Mr. Miller

A little over a week ago, someone very near and dear to my heart left this earthly world for greater things.  So much has gone thru my mind, so many memories and things I felt like sharing, just not sure of how to do that.  A Facebook note seemed too cold and I've more to say than my fingers could write in a card to his family, so a new blog post made sense.  I've not posted for over two years, so bear with me as I get my feet wet again!

The Furkins family and the Miller family first met sometime around the end of 1969 or 1970 when my Mom and Mrs. Miller were both working at JCPenney's in 100 Oaks Mall.  Our families have remained friends all these years, thru graduations, weddings, births of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, failures, successes, heartaches, a couple of divorces and deaths.  You got to think - 47 years of life, that's what it was.

In 1978 after I graduated from high school, I intended to pursue a college degree but needed a summer job.  Life and Casualty Insurance was hiring part time folks for the summer gig and I'd applied at my high school, only to miss the announcement of impending interviews and showed up at school in jeans and sneakers.  The interview didn't go too well, I didn't get hired and was told there were no more positions.  Remember it was 1978, professional attire WAS the standard.

Sometime that week the Millers and Furkins were visiting and Mr. Miller asked if I'd gotten hired.  He seemed perplexed when I told him they said there were no more positions but he didn't really say much.  The next day though I got a phone call from the hiring person in Personnel who asked me at least five times how I knew Mr. Dave Miller and finally told me to come in the next day for another interview.  I was hired and was set to start the next week in Mr. Miller's department, known then as The Register Department.   And that hiring person never liked me, EVER.  She left the company about 15 years later, not related to me at all.

On Monday I fearfully, scared to death it was, went to my first day on the job.  I was assigned to the Weekly Premium unit in Register, none of these words meant a thing to me.  I saw Mr. Miller and waved at him but he was very busy and just kept walking.

As the week went on and I'm still fumbling like a freshman football player whose feet had never touched the sod, I found out two things.  Most of the department feared Mr. Miller and, because they'd been told I knew him, feared me.  No one talked to me, I ate lunch with my supervisor and had not made a single friend the whole week.  I was still too scared to care at that point.

As time went on, I learned more and more, tried college for a week, but went back to work.  I moved from unit to unit in the department, I had made some friends and finally a couple of them told me no one wanted to talk to me because I knew Mr. Miller.  ????  I just didn't understand because the Mr. Miller I knew wasn't anything like what they thought of him.

As my knowledge of everything L&C grew, so did my realization of Mr. Miller.  He was an extreme professional and consummate perfectionist.  If you were going to do it, do it right!  To me this was normal, God knows I wish I had a dollar for every time my mother had said this.

My interaction with Mr. Miller was fairly limited until I moved to the Reinstatement unit.  If we had any problems with AGNIS (just go with it) Mr. Miller was the expert.  Sometimes, you'd have a huge problem and not know it - Mr. Miller would come looking for you.  I remember him coming to the door of his office and asking my Unit Leader "Who is desk 630?" or whatever desk number he was looking for; I was desk 630!!  More than once I'd have to take my problem child into his office and let him review what I'd one and give me the instructions for fixing it.  During this time, don't speak.  He could plainly see what you'd done wrong and didn't need an explanation.

It was during this time that I realized NO ONE in the building knew AGNIS like he did, NO ONE knew Registers like he did and he had a lot of responsibility on his plate.  BUT, if you listened to him and heeded his directions, you could learn A LOT!!

By this time, I'd been at the company about four years and we'd been thru several conversions.  One of the side effects of the latest was that there were many masters to build (creating a policy record in AGNIS for a life insurance policy that had missed conversion).  One day he comes by my desk and I have all these green coding forms out - I have about 20 masters to build that day and at that time, we hand coded them for keying by a unit in Electronics (what IT was called in the 70's and 80's).

He asked me what I was doing and I told him about to build all these masters and he said "Come over here".  We went to a CRT - back then we had three for the unit - no PC's yet!!! - and he showed me how to build a master in the system WITHOUT writing up twelve pages.  I never hand coded a master again, AND, my knowledge of AGNIS developed exponentially under his tutelage.

A year or so later, I ended up moving to Policy Changes, a big step up for me.  I know I could have not made that change at that time without Mr. Miller' direction and education.  We would not work directly together again, BUT, I would see him from time to time on my floor looking for that desk number that inevitably screwed something up!!  It was almost always one particular person and she loathed him, but only because she didn't listen to him and learn from him.

When AGLA, as we became to be known, was going thru yet another conversion to Vantage, I was working as part of the technical analyst team.  I was assigned the Register interface and to my delight, Mr. Miller had written the business requirement documentation for the interface.  He'd just retired and I would leave before the conversion was ever complete, but it felt like old home week when I'd gotten my assignment and began to prepare.

I know that I was raised with a strong work ethic, but I want to say that working for Mr. Miller only strengthened that foundation and in helping me gain the knowledge, gave me the confidence to move up and on in the company.

One day, it was so so cold outside and several of us were riding the elevator up at the same time.
Mr. Miller asked us where our hats were - we didn't have on hats - could not mess up our perms and poofs - but he told us we'd stay a lot warmer if we'd were hats and just grinned at us!

He could be standing right next to someone and slip off without them knowing or one of the secretaries would be trying to find him for a phone call or question - he was around but you'd just never hear him.  So, that year for Christmas the secretaries got him a cow bell to wear!  It was quite funny and he laughed the hardest about it.

There are many more memories that will come to me over the next few months I'm sure, I just remember him so fondly and with so much respect.  Thank you Mr. Miller for all you taught me, not only about life insurance, etc. but your example on living a good life!!

Don't let Bitterness Get A Root

First, it took me awhile to figure out how to get back to this blog.  I have been wanting to blog about a lot of things and couldn't get the right combo to get to this page.  Seems I set up two gmail accounts at some point???

All that being said, I reviewed some of the last posts I'd written and dismay with myself set in.  I have let a bitter root take hold in my heart.  I can see that from my post "Weight of the World".  I think it's mostly because I've let one very bitter angry person have too much time in my life and that I can fix today.

I know I will feel much better if I shed that weight and go back to being my jovial happy self!!