Corporate tiara

Armed with tiny green stickers I assumed an administrative position and was invited to the "War Room" this week. The 8th floor.

When I volunteered to help the hurricane victims I thought a large corporation would engage my soul and set me to organizing a food drive. I know...how silly of me. Instead I was placed in front of a map and was set to the task of marking our realestate that had been destroyed by the storm but as of recently been reopened.

Corporate greed? Yes. However, while in the War Room I heard one of our top people take a phone call from an employee. The employee was calling because he'd left work to be with his family in New Orleans. Upon arriving he realized he didn't have enough resources to help his mother and father. He was calling for money. He didn't call the bank, he called a name that when viewed on an organizational chart, was at the top. The top man finished the call. He was neither stunned nor emotional. Instead, he picked up the phone and arranged a loan using cold sterile words. The employee's financial problem was resolved within 30 minutes of placing a call to the top guy. The money, "whatever he asks for," was wired into his account immediately.

That was good, right? That counts as good even if no empathetic tears were shed or no emotion was presented. It was a solution filling a direct need. Although foreign to me, it was business as usual on the 8th floor.