The Sense of Family

  April 30, 2001 was my first day on the job at a non-profit corporation in Princeton, New Jersey.  I had been looking to change jobs for a while, and was finally able to connect with a job I believed I was going to like.  It was not prestigious or high-paying, but it met that crucial, most important requirement. In addition to that, what greeted me there was a sharply different and much more relaxed working environment than that of the employer I had just left.  At first, I couldn’t put the exact words on the dynamic that made this office so appealing, but the right words were given to me by my co-workers.  It was the sense of family that existed there that set it apart from anyplace else I had worked prior to that.  

    I had the idea that this organization would be different when I interviewed there.  I learned that although the pay wasn’t lucrative, the company offered a generous benefits package that significantly offset any lack of monetary compensation that might exist.  Both the woman who interviewed me at HR and the manager I spoke with noted the benefits and the low turnover rate, and I found that many of the workers who performed menial tasks were still content where they were.  That said something to me right there about the culture of the company, and it stayed with me after the interview was over.  I had some reservations about the money I would be making, but decided that if I got an offer that was comparable to what I was making at my employer at the time, I would accept it.  I remember that I had recently put aside the aspirations I had to make a quantum career leap.  I decided to look for a job that I would like doing, and to look everywhere, including searching the help wanted ads in the newspaper.  And, of all places, that is exactly how I found out about this job opening.  When I received the call from the HR woman a week later extending a job offer, I didn’t hesitate.  The same pay with better benefits doing something I liked better was too good of an offer to pass up.

  I was trained on my job by a supervisor named Chris, who was soon to retire.  He was easy going and walked me through everything I needed to do.  Questions would still come up for the next few months, but he would always guide me through it, and I also found all my other co-workers approachable.  The first people I met were the menial task workers, since they were the ones I worked with.  I met Nolan, a machine operator who had been with the company thirty years.  Like several workers there, he faithfully commuted by train a long distance.  Nolan lived in the Bronx, and had to make his way from there to Penn Station, and then take the NJ Transit train to Princeton Junction, where one of the delivery/shuttle van drivers would be waiting for him and several other co-workers to take them the short distance to the workplace.  I don’t know how many connections he had to make before he got to Penn Station, but I think it took him at least two hours (probably longer) from the time he left his home until he arrived at the building. The company had been previously located in Brooklyn, and several workers left and found other jobs when the facilities were moved to Princeton.  But Nolan was one of those who remained faithful to the company and gladly made the long commute.

  There was Bernard, who worked next to me, and with whom I developed a close friendship.  Bernard also commuted a good distance, from Old Bridge, which on the map looks to be 30 to 40 miles away.  Because of his disabilities, Bernard couldn’t drive, and his mother didn't mind taking him to work every day, before and after he got married.  He would take the shuttle and ride the train with the other long distance commuters on the way home.  Phil was another dedicated worker who commuted with Nolan up to New York City, where he then took whatever subway got him to his home in Flushing.  From what I remember, it was the only full time job Phil ever had.  His mother worked for the company for years before retiring, which provided him an easy in.  Phil wasn’t introverted or withdrawn, but he was usually all business, and quietly did his work.  There are others who came from different areas.  There is Jack, who was married to the HR woman who interviewed me.  Jack was one of the maintenance technicians who came by to fix any mechanical problems that came up.  Both Jack and his wife commuted up I-95 from Northeast Philadelphia, about 30 miles away.  The same way I commuted, but a little farther.  Later, I met Janice, who I think was one of the managers, and I think she was also a long time employee.  Janice drove back and forth across the state from Monmouth Beach, a shore town near Long Branch.  Janice was also a talented artist, and every year at the arts and crafts show, she would sell some of her line drawings of the shore area she lived in.

  The annual arts and crafts show was just one of many efforts made by the management to promote a sense of family at the company.  Several times a year, they would provide a huge catered breakfast for all staff to attend.  Early on, there were also some cook-offs, where the employees would get to showcase their culinary talents, usually pasta or chili.  It was a pot luck where everyone would contribute something (I usually just threw in a bag of chips or a soda).  Every year in December there would be a service awards ceremony where employees would be honored for each five year milestone they passed.  One person I knew had worked 40 years and was the longest tenured employee there at the time.  But these are just small examples.  My previous employers didn’t have many events like that, which is okay, since those things are extras and not what people go to work for.  But they can make a difference.

    The difference in culture I experienced made this new company seem like heaven compared to my previous employer.  My old job was not a bad place to work, but being that it was a collections agency, the bottom line was to make money and generate profits.  The possibility of making a lot of money is a powerful incentive for those who have the tenacity to make it happen.  I was not a collector, but as a skip tracer, I had a job to locate borrowers in default status, and the collectors would handle it from there.  There was pressure to perform up to a certain quota, which if met was rewarded with a monthly bonus.  During the three years I worked at that agency, the turnover was constant, and most of the people I worked with at the beginning were long gone when I worked my last day there.  The top manager over the whole floor (I forget his exact title) resigned about halfway through my stay at that agency, although it was due more to his wife wanting to move back to their hometown.  Most of the floor supervisors and the top earners stayed throughout, since they were good negotiators, and had what it took to succeed and make a lot of money.  Overall, the collection agency was a good company and treated me well, but the nature of the business made it hard to be nice and generate a family atmosphere. 

  And there was more to working in collections than just negotiating a settlement.  There are laws in effect to protect the consumer when it comes to debt collections.  It is imperative for the collector to be thoroughly trained to understand and abide by those laws.  A borrower’s debt status is considered private information, and could not be discussed with anyone except the borrower without his or her permission.  There was probably more to it, but as a skip tracer, that was all I had to be familiar with when contacting a borrower.  There was probably a lot more for the collectors to remember.   On the computer screen in front of me was a fair amount of personal information about the borrower, including the social security number and a credit report.  All screens had to be dimmed when walking away from the work station, and as part of the contract, the windows had to be covered with closed blinds.  Other than making money, one rewarding aspect of being a collector is that the collector is actually in a position to help the borrower if the borrower is able to make the payments.

   From the skip tracing end, the major disadvantage was that most borrowers were unlocatable.  The information provided on the file was a list of possible relatives and neighbors, a credit report, and it was rare, but there were sometimes one or two references who may have information on the whereabouts of the borrower.  There were several steps to be taken, including calling three possible relatives or friends, and then calling trades and inquiries on the credit report, which I think were other creditors who had current information on the borrower.  However, I found out early on that most trades and inquiries do not skip trace with collections agencies, and I almost never called them.  I rarely found any information from the possible relatives or neighbors, although sometimes the file would provide a direct match with the address given at the top of the file.  If the borrower could be contacted at the number, or if it was verified that the borrower lived there, that was a locate.  Without a direct contact, the general rule for a locate was that the borrowers address and phone had to be verified by two sources.  We were expected to locate a certain number of borrowers each day that way.  I wasn’t good at that, but most of the other skip tracers were, or at least that’s what I thought.  Later, I found that at least a few of my co-workers weren't being totally honest in recording their locates.  Several of those locates came up on my screen as bad.

  My new job was in a much more relaxed and easy-going environment.   Of course, everyone is expected to work and produce, but both the atmosphere and the work itself were much less stressful, and coming from my previous employer to my new one, that was a huge improvement.  Yes, talking on the phone is easy work in and of itself, but there was always some pressure to produce.  The experience there helped me develop some communication skills, but I just didn’t have the tenacity or negotiating savvy to make it happen.  The environment at the new job was much more placid.  I checked reel-to-reel and cassette tapes for sound quality, and after about four years, I began tweaking the sound of the newly uploaded mp3 files, from which the CDs were burned.  Finally, I spent most of the last few years working in the library services department, where I processed most of the incoming books that were to be recorded in studios by volunteer readers.  It all ended in December of 2008, when the company downsized.  I saw it coming for a while, as there was a TV monitor in the lunch room that was almost always tuned in to CNN or Fox News.  It was hard to avoid hearing it.

  Toward the end of my run there, I noticed something was different.  It seemed there wasn't much of that sense of family left there.  It happened gradually, so I didn't really notice it until I looked back later.  Several things had happened.  Most of the people I worked with during my first year were gone.  The turnover rate was slow, but it was still happening.  Jack and his wife, who hired me, were both gone, and the CEO at the helm when I started had retired in 2005.  That didn't make a whole lot of difference to me, since I thought highly of the new CEO, and he appeared to me to be continuing in the same direction as the previous one.  

  The biggest change to me was the phasing out of most of the production department I worked with, which happened in 2007.  I was told right from the beginning that this was coming, several years in advance.  It was made clear to me that CD and mp3 technology would make most of the production jobs obsolete, and it was again stressed in a production meeting some time in 2005.  We had been reminded from time to time, but in that meeting we were told in uncertain terms that by June 2007, most of the people sitting in the room would no longer be working there.  We were given the opportunity to cross train in other departments. Meetings were set up with a career counseling agency.  In short, the management did everything they possibly could to prepare us for the possibility and likelihood of losing our jobs. 

  Fortunately for me, I survived the production job cuts.  But it was a depressing time as I saw most of the co-workers in that department report when their last day at the company would be.  When I was called into the manager’s office, I was relieved to find I would be retained.  I was now spending a good part of my time in the library services department, and because of that there would still be work for me.  If I had found out I was indeed losing my job, the librarians let me know they would be glad to have me transfer to their department full time if that was possible.  But my job was safe for now.  It was mid-2007, and it still looked like I had a long future there.  I had no idea what was about to happen until gas prices started to spike in early 2008.

  Later, in the fall of 2008, the economy tanked, and although I though my job was fairly safe, anything was now possible.  I had a few friends in different companies who had already lost their jobs, and I was glad to still be working at the time.  But a little before Thanksgiving that year, a memo was distributed stating that our company would have to make serious budget cuts.  I don’t think it said anything about eliminating jobs, but I’m sure that’s how everyone interpreted it.  And on December 4, 2008, I was called into the production manager’s office, and given my severance package.  It was an abrupt end to seven and a half years of working there, but it didn't come without warning.  The upcoming months would bring their own challenges, however, and I am working on writing about that period, too.

  What I just wrote about covered mostly my experience at the beginning and end of my tenure at my company. But there were seven years in between that were the happiest times of my professional life.  I was blessed to have something that I never had at any other place I worked, at least not to that extent.  I was not 100 per cent committed to working my whole life there, but I may well have stayed there until retirement had a bad economy not prevented it. There was not much sense of family left by the time I was handed the pink slip. And the downsizing was not over, and periodic job cuts continued as recently as this fall.  Very few of the people I worked with are still there, although there are now ways I can keep in touch with them.  I just hope to again find a place to work with the sense of family we all enjoyed there.