Interactions with God #95

Though I liked being able to work with Rich again, the job with Precise Software quickly became a nightmare. It all started with a guy named Chuck.

My manager, Brent, was originally the Precise Software merger and acquisitions guy. He was the one who brokered the deal with The Middleware Company. He had managed that relationship from the beginning. Now, however, with the Veritas purchase of Precise, Brent would soon be out of a job. Since he was already managing The Middleware team, he began working to finagle a more permanent position.

Chuck was a technical guy that worked for Precise Software. He was a rather difficult person, who was going to be fired by Precise Management. In order to protect him, Brent, being friends with Chuck, gave him a job as a technical resource for our team.

The headquarters for Precise Software was in the Boston area. Rich worked out of that office, while I worked from my home office in Cave Creek, AZ. Brent and Chuck met together on a daily basis. Rich was often included in meetings with them.

Within my first month there, I got a call from Chuck regarding one of our potential customers. I answered the phone by saying “Hello, Lou speaking.” Chuck, after my greeting, began to explain to me how, as a sales guy, I should answer the phone with a long drawn out “Hello! This is Lou Dignazio of The Middleware Company. How may I assist you?”

Having done sales work for many years prior, I knew that no one really cared how you answer the phone. His suggestion was a first year sales tactic. Still, the main reason I answered so simply was because my home phone line was also the Church phone number. When you answer a bunch of calls, you can easily forget which phone you are answering for. Saying, “Hello, Desert Foothills Vineyard’ on my Middleware line would not go over well and visa versa. So, to make the odds of a mix up much smaller, I answered all calls the same.

How I answered my phone was not a big deal to me. So, I thanked Chuck for his input and moved the conversation to the reason for the call. Of course, I didn’t change how I answered the phone. This apparently irritated Chuck a great deal. A day later, I got another call from Chuck. When I answered just as I had the day before, he immediately hung up on me. I knew it was him because I could see the number that had called. I didn’t call him back. I didn’t need to talk to him, and I figured that when he decided to grow up, he would call me back. He eventually did and never mentioned how I answered my phone again…not to me anyway.

Not long after that incident, Rich began to inform me about how I was being discussed in his meetings with Brent and Chuck. Apparently, Chuck was now out to get me fired and Brent was beginning to agree. My job was at risk because I apparently bruised the ego of a co-worker. I couldn’t afford to get fired. My resume looked bad enough already. If I got fired because of something so stupid, it would decimate my family.

There was nothing that I could do. I could not address this issue directly. If I did, it would have put Rich into a bad situation. He of course was expected to keep these conversations about me private. Several times, I did ask Brent if anything was wrong or if there was anything I could improve upon. Each time I asked, he said “No, nothing is wrong. Everything is fine.”  Weeks went into months until by June, Brent was openly telling Rich that he wanted to fire me.

While at a conference in Boston for The Middleware Company, Rich told me that Brent was planning to fire me on the following Monday. Frustrated and concerned for how this was going to work, I fell on my face before God. Two days later, Brent was walked out of the Veritas office with a box in his hands.

Veritas management had decided to move our entire organization under the Veritas Marketing Division. With the change, Brent believed he could push for more authority within the company. Two days after he told Rich of his intent to fire me, he went to our new Vice President and demanded more authority for the position that he held. The VP told him no. Overestimating his value, Brent responded by saying “Then I quit!” and he walked out of the guy’s office. An hour or so later, after Brent realized that his tactic wasn’t going to work, he went back to the VP to accept the job as it was. The VP said, no. and then told him to pack his box because he had already quit.

Yea, as the people of God, we get mistreated by many. God is always using these evil hearted people to make our faith grow. But make no mistake, as it says over and over in scripture, those He uses to mold us and shape us, HE will also judge! I don’t envy any of them, no, not at all.