It's not even Halloween yet

When a company goes out of business what is left after they close the doors is often times a shell of what once was.  Ask anyone trying to arrange a short sale with a sub prime lender these days.  They leave only a skeleton crew of employees to mop up the ruins.

I came into this business many years ago working for a small lender.  One day, the word came down that we had been bought by a bigger lender.  That lender then decided that we had too many employees and called for massive layoffs. 

We occupied almost the entire floor of the building.  Overnight the cubicle farm I had been inhabiting went barren.  95% of the work force were handed their pink slips including all of the management staff.  Not me.  They said I was a keeper!

Shades of The Omega Man

I worked for a week inside my cubicle.  For what reason, I don't know.  Then I realized something.  I was almost all alone.  My boss wasn't coming back.  None of them were coming back.  So, I moved from the smallest cubicle nearest the supply room to the posh corner office overlooking the fountain!  Why not?

Jimmy did too.  He was also left behind.  Here's something nobody knows.  Sometimes when we were bored we'd toss the Frisbee across from my office to his.  Try that two weeks prior and we would have been canned on the spot!  Now?  Who's to say no?

The truth is that while they downsized most of the staff, they left a select crew to answer the phones while they were busy finagling the dismantling and destruction of the rest of the company.  So when I read this story about numerous Ameriquest files being found in a dumpster I wasn't surprised.  I know first hand what happens when a company goes dark. 

Improper Assumptions

Why would anyone possibly think that the last person out has anywhere near the same moral integrity, the same business ethics, as a responsible business leader?  Why would they and why should they?  It costs money to properly store and dispose of documents like the loan files they found.

I have news for you.  Ameriquest is only the first to hit the media.  Think about every one of the 172 Lenders that have appeared on the Implode-o-Meter.  Wow that's a lot of personal, private paperwork floating around out there.

But wait there's more!  Now think about every single mortgage broker office that also has closed it's doors.  They too have files - many many files.  How are these files being stored?  Who's paying to shred them when the time comes? 

Nobody ever would have thought a large lender would dump confidential paperwork in a dumpster would they?  Nobody ever thought Jimmy would ever be tossing a Frisbee across the office in the middle of the business day to me either. 

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