Branch Manager At Last

I have returned from Detroit and finally have my legs back under me again. It was an exhausting trip, coupled with a seminar before I left last Tuesday. I left for Detroit on Wednesday morning and flew through Las Vegas. Our flight out of Vegas was delayed for thirty minutes and it turned out that Detroit was down to two runways for incoming flights and the delays in Detroit were up to two hours. My flight was supposed to arrive at 8:00 PM and finally touched down at 9:15 PM. The car service was not there as the flight was taken off the board at one point and the car service assumed it was cancelled. They were able to divert one of their Escalades from the Northwest terminal and they came over to pick me up. I arrived with golf clubs and a new heavy pea coat style overcoat, which was an anomaly, but both of the items came in handy.

We awoke Thursday morning to snow. Big, fat flakes were raining down on metro Detroit and the temperatures were in the thirties. These meetings are brutal for those of us coming in from the west coast as they start at seven-thirty, which jet lag be damned is 4:30 AM my time. Limos met us at the Ritz Carlton in Deerborn and whisked us through the gathering snow to the home office in Farmington Hills. We had a full day on Thursday including meetings all day with various department heads. After a trade show put on by the various home office departments at 6:00 PM, we were whisked away by bus to a restaurant for dinner and drinks. We finally arrived back at the Ritz at 10:00 PM, tired and ready for bed.

The Ritz was a nice bonus this year. Wayne Gretzky and his Phoenix Coyote NHL hockey team were at the hotel when we arrived on Wednesday and the Buffalo Bills arrived on Saturday and had a team breakfast next door to our team breakfast on Sunday. The accomodations and food were truly five star and the service was exemplary.

Friday we were up at 7:00 AM for breakfast and meetings all day. I had been tabbed on Thursday night to sit at Alan Kaufman's table on Friday morning for breakfast. The Advertising Department, which runs the meetings, tries to allocate a spot for all of the managers at Alan's table for at least one of the meals that we have.

The meetings were called to order with a recognition of all of the staff anniversaries from five years up to 40 years. Alan then called me up and promoted me to Branch Manager and went through the chronology of how long I'd been running the branch and how we'd turned profitable last year and were moving forward as a profitable part of the team. I received a very warm and appreciated ovation from the managers that I've sat in meetings with for now my third Managers meeting and my first as a Manager. It was long overdue and truly appreciated by me.

Saturday was a half day session followed by golf in the afternoon. The weather had moderated into windy and a high of 48 degrees and a wind chill factor of 38 degrees. The pro shop had winter gloves on sale for $15 and I bought a pair (Winter golf gloves come with both gloves for the right and left hand). I don't much like playing in a coat, much less gloves, but the weather was COLD and it made sense to stay warm. I had a truly good day on the links and our team took first place and I had both a closest to the pin award and the long drive to clean up on prizes. Many of the golfers complained about the bitter cold, but the course was in impeccable shape and the greens were beautiful.

We went from the golf course to Bucca Di Beppo in Livonia for dinner where we watched the Detroit Tigers eliminate the Oakland A's in four games and qualify for the World Series.

Sunday was another half day session and my one-on-one with Alan Kaufman. The meeting went well and Alan congratulated me on my promotion. He is still concerned about our low ROI (return on investment) and wants me to focus on increasing that number in 2007. With the number of staff that I have, the only way to do this is to either increase our premium income or to reduce staff. Obviously, I would prefer to increase our premium writings. I am looking to reduce overhead in 2007 by beginning to deliver our policies electronically. Right now my annual expense for postage is over $30,000 and if I can get the agencies to accept electronic delivery of policies, I can likely reduce that bill by half.

I flew home at 5:30 out of Detroit and through Phoenix. My flight out of Phoenix was again delayed and I finally arrived at the Sacramento airport at 9:45 PM and after collecting my luggage arrived home at almost 11:00 PM (2:00 AM Detroit time). I took Monday off as a mental health day and planned to be back in the office this morning. Well, lo and behold, I got called into Jury Duty and have to report to the jury commissioner in Auburn at 8;30 AM this morning. I will see if I can get out of the commitment this week due to work hardship as I haven't set foot in my office in a week. I truly enjoy Jury Duty, but the timing this time is abysmal.

Jennifer was here when I arrived home as her shipment of personal items from the military was finally being delivered. Jennifer had joined Das Net so quickly upon her return from Kuwait and her out processing from the Army that she had not had a chance to get her shipment from Kuwait. It arrived after she left for Korea and the Army put it into storage for her until she got back. Now that she has a place in Walnut Creek, she arranged to have the items shipped here. She had 12 boxes of stuff and wanted to go through it, put some in storage in our attic and give some to Goodwill. She spent at least three hours going through the boxes and culling out the clothes and shoes she wanted to keep and those that she would donate to charity. I took that time to go through my closet and ended up with two lawn bags of clothes to donate as well. Jennifer and I went over to the Cancer society thrift store and donated two boxes of her stuffed animals and clothes to the cause. Darla and I are up to three bags of clothes and Darla will add to the donation as she goes through her closet as well. We have a truck coming next Monday for the donations.

I was able to have breakfast and lunch with Darla and Jenn yesterday and get caught up on what is going on in their lives.

Darla and I will attend a funeral tonight for the husband one of Darla's good friends. Her husband just turned 50 and died last week of congestive heart failure. He'd been in the hospital after two heart attacks and died two hours after being released from the hospital. He turned 50 while he was in the hospital. Sandy, his wife, is devastated and Darla is improving my diet and is intent on keeping me alive.

Darla and I have decided to have Premier Pools build our new backyard pool. Their designer and construction supervisor was excellent. A big part of the dig for us is the excavation and demolition of our existing concrete and koi pond prior to the work starting. The guy we met from Aquatique Pools would not lift a hand to help us in the process, whereas Kevin bent over backward and got both a tree service and a concrete cutter lined up to clear the backyard. Kevin going the extra mile bought him the job. We had thought about contracting this ourselves, but I'm sold on the theory of having a project manager control the process, pull the permits and get the job done. Premier has all of their own subs save for gunite, so the argument that I could get the same work done myself is bogus. The cost savings would have been about $7,500, but the job likely would not have been handled as well and I don't need to buy headaches right now in my life.

Well, I need to get off to Jury Duty now, so I will add more next week. Jennifer's blog is now on a new site. It is www.jswanonline.com. Check it out.