Meeting the Bottom Line

Burnie’s Bar isn’t very far from the train station and we get commuters, returning from the city, stopping in for a quick jolt on their way home, James Olson, the Controller of the International Branch of the Klondike Pharmaceutical Corporation, is one. I’ve known Jim since he was a boy; his parents lived just around the corner from me back in the fifties. They were a strange bunch. Charlie Olson, Jim’s dad, had the worst job in the world. Every morning he’d report to Hudson Manure down by the rail yards and spend the day pitchforking horseshit out of railroad cars. He died young and left his wife nothing; Jim grew up in a tenement. Mrs. Olson had a drinking problem and because she was fairly good looking that translated into a man problem. She never remarried but there was always some John buying her drinks who Jim had to navigate around. Jim turned out to be a tall good-looking guy, one might say a born leader. He worked his way through college graduating as class president and went on to climb the corporate ladder. He’s no kid, just five years younger than me. Today, Jim lives in a high-class development way on the west end of town. His house was once featured in Beautiful Homes magazine and was priced at more than a million and a half dollars. What an ego-trip that must be; it’s all part of Jim trying to climb out of his tawdry background.
One day last March Jim came in to Burnies while I was there.
“Max, you’re looking great. Retirement must agree with you,” Jim said, smoothing on the grease as usual.
“It’s keeping me busy, Jim,” I responded.
“Busy? You’re supposed to relax when you retire.”
“There’s just too much going on in the world and now I have the time to pay attention to what’s happening. For example, I’ve been reading about this shipping of jobs overseas.”
Jim looked at me as if he was talking to the village idiot and said, “A business has to do what’s best for it’s stockholders, Max. That’s basic.”
“How about what’s best for it employees. The people who do the actual work in the company? Isn’t that a consideration?” The idiot asked.
Again the village idiot look, “That’s not what business is all about. Businesses exist to make money and if they don’t do that there would be no jobs in the first place. “
“But, if nobody has any money to buy the business’ product, because their jobs have been shipped elsewhere, how would the business make money,” the village idiot asked.
“There’s always somebody out there looking to buy.”
‘You never heard of the depression, Jim?” I asked
“I read in the papers consumer confidence is still pretty high. Tey're still buying.”
“Yeah, and most that is being done on the arm. I read where personal debt is the highest in history by a long shot. People are fighting like hell to retain their middle class living standards, but the jobs of today don’t let them do that.”
“So?”
“One day that bubble is going to burst and the whole country is going down the economic tubes, including the companies that ship jobs overseas.”
“Nah,” said Jim. It’s just a little fluctuation that will work itself out.”
He poured down his drink, got up and left and this idiot pondered the myopia that plagues our world.
The months went by and the economic news got worse and worse.
I bowl on Thursday nights and last week when I finished I didn’t feel like going home, so I stopped in Burnie’s. Jim was there. Obviously he had had a lot to drink.
“How’s, it going, Jim?”
“Pretty shitty, Max. Pretty shitty.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Did you read where my company was bought by a huge chemical company from Holland”
“ I can’t say I did.”
“Well it happened. They told me this morning that international sales will be handled in Holland and our operation will be closed down. I was forced into an early retirement program.”
“So, your job was shipped overseas.”
“I guess you could say that. Look, I’m fifty-eight years old. I can’t start all over again. How in the hell can I pay the gigantic mortgage on that mansion of mine?”
“But, it’s all for the good of the stockholders. I remember you told me that that’s all that’s count. So, all is well.”
Jim gave me a strange look and belted down another double bourbon. I don’t think he was having a good day.