Today in My History

In January 1979 I started working for Transamerica Corp., at their building in downtown LA (on the 17th floor; quite the place to be in an earthquake!), doing payroll for their finance company, Pacific Finance (later renamed Transamerica Financial). In June, I moved to Lake Arrowhead, and got a transfer to the branch office in Big Bear Lake in November.

My first or second day, the branch manager sent me home early, knowing that the fog was rolling up Hwy. 18, and not wanting me to fall off the mountain driving home in the fog-enhanced dark (rookie on that road as I was). She reported this to the district manager, who was somewhat scornful of the decision, wondering if she was going to do the same thing every time the weather was the tiniest bit off.

He was in the habit of visiting his branches once a month, and our December visit occured on the 6th. On the way home that night, the thought "Wouldn’t it be odd if John (the district manager) showed up tomorrow?” crossed my mind and fell out my left ear.

Shortly after I arrived the next day, so did John… Shortly after that, he asked me to run down to McDonald’s and get him a cup of coffee. When I got back, my manager was driving out of the parking lot. John reported that he’d fired her (for having arranged a loan to herself, through a friend, when she was the manager of the SLO branch), he was planning to have a replacement quickly, but I would have to mind the store until that happened. It took me years before I didn’t freak badly when asked to leave and go fetch when tensions were high.

A couple of hours after John left, my brother called, with the news that my grandfather had died. Fortunately (particularly given the circumstances), John was most accomodating with my initial ignorance of the schedule, and then needing to be gone the following Monday for the funeral. One of the gals at the Redlands office John called home filled in for the day.

Shortly thereafter, the former assistant manager was hired to manage the place, and therein lies more stories…