happy vibes” wherever I traveled on Company business.
That was not a good or sustainable feeling.
I became too big for my britches, fully convinced that I truly was
"God’s gift to any business”.
I was not.
One day, my unfounded feeling of self worth made me commit the single largest error of my life. I succumbed to the lures of a head-hunter.
I paid dearly for that.
My reputation preceded me and I got a fabulous job for a Montreal based international company. I was to have two bosses. – Why didn’t I back out at that piece of news? (I should have.)
I was given two completely equipped offices, one in Montreal and one at the Embarcardero in San Francisco, California, with a pad of Air Canada travel vouchers to pay for the five hour long bi-weekly airplane commute.
I had two bosses. That may not have been all bad – but they each hated the ground the other walked on, with a gusto.
I traveled the world, with either of the two bosses, and quite enjoyed my new business focus.
But – there was something I didn’t know, even though the facts had been quite clear from day one.
This was an 18-month experiment.
It failed. - Fire the participants.
One morning, four days before Christmas and two days before I was about to leave on a three-week vacation with my family in Sweden, my Canadian boss walked in. He sat down in front of my desk with a piece of paper in his hands.
He started reading:
“You are not contributing to the operation of our company and you have no future here. Take the next five minutes to collect your personal belongings and proceed to the personnel department on the 12th floor.”
We were on the 16th.
The security guard who had stood quietly a the door led me by my elbow to the elevator.
Once in the personnel department I received the mandatory EI document – “fired for cause and not eligible for Unemployment Insurance” and signed many documents.
Another of the many papers to sign was the ownership certificate for the company car – it became mine. There was also a cheque of substantial value, far more than what could have been expected, considerding my term of employment.
I continued the next 12 floors down in a very sombre mood. But – before I even set foot on the street a thought occurred. This was “bigger than me”.
It was.
I immediately crossed the street with the cheque and deposited it in my bank account.
The entire group, all six of us on that project, were laid of within days, the boss who had read the letter to me remained unemployed for over two years.
I drove home with very mixed feelings. What really happened?
My wife met me at home.
She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.
I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”
The tickets for the family vacation in Sweden were all paid for, so it was just to “pack and go”.
We had bought some new wallpaper for the house. This was a good time to hang it. Never have any air bubbles been banged out with greater force. I gave a name to every one of them as they were methodically banged flat and eradicated under the wallpaper. The end result was superb.
There was a little problem with our Sweden-trip. I was a newly unemployed man without any prospects. (?) I lied about my job and kept up a very false façade, all the time silently crying inside.
Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.
I soon had a new job.
It may not have been promised as the ultimate or the final one, but my talents were to be put to good use.
The President and co-owner, who’s stability of mind and capacities were far to the left of ordinary, had embarked on a great project to bring some high quality German made air compressors to Canada. They had never been built to North American standards and he had some great ideas about setting up a factory to make the modifications on the finished product in Canada.
I should have known. After our first meeting in Toronto, when I was hired, we went to a bar in the same building. He ordered a 12 oz bottle of whiskey, a mickey, for himself with only one glass – seated himself on a bench in the far corner and rolled himself up in a ball as tight as a grown man could get his limbs.
He didn’t talk to anyone as he slowly emptied the whiskey bottle.
Then he went across the street to his new Cadillac that had many scrapes on the side, and left, all alone.
I was left in total bewilderment. What had I just witnessed?
Why didn’t I leave then and there?
A few months later, after a couple of trips to Germany for me it was clearly obvious to all, this was a fool’s errand and there was no way to convert any product in Canada. The president of the German supplier politely, as straight forward and with the force of a battering ram, told me: “Get out of here. Your boss is crazy as a coon and there is no way we can do business with him.”
I was still running the industrial distribution franchise in Montreal, but that was soon to end in a fright.
I had repeatedly asked for a financial statement. There were just too many disgruntled suppliers calling and asking me for money. The bosses, both the co-owners came to town. We went for lunch and I said:
“I am sorry, but this operation is not tenable, we are losing too much money.”
“We will take care of that at this moment. - You are fired.”
I was.
I returned to the office for a few minutes to carry my personal belongs out and that was it. No yellow paper for the EI this time.
I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.
I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”
The company closed and declared bankruptcy only two months later. I met the boss many years later.
“Are you still alive? I though you would go home and commit suicide the day we fired you.”
Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.
I soon had a new job.
By this time, computers had come to play. I got hold of a list of Montreal Board of trade members and mailed out about 200 letters, all personalized and computer generated.
This was on a Thursday.
On Monday I got a call and I was hired that afternoon. Again with a higher salary and larger company car than ever before.
A few years later I went on one of my many European trips, this time to Germany. I was specifically asked to go to Frankfurt am Main and to visit the president of the company that now owned 50 percent of our 800-employee company. Fifty percent – not enough to affect the outcome of any board meeting.
I was seated in an office with two interlocking doors with rubber seals, totally sound proof. The German president was very formal.
“Tell the president that he must stop investing so much in new machinery, it is time to pay more profit to us.”
Why through me? I knew that they talked to each other on the telephone almost every day.
I travelled back to Montreal in a bit of a troubled mood. – Why was I the carrier of this message?
I reported to the president. He muttered something along the lines of “What a fool that German guy is? This is my company and I decide where to spend our money.”
Christmas came and went. Then a call to the president’s office.
“We are not making enough profit and cannot afford to keep you. You can leave now.”
“Oh, we have no use for your new company car, you can keep it for a while.” I drove it for several months before they called and wanted it back.
This was after 7.5 years of faithful work.
I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.
I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”
Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.
My new job search wasn’t as easy any more, I was a little longer in the tooth than in earlier years.
It took a few months to confirm my next position but we had enough money from my separation cheque to handle that.
The next job paid even more and saw me negotiating some seriously large multi hundred million dollar deals in USA, Canada and Chile.
Then we got a new president at the US head office. He came to Canada once:
“I love you all. You are doing a great job and there will be no changes.”
A month later, to the same 200 office employees:
“I love you all, but there will have to be some small changes in the operation. Nothing of importance, just some adjustments.”
A month later, in the same meeting room with the same group of listeners:
“I have decided that we don’t need the Canadian operation. We will close this down and move all the job assignments, but not the people, to my home town in Ohio.”
In the end, only four people of almost 600 who were laid off moved to Ohio.
I soon found out that I was No. 82 (of 600) on the layoff list.
My lay off meeting was almost funny.
I had gone on my second visit to Japan, all of eleven days this time, and had just come back with my head full of information and several reports to submit. They were written on my computer in the first-class cabin as we had returned, non-stop, from Tokyo to Toronto.
So, when called to a meeting, I brought a slew of heavy books, a notepad and my lap-top computer.
There was to be no meeting. There was my boss, a personnel officer and, as I found out later, a psychologist from the USA head office.
The subject was to tell me … and to hand me a whoppingly large separation cheque. This time the yellow sheet said that I was laid off “for lack or work” and that I did qualify for Unemployment Insurance. (I was never out of work long enough to apply.)
I met the psychologist later. He told me that his services had been needed as some employees with over 20 years of service “had gone wild at the news…”
I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.
I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”
Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.
My next job was fortunately not long in coming.
The primary task in my next position was to expand our North American and European customer base for water wheel castings. First I travelled USA. After that I worked diligently on the telephone and fax machine before I had a long list of European customers who had expressed preliminary interest and given me firm appointments – in five countries.
The week before my departure the company was sold to a large American corporation.
My schedule and budget for the Europe trip was cut in half. I went on an abbreviated tour to only three countries and succeeded quite well with my appointments, coming home with a slew of inquiries.
Then the American owners came to town.
“We have our own sales organization and we also cover Europe quite well. Therefore the entire six-person sales team will be laid off, effective immediately.”
The departures were nasty, The new owners had never met any of us before but were dead set on not spending any money. They made up a bunch of reasons why none of the six sales persons should receive any severance pay, contrary to Canadian law. I got none and was forced out the door with quite a bit of commission pay unpaid. Several thousand dollars, enough to seriously harm my already strained household budget, to be more specific.
I felt really rotten. I had given “my all” to get this business expanded, to no avail and little compensation. My much promised commission payments had evaporated. That really hurt, in many ways.
I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.
I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”
Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.
My all too many job changes, coupled with a complete sell house – buy house from Montreal to Kitchener had seriously damaged my financial health.
This was the fall when Bank of Montreal had gotten a new
president, may he burn in hell for all eternity, who decided to be tough on any delinquent borrower or credit card owner.
Awaiting my first commission cheque in the new job and with my cash running low, I had innocently enough called Bank of Montreal to inquire if I could hold off on paying my regular credit card payment for one month.
“Not a problem, we will send you a new payment plan.”
They did, in the form of a legal summons to put a lien on my house or to transfer my house to them… I owed $ 2,000 on a credit card and $ 7,000 on a line of credit, neither which had ever been one day late or near maximum limits, ever.
That took four years out of my life, ruining my sleep and hurting me in many ways. I had never, even once, missed a single payment on anything. Now starting a new job with a greatly reduced initial paycheque, I was to be furter punished by a lowly clerk at a bank.
My accounts were closed, nothing could be deposited. “Talk to your lawyer”. I did, but hat only cost money not leading to any resolution.
I discussed all this with my wife.
She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.
Several years later I read in the newspaper that Bank of Montreal had another new president.
I mailed off a letter, “Personal and confidential” to that new president, a letter with 52 enclosures. It was mailed on a Friday. On Tuesday I got a call: “There has been a misunderstanding, please come to our nearest bank branch.”
I did, the misunderstanding was cleared up and my, by now quite substantial, outstanding amounts were converted to a regular loan. I paid that off in less than a year.
Note, the bank didn’t lose one single penny, but they kept running my credit card and line of credit for several years at full interest rate, 27 % for the credit card. There was no compassion, no adjustment, not even the slightest hint of an apology.
Net result, I soon had no debt but my credit rating showed as if I had gone bankrupt – for seven more years.
Do you wonder why I have to restrain myself from spitting on the Bank of Montreal branch windows every time I walk by one?
Fortunately, the bank that had held my home mortgage was not affected so I could live a rather normal life, after all.
My new sales manager’s job under my friend, the newly minted president, didn’t last long.
Nine months in, it was painfully clear that our 65-person factory didn’t have enough orders to carry on. We had used up our line of credit and the owner showed some serious concern.
“I’d better sell the company, but first we must clean house.”
I was out again – and so was my new president. He went to a car dealership and was selling Volvo cars the last time I saw him.
My firing was swift, no time for any sweet talk or time to mention about EI documents, severance pay or my unpaid sales commsisions. Then, again, I lost thousands of dollars in unpaid earnings. “Just leave – now.”
I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.
I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”
Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.
Now I am getting seriously older and can no longer consider myself as God’s gift to any business.
I was uncermoniously fired on a Monday night. Computers were big now. I used my computer programming talents and sent out over 500 single page solicitation letters by fax to all sorts of companies in the area over night. I had no desire to move or travel too far work.
Tuesday morning; the telephone rang. I went for an interview.
“Do you know how to use a spreadsheet?”
“Yes, I do.”
I was hired in the next hour and started work on Wednesday morning. I had been unemployed for all of one calendar day.
A couple of years later I did get a funny feeling that I was no longer in the good graces. My task was finished. I had, thanks to my spreadsheet skills, been able to collect over two million dollars of underpaid bills from our major customer, one of the largest car manufacturers in the world.
I had just come home from a sales trip to Japan. I was really concerned that our customer was about to put some terribly costly demands on us. Our future profitability, or even existence, could be endangered.
My report was tabled and I awaited what to do next.
I was called to the president’s office. In addition to him, there stood the owner, our personnel manager and a security guard.
The president stood up and said, “We will charge you with criminal behaviour. Here is a list of ten items where you are guilty of, each and everyone serious enough to put you in jail.”
I never saw the list nor heard any of the charges repeated.
I was in an absolute and total state of shock.
Every single item was a total fabrication, picked out of thin air.
The security guard guided me out to the parking lot, where my car was – and that was the end of my career in the automotive supply business.
I got no separation pay, even if that was enshrined in Canadian law, not even my last paycheque. The company must have saved themselves a few thousand dollars that way, and took it all from me.
Somebody must have been proud of his business skills?
I never heard anything more from any one in that company, and of course not anything about my purported crimes.
I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.
I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”
Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.
The truth, as I found out some months later, was that the president who I knew as a real wheeler-dealer from my time in Quebec, had conducted some rather involved affairs with another customer – putting unearned money his personal bank account. I probably knew too much for his likening at the time of me being fired.
He was swiftly walked out the door about six months later and, as far as I knew, never worked for anyone again.
This was on a Monday. Back to the trusty computer and my fax machine modem.
Tuesday was quiet.
Wednesday morning I got three calls, "come see us".
Two of the meetings were quickly dispatched with promises that...
“We’ll get back to you.”
I came to the third caller by lunch time and was hired as a consultant by 2 pm. I was to start my job by going to Edmonton on the next day, Thursday morning.
My task was to clean up the mess left by a previous sales manager. He had purchased four million dollars worth of non-certified and totally unsellable industrial valves.
The only place to offload them was to some less scrupulous industrial supply houses in USA.
I travelled wide and far in the next few months, and even started to see some of the stock go out the door. As a consultant, I was making really good money.
Then, a new Vice President was hired. We spoke briefly before I left for the next trip, by car, to USA.
A few days in, I got a call while in a customer’s office. Oh for the glory of cellphones.
I stepped to the side and was told:
“We have decided not to sell any more of the valves, they will be sent to scrap. You are to stop all sales efforts and will only be paid until the end of this telephone discussion. Come home now.
I was one full day’s worth of driving away from home. They didn’t pay for the mileage driving home.
My job career was really becoming shaky. My periods of employment were shorter and shorter and always seemed to end the same way – with an instant “go away”.
I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.
I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”
Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.
500 more letters were sent out that same night.
The next day the phone rang. It was a local company that I had sent my fax résumé to some eight months earlier. The president and owner had not seen it then, but my new mailing had sparked his interest, he said.
I was soon hired and installed in yet another job. This was a solid company, I hoped, with some 140 persons in the shop.
I dove in to my new tasks with a gusto and we soon, within months, had so many orders on hand that we had to start planning for a plant extension. We added two plants and many employees in the next couple of years.
Then, a catastrophe struck.
The US based power plant construction boom of the last years came to a sudden halt. Thousands of people were laid off among our customers and suppliers.
“I am not worried, said the owner of the business. We have a good backlog and our customers love us.”
Love didn’t quite hack it when our customer firms were closing or laying of entire departments at one time.
We built out the backlog and started hurting. No more orders.
Finally, a big lay-off for us. I was told to go home and had a yellow slip, proving to EI that I was worthy of their support. I was laid off for “lack of work”.
No severance pay yet, though. There was none to come, the company declared bankruptcy one week after my departure and there was no money to be had.
This time my wife was not a strong woman any more. She didn’t say anything.
She didn’t know it then but she was only eight weeks from her death. I was free from work, applied for Unemployment Insurance and spent the next eight weeks by her side.
This was effectively the end of my working career, at age 63.
Sure, I had a few more stints as temporary employee or consultant, but nothing that led to any future for me.
What had happened to the proud Mechanical Engineer of year 1963?
I had certainly seen the world from above for a few years, travelled and worked in 28 countries and experienced a lot. The downwards slope of my career had been unstoppable. I emptied and put away my briefcase almost on the day 40 years after my graduation.
Had I changed the world? Had I improved the world?
I don’t know, all I know is that I had given my all for many, many years.
The total sum of my earned pension after all the years in business added up to one big zero despite of all the promises and pension plans that I had signed up for. They had a way of not materializing at the end. Fortunately, I had saved on my own.
Put it more succinctly: I had been spindled, folded and mutilated many times, but not lost my spirit.
“And so it goes."
Note: That last sentence is borrowed from the book "Slaughterhouse five”, a far worse story than mine, but with a somewhat similar unchangeable ultimate destiny.
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If you want to read my memoirs, "The seasons of Man", buy the book here:
https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bengt+lindvall+the+seasons+of+a+man
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