Dude, you need to make a deposit in a hurry! Part Two

Arthur’s Grandfather on his father’s side was banker also. He owned the majority of the shares in the small Pensacola bank he started sixty years ago and in the lean years took stock rather than pay to keep the books in the black. When he sold his stock, or was bought out by a larger bank wanting the exposure his branches gave them, he sold 1.2 million shares of common stock for $54.00 a share. You do the math. When I met my friends grandfather on one of our trips, he had original Norman Rockwell’s and Picasso’s hanging in his living room, and yes that’s plural. 

His grandfather told me of a time when the bank was not faring so well, but his lone requirement was for the bank to buy him a new set of golf clubs every year, and he wanted his clubs. He said he had sixty sets of clubs sitting in his basement and was prepared to take the oldest thirty sets to the church bazaar to sell to help raise money for the building fund. I asked him if I might peruse the clubs for a set or two, as I had been wanting to take up the sport (if you can really call it a sport) to help in my career at the bank, as many a deal has been sealed on the links. When we went to his basement, I nearly fell over from the pristine sets of golf clubs neatly lined up against the wall. I was happy to buy two full sets of bamboo shafted Robert Jones golf clubs in the original bags, with tees, score cards, and golf balls from Augusta National, home of the Masters. I bought three sets total. 

The first time I went to play golf with a huge potential client I had been working on for two plus years, I invited some serious higher-ups to play with us, as it meant millions of dollars in deposits for the bank. My potential customer was an avid golfer and I knew that. When I whipped out my Bobby Jones bamboo shafted clubs and vintage Augusta National golf balls to play, the guy begged me not to play with the clubs and even rented a new set of clubs for me to play with, so as not to ruin the full set of very expensive antique clubs I held that day. We played golf and negotiated rates that day, while I noticed him staring longingly at the vintage set of rare golf clubs in my cart. When the negotiations got tight and looked like they might fall through, I told him I’d agree to sell him the rare clubs if that would seal the deal, which it did. I got more for those clubs than I made in two months at the bank and kept the sleeve of three unopened balls, the score cards and golf glove. In later years I sold the vintage golf balls and accessories, all at one time, for more than I sold the set of clubs for. I kept the other set of Bamboo clubs, virtually unused, and sold them later to a well-known professional golfer, via word of mouth, through a Golfer friend on the PGA I attended college with. The third set of golf clubs I purchased from Arthur’s grandfather, a set of pristine Ben Hogan’s that I still own, will spend the rest of their days in cool dry storage.

Arthur and I had become very good friends as the few years we worked together passed. We got to where we would play practical jokes on each other and I must say he won the contest in the most brilliant of ways. I’d do stuff like bump him with my car when he was driving down the road or jack up the rear wheels of his car with my floor jack, just high enough that when he got in it and tried to drive away, the back tires would spin and make noises like his car was burning rubber.  He was always a good sport about it. We’d go to car shows together and I’d tell him to climb in the front seats of the classic cars, telling him the owners wouldn’t mind. He’d get bitched out and threatened by the car owners when he did, thinking the cars were for sale. He got me back in the only way a banker could get you best, and that was in the wallet.

If you were an employee of the bank, your number one requirement was to keep your financial business in perfect order. That meant credit excellent, no overdraft checks, all bills paid as agreed. Not doing so could get you fired if it was repeated and not corrected. On one occasion, Arthur set me up and I fell for his trick hook, line and sinker. As an employee, if you wrote a check and the funds were insufficient, the bank would automatically pay the deficient check and send you a notice via the mail and interoffice mail to correct the deficiency immediately. For example, if you wrote a thirty dollar check and you only had fifteen dollars on deposit, an “advice” would come to you stating “A check was presented for thirty dollars, and was “PAID”, please deposit fifteen dollars plus five dollars insufficient Funds fee to cover this check. One advice was mailed to you home and one was mailed to your work via interoffice mail via the “proof” department.

It was Christmas time when Arthur would get his revenge. I had a secretary and a processor, and it was tradition to get them a “White Elephant gift” for our office Christmas party. They were two exceptionally hard-working ladies and in combination made me look better than I really deserved. They didn’t make a lot of money for the responsibilities they had heaped upon them, so I would be generous as I could, sometimes giving them bonuses out of my pocket as a sign of goodwill. These ladies were the best at what they did and were also prime targets for other smaller banks to pluck for good help. I jokingly wrote them both checks for One Million Dollars each at Christmas time, signed them and gave it to them as a joke. We all got a good laugh out of that and I just forgot about it. And that was my folly.

Arthur asked the two ladies to let him have the two separate checks and he called a friend of his in the proof department and laid his trap. About Wednesday of the following week, I got two separate notices in the mail. I recognized them as standard bank issued, much dreaded, insufficient funds notices and was somewhat alarmed by their presence in my mailbox. When I opened the notices, the first one said:

A check was presented on your account today for $1,000,000.00, and was “PAID”. Please deposit $998,375.63 to cover this deficiency, plus $5.00 for the insufficient funds fee as soon as possible.

The second notice was more ominous than the first, it read:

A check was presented on your account today for $1,000,000.00 and was “PAID”. Your account is currently overdrawn by $998,375.63 plus a $5.00 insufficient funds fee. Please make a deposit as soon as possible for $1,998,385.63 which includes two insufficient funds fees totaling $10.00 dollars.

There was also a note saying that a copy of this insufficient check advice(s) was being sent to my “big boss” meaning upper management was going to see it and I’d more than likely be hunting a job on the following Monday, if not sooner. I started sweating like a pig in a poke and wondered what in the hell the two ladies (who I now considered two ignorant sluts) were thinking depositing the two joke checks into their accounts. I guess my white elephants had crapped in their yards, or I had pissed them off in some way of which I was unaware.

I saw my entire career flash before my eyes and didn’t sleep a wink that night dreading going in to work the next day. I had already mentally packed my bags, thought about Mexico or any other non-extradition countries where I might be able to lay low. I wondered what my "big neck" picture, the ones most wanted criminals get, might look like on the walls of every Post Office in this great land I called home. I wondered how it might effect my dad's tenor at the Post Office too. 

When I cleared the door, my two employees said “Happy New Year!” like they had just won the lottery. I didn't even look at them when I walked gingerly to my office and shut the door. I was at a  total loss for words when a few hours later, Arthur stuck his head in the door and said “Got you, you son of a bitch!” and busted out laughing like I’d never seen before.

I think I crapped my pants in relief when I unclenched. I knew I’d never be able to top that one anytime soon. He said I came through the door that morning whiter than a sheet at a KKK rally, looking like I was sicker than hell. I guess the reality that comes from getting body slammed by a considerably more expensive education had just revealed itself to me in spades. I realized “Treachery” was not a class offered for matriculation at my particular College. 

I reminded myself to watch that dude from that day forward and learned two things: 

A) Arthur was going places 

and 

B) I could learn a lot from him.

I was going to have to up my game.