Charlie twisted his ankle yesterday, falling off a curb in a failed attempt to avoid a recently laid off employee.
The former employee kindly offered to help Charlie, asking if he needed a ride to urgent care. He pointed to his 2015 Toyota Corolla and said “My car is right there.” Charlie recoiled in horror at the thought of riding in a Corolla, his Tom Ford suit was worth more than that clunker. Charlie wondered why all people aren’t driving nicer cars - at least a Beemer or a Benz.
The last thing Charlie wanted was to have to listen to this guy’s sad story: recently bought his first home …sick kid…parents in a nursing home….yada yada yada. Charlie had depersonalized employees long ago, treating them as interchangeable commodities. It was easier to eliminate them if he thought of them as inferior or unworthy.
Charlie, still on the ground, couldn’t ask his wife to come get him. She was spending her summer in the Hamptons, where all Wall Street wives go to avoid their overbearing husbands. How many years should a woman have to listen to her 5’7” husband insisting he is 5’10”?
Charlie didn’t want to have to explain his predicament to anyone, so he called 911. A dispatcher answered and said the ambulance couldn’t be there for 3 hours. Charlie blew a gasket and yelled “How does a customer-service business treat its customers so carelessly?” The dispatcher explained that they were short-staffed due to the greed and incompetence of people at the top “putting the almighty dollar above people”. Charlie failed to make the connection.
Charlie, feeling a little vulnerable for the first time in his life, hoped someone who liked him might walk by. That excluded most Wells Fargo current and former employees, anyone from Visa, BNY, Salomon Smith Barney or Citigroup. Most people still at JP Morgan weren’t fans. Also not any WFC shareholders, anyone with the Federal Reserve, the Senate Banking Committee, the OCC or the SEC. Hopefully Warren Buffet or Elizabeth Warren don’t walk by, he chuckled. Surely he had exhibited kindness or warmth once in his life…oh thank goodness, here comes a police officer.
The cop, a retired marine who still carried shrapnel in his legs, walked up and asked “What’s the problem here?” Charlie, looking up, proudly announced himself as the CEO of Wells Fargo, and explained that he had fallen and couldn’t get up. The police officer said “You’re not the Charlie Scharf who has been offshoring all the American jobs are you? Undermining your own country’s stability??” Charlie sheepishly said yes and started to explain about it not being personal and how he had sent $10 to Backstoppers….
The cop thought about subjecting Charlie to a full body strip search, but instead gave him the phone # to the most expensive out-of-network private ambulance service in town.
Charlie was transported to the nearest packed emergency room. He waited for several hours, surrounded by working-class people. This was torture. Losing patience, he wheeled himself to the front desk requesting to be moved to the front of the line because “he was CEO of Wells Fargo and rich people should be put head of average people”.
The exhausted nurse behind the desk, on her second shift, recognized his name and said, “Oh you’re Charlie Scharf? I will personally make sure you receive the service you deserve.” The nurse’s husband had worked for BNY for over 25 years, and was unceremoniously laid off back in 2018 when Charlie was CEO. Not long after, the struggling couple read an article about Charlie trying to purchase an $18.5 million penthouse overlooking Central Park.
The nurse asked Charlie if he had any allergies. He said no, so she smiled sweetly and handed him 2 unmarked Dulcolax tablets, saying they would help with his pain. Then she quietly moved his name back down to the bottom of the waiting list.