April 2, 2008. Chevy Chase, Md. Carol E.

Next came Carol E. Adrea was an agent in the office. We had worked together for many years. In fact she was one of the five agents called the Leper Colony that met together each week to try to get better at our job. I put the group together because I can not come up with ideas. My creative brain does not function, but I am good at implementing ideas. Adrea was a very exacting and difficult person, but she had zillions of ideas, so the group worked well. Then I became the Manager in the same office. Adrea is perhaps the most difficult person I have ever known, and when Adrea told me she had met a service person at the Chevy Chase Bank who actually satisfied her needs, I knew that service person was something special. Now Adrea and I were friends, but I know how she drives most service people to drink. During Adrea's meeting with the bank official, she asked why with such impressive talents, the bank employee hadn't been promoted. The response back was typical. "I have not been promoted because I am a woman and I come from St. Kits."

Adrea came to me raving about this person, Carol Encarnacion, who was able to deal with her issues. I listened and suggested that Carol E. call to talk to me. Once again, I had no job opening, and once again I interviewed Carol E. And I liked her immediately. Now that was 1988, just after Regina came to work with us. I sounds as if I was loosing my staff one after the other, but what actually happened was that I was trying to get our systems into a more effecient manner, and the two long time staff members were not quite able to see the benefits. One by one they resigned. Now I had another job opening, and I called Carol E. She came to work with us three weeks after Regina, and they have worked together ever since. Carol is the best cheer leader in the office. She is unfailingly enthusiatic and encouraging to the agents. She does not yell or get upset at anything at any time. But the best part is that she does not make mistakes. Now that is not quite true. In all the years Carol has worked with me she has two or three errors.

Her job is to handle anything with money and sales. When she joined us, our volume for the year was about one hundred and Fifty Million in sales. Now our annual sales volume for the past five years has exceeded one and a quarter Billion. And Carol still is able to process all the cases. In addition to her job with the cases she takes the minutes of our sales meetings, organizes the information and word processes the finished product for the agents. Of course, she is from St. Kits, so the additions and deletions are not quite as we did, but they are all interesting. Perhaps the most important task she performs for the office is deciding our monthly goal. At the beginning of each month, Carol E. stands up at the sales meeting and tells the agents what she expect the agents will do in volume this month. She has previously consulted her cards and last years volume, and then makes her announcement. Most of the time, the agents do as she asks. If they are slow to bring in their contracts, she has been known to change her goal in the middle of the month!!

Carol E. and Regina are very different from the other, but they work together very well and have done for almost twenty years. One other thing about Carol E. At a check up with the Doctor, she was told that she had high blood pressure and high cholesterol. The Doctor wanted to start her on medicine, but she refused and made a deal with the good Doctor that she would change her diet and eexrcise for six months. If they were not down to normal, she would take the medicine. She still does not eat any fat, she is very thin and she runs many marathons. The Doctor is happy.