Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Tag: John salmen

  • Overruling the President, Publisher and Owner.

    Pretending to cry on the witness stand: $42,000
    Offering to settle for minuscule amounts “to avoid embarrassing Jim in front of his family”: $19,000
    Attempting to make profit on a newsletter after years of failure and studies saying it can’t be done: $100,000
    Watching you lose this case in front of your employees: PRICELESS

    The Players for the Plaintiff’s: Jim and Ana D, their children Mark and David (and Lisa in spirit), cousin Dom, the Attorney Brian, and of course me.

    The Players for the Defense: John and Ann S, their daughter Brynna, employees for the firm Lee, Monica and Kim, the Attorney’s and Paralegal.

    The Players for the Court: the Judge, the Clerk and assistants, the brilliant Jury.

    Supportive Cast: Regina, Carol, Sylvia, Vera, Kate, Gary, Rankine, and a lot of prayerful folks that never gave up hope and kept the prayers coming.

    And, as usual, the star of the show, the big G himself: God

    Brief History of the progression of the Case: John hoped to find a way to make his newsletter profitable and thought the best way was to fire Jim and not pay him money for work performed. That’s a biased point of view, and this review will be very biased as I was there and I can’t report objectively. OK, really I can, but that’s not any fun.

    Day one was pretty boring, we waited around for a judge and courtroom most of the day. Around 3:30 we were rewarded with both and then a jury was selected. The Judge I found to be very nice and professional. Shortly after the jury was picked I was told to leave as I was one of two potential witnesses on the list. I had been subpoenaed by the Defense.

    The rest of my observations (outside of my own testimony) occur from what I saw before or after each day and what I observed through the windows of the court doors or on the faces of jurors or participants of the case.

    I sent brief updates to D family members on day one and one of the recipients asked for more information on what everyone was wearing so I happily obliged on Day 2:

    “Jim, Ana, David, Mark, Dom (Jim’s cousin), Brian (the attorney) and I are here and looking sharp. Jim, Brian and I are in black suits with soft colors accented by striking ties. Ana Maria is looking lovely in her stylish ensemble and black throw.

    John, Ann, and lawyers are here as well. They all look grumpy to me. John is wearing a grayish suit and his lawyers are also in black suits with dull colored shirts. Ann is wearing a black sweater over an embroidered shirt and slacks.

    Members of the jury are in the waiting room with all of us.”

    and

    “His lawyers can best be described as the frumpy one with bed head and the escaped circus act guy with the shaved head. At least our guy is handsome and has good hair.”

    I watched Jim being questioned by his attorney and then later by the opposing counsel and all I could tell about anything was that Jim remained calm through what I could see. His testimony was I think over 2 hours.

    Later, I was called by Brian the attorney for Jim and was asked several questions. I was very nervous, which is silly as I had prayed a lot and only told the truth, but I was shaking up there. On the redirect John’s attorney asked me about my resentment towards John and I said that it was still there and I was still praying about it, both of which are true.

    After my testimony the Plaintiff’s side rested and lunch was called.

    Kim was called for the Defense and wasn’t up there very long… it was the end of day two the Plaintiff’s side appeared very upbeat and the Defendants were all rather down trodden looking… some (maybe even me) were pretty sure we had won outright, but I knew there was still the next day for court.

    “Jim and Brian are once again in darksuits with pleasant ties. I realized this was the last business day before labor day and am wearing off white slacks and shirt with a purple patterned tie. Ana looks simply stunning and has repeated the black throw look from yesterday – she has enough style to pull it off.

    John’s attorneys, the frumpy one with bedhead and the escaped circus freak with the shaved head, are in dark suits but common ties. John appears to be wearing the same drab gray suit he wore yesterday. Ann and Brynna are both wearing pleasant outfits.

    Spectators that are here today include Lee, John’s wife and daughter, Jim’s wife and son David.”

    Today’s testimony started around 9:00 and I had my Ipod with me, the day before I had tried to read from my Kindle but couldn’t concentrate, so I put an AA speaker pod cast on and relaxed the hours away. Today was John’s turn on the stand and he was up there a long time just like Jim. There was at least one break during his testimony and he came out looking all smug so I glared at him as best I could… Jim’s lawyer finally got to redirect and they were up there even longer… then before I knew it it was lunch and they were coming out. Ana came out first and she didn’t look happy at all.

    John came out and looked at me and said with his evil smile: “It’s over.” He and Ana were near the restrooms and he told her “I’m sorry that you had to be embarrassed that way Ana..” or something and she had a not too lady like retort… you go girl! At lunch the attorneys had administrative duties with the Judge about jury instructions and I heard from our side some doubts about how we did today. I continued to tell folks that it wasn’t over until the fat lady sang and we had to wait for the jury to return a verdict. We all said our prayers tried to turn it over to God.

    We returned to the court, the Judge instructed the jury on law, the verdict rules and evidence. Then Brian gave his closing statement and I heard all kinds of things that I knew and agreed with of course I’m on his side.

    Then the Defense guy went up there and I heard him tell outright lies and fabrications about Jim and our company and it was a very difficult thing to sit through. I am almost glad that I didn’t have to sit through the actual trial it would have been hard to listen to this slander all day. I don’t know how Jim’s family managed to not burst out in anger at some of it.

    A law in Maryland gives our side a chance at a last rebuttal at the Defenses closing arguments and he did.

    The jury was excused around 3:20 and we waited. At 4:52 we were informed that the jury had a verdict and we all filed into the court.

    They found for Jim and it was just a huge relief and I’m glad that this part of the battle is over. Now there will likely be some legal wrangling from John’s side, but I’m hopeful the ruling will stand based on rulings of the Judge and the verdict of the jury.

    I was in the middle of this particular dispute during it and it was hell then, these three days of trial were also very unpleasant… but the verdict, victory and vindication make it all worth while.

    All told: $206,670 plus the right to argue attorneys fees (that’ll be in a motion later). If the argument is won on attorney’s fees it will apply to any and all appeals that are won by Jim’s side.

    some math below
    Originally owed to Jim, $161,200
    Jury states he now owes $206,670
    that’s $45,470 more

    Plus his own attorney fees, possibly Jim’s attorney fees, lets assume approximately $300,000

    his staff sitting in court all day not doing billable work? well I’m not sure how much that also costs him.

    He should have just paid the amounts owed from the get go but he got very greedy.

  • How to tell if You’re an Asshole

    Your employee buys you a book titled The No Asshole Rule
    You read said book and see the included survey
    You hand out survey to your staff to fill out “anonymously”
    You receive the results and then tell the employee that it was an interesting survey and perhaps every year he should be surveyed
    You then hand your employee a list of ways to improve the survey

    You approach your staff about doing residential work
    Your Office Manager points out that no members of your staff are interested in doing residential work
    You doubt your Office Manager, but agree to take a survey at the next staff meeting
    Survey results show your staff are indeed not interested in doing residential work
    You admit defeat at that staff meeting and say you were not aware
    Two weeks later you call a meeting to show your staff how the company can do residential work

    You decide to recognize a design drawing that was developed by your partner
    You want to present an award to him that shows the company’s appreciation
    When you present the framed drawing you’ve made “improvements” to it

    And the most important, clearly defined, glaring way to tell:

    You insist your staff set S.M.A.R.T. goals for themselves
    Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely
    Even pointing out the importance of such goals at strategic planning meetings
    Yet after 15 unsuccessful years of plans, schemes and faulty dreams
    You still think you can make a profit from your newsletter

  • Hypothetical Math

    So the two Principals of the firm both billed out (each) $350,000 annually
    The top architect, under the Principals billed out about $250,000 annually
    Then approximately (by the rest of the staff) about $142,000 annually
    and add in consultants billings are about $101,000 annually
    Bringing a grand total of billed amounts to clients at $1,200,000 roughly

    You have annual payroll of about: $965,000

    The President of the company decides to hire someone to be the “marketing manager” to sell the website and the newsletter, which have already been proven to be a huge success (note sarcasm). And wants to pay that person $50,000 plus 3% of all advertising and lets assume bonuses. This person does not have billable work, really… just to sell the newsletter, and given how popular and how many years its been making money this is a lot of work (again with the sarcasm). And you budget $40,000 towards a revamped website ($10,000 every other month until July).

    So how do you afford to pay this person and this huge project? You fire your top earner… that’s right, you fire one of the people bringing in $350,000 worth of income annually. Not only that, but you also raise salaries and billable rates of all employee’s by 5%. This not only pays for the new person, but it also means there is a significant pay increase for the owner.

    The employees may not get bonuses this year. The Profit Sharing plan, can be rewritten now that the Board of Directors is only one person, he can make up the rules as he goes along. The profit sharing is due to go in very soon, so its likely he’s already changed the rules to make this not happen. Lets say he hires his new office manager at $62,000, this is a $10,000 increase in the amount of salary he was paying his last office manager.

    I wouldn’t let this guy near my checkbook, he doesn’t seem to understand simple math.

  • Micromanagement – The Finer Details

    Micromanagement was evident when I was just the office AA, but both the Office Manager and I were brand new so I assumed it would go away. I was wrong.

    One particular event that comes to mind was in January of 2007. I was preparing to send out the newsletters to 300 or so people. Monica and I had printed off the newsletters, stamped them and I was preparing labels. He, he architect and owner of the company, came over to inquire about what size labels I was using. At first I thought he was kidding, but soon realized he really wanted to know. When I brought this up at a later date, he assured me that he was just trying to be helpful, not trying to micromanage.

    —

    When I took on the roll of Office Manager, one of the tasks he wanted me to do was give Monica her employee evaluation. This was in the beginning of December, I had been Office Manager for less than two weeks. I didn’t think it was a good idea for me to evaluate someone that had been there 12+ years, and thought that perhaps John or Jim should do the evaluating. John persisted. I hoped it would go away, it did not.

    In January, he again insisted I give Monica her evaluation, I again protested that this was not a good idea. We all (John, Jim and I) agreed to ask Monica what she wanted and do that. I approached Monica, her answer surprised me – she did want me to evaluate her performance over the last two months. I informed John and Jim, who were both in agreement that this could happen.

    Monica and I scheduled a time to do her evaluation. I gave her a blank copy of the evaluation form (which was stolen outright from Children’s National Medical Center, I might add) and told her to fill hers out and I would fill one out as is procedure. As the date approached, I sent an email to John and Jim reminding them that the next day Monica and I would not be in the office for a few hours as we reviewed her evaluation.

    That evening, I received an email from John telling me that it was inappropriate for me to give Monica her evaluation, that I didn’t know how very important this was and couldn’t possibly document it properly. He really thought I should have discussed this with him before proceeding.

    I lost it, I knew at that point that I was purposefully being driven insane. I sent a scathing email back to John and cc’d Jim saying that this was ridiculous, I couldn’t possibly understand what my job was if they kept giving me false information, or changing the rules and reality as we went along. I went in to work anyway, was so pissed off that it didn’t really matter. Jim wanted to know what he could do to make things better, and I really wasn’t sure at this point.

    I think, but have no proof, that he pulled John aside and insisted that he apologize and correct the situation. Cause John was very forthcoming with an apology, but couldn’t really bring himself to believe that he had done anything wrong. He did take me out to lunch and I assumed things would get better. This was not to be the case.