04.04.08

Feel like the Last Hurrah?

Posted in Education at 11:52 am by Jeanne

I’ve been in the closing/ title industry a long time. Since 1973 I believe. I’ve seen lots of changes and weathered difficult times. It has been an exciting ride. I weathered the advent of RESPA, and new mortgage products closed anywhere between 5% and 18%. (Even closed one first mortgage at 24% for a poor guy with bad credit and a balloon in his contract for deed!) It has always been an industry of feast and famine.

I have been through more than one phase of hiring like crazy. Couldn’t find and train them fast enough. So many title orders. Growing like crazy. Taking more and more office space. Hiring new managers. More staff. More furniture. More computers. Growing so fast it seemed out of control…

I also remember going through “the exercise,” a corporate requirement. We did it every six months, laying out the number of staff I should have and specifically who they were, based on various theoretical order counts. With 50 orders a month I’d need 4, with 75 orders a month…well, I could contract out some of the work, let go of leased equipment… It seemed like just an “exercise,” although a thoughtful one, until that fateful day when the word came down from “up above.”

I had to cut 30 percent of my staff that day. Seven people, that first go around. I was a robot – it all seemed so unreal, I was in a fog. I had hired and trained each of these people. They were ALL GOOD PEOPLE – they were my people. There were no slackers. But I didn’t have enough work for them. No matter how hard I tried, I could not bring in the order-count I needed to keep these good people.

I called them in, one-by-one to tell them the bad news. The looks on their faces cut me. They asked – “Why Me?!” All I could say was “it has nothing to do with your performance, there is just not enough work”. And so it went. I cut Linda, then Jerry, then Dawn, then Bob, and it went on and on. I was exhausted. I felt incredible guilt. This was MY FAMILY. I was letting them down. Some people think management is the name of the game, cream of the crop, top of the world. In reality, it’s a tough game.

I later moved on to a much bigger position, overseeing well over a hundred staff. I knew ALL their names, and the names of their kids. Some were jokesters, some serious, some strong, others pansies. But they were all mine. But as the market shifted and interest rates rose, layoffs again became inevitable. Once again I had to lay off, and after doing so, it was my turn to be laid off.

Those fateful days still cut. The memories are vivid. I know I no longer want to feel responsible for keeping staff employed. Because logically I know I can’t control the market, but somehow I always felt that I personally failed my staff when they were let go. And I worried about them and I still care about them.

I no longer want to manage a large staff. And I empathize will all of you who are going through this difficult time. I know it tests us all. All businesses, including my own, are suffering at this time. But somehow we will carry on - in this business, or perhaps another. Learn from it.The cycle always recycles and a new day will come. Don’t lose hope. Look to the future. This too shall pass.

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