Key West Real Estate Throwback Thursday No. 31

from January 8, 2018

Fire and Fury & Fatbutt

Today's blog has nothing to do with Key West real estate except that if you want to buy a place or sell a place and you want an agent with life experiences beyond self-aggrandizement and self-promotion, you may want to call me. Info below on that.

I want to share a small true tale that may explain why so may people in the White House seem to have made derogatory statements about the boss, Mr. Trump. I think what might have happened was quite insignificant at the time. I did something similar about forty years ago and it changed the course of my life to some extent.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog about negotiating with bullies where I mentioned traveling to Omaha to meet with other creditors of a farmer borrower I called "King". In the late 1970s I was a commercial loan workout guy at a big Denver bank. It was my job to correct the ill advised and unsecuredloan by getting security. The problem was there were other lenders who had also given King money, most of whom were also unsecured lenders.

We (my bank) worked out a plan to take liens on various assets of King including his homestead located in Kansas. We thought the passage of time and a good crop season would put King in a better position to repay a portion of our loan. Our short term goal was to perfect our security interest in each of King's assets against the claim of other unsecured creditors.

I went to Omaha with our bank's new ag lender to attend a creditors meeting to discuss our mutual bad boy borrower. I sat quiet throughout the morning meeting as all to the other lender reps were discussing throwing King into involuntary bankruptcy. Just before we broke for lunch one of the other creditors said something like "Gary, you have been quite all morning long and have not said a thing" (which anyone who knows me is an improbable thing).  He asked if I had an opinion at which time I said I thought we should give King time to take his crops to market to see how much cash he generate to pay to the creditors. What I was really recommending was that they do nothing which would give us the necessary time to perfect our recently recorded mortgages and financing statements.  In a contest between secured an unsecured lenders, we would then prevail over most of the other lenders. We broke for lunch and later that afternoon the group of lenders agreed to do nothing.

That night Howard Fatbutt, the ag lender, and I went to Gorat's world famous steakhouse in Omaha to celebrate our diversion tactics. For those not familiar with the name Gorat's, it is Warren Buffett's favorite steak house. I remember having a couple of drinks and eating a great steak. I have eaten there several times since that night, but that night had consequence for me because I told Fairbutt that my boss was an "***hole". I thought what I said was both a joke and more importantly private.  I assumed that most people think their their bosses are "***holes" to some extent. In point of fact I really liked my boss and respected him greatly. He was a former US government attorney and very smart.   I said something stupid that I should not have said.

The following week my boss invited me into his office and told me Fairbutt reported that I had called him an "***hole". My boss was genuinely pissed and did not care for any defense on my part.  A couple of weeks earlier he had told me about an upcoming promotion. On that day he said the promotion would not happen.  He wouldn't fire me, but he would not promote me either. I couldn't figure out why Fatbutt had told my boss anything except perhaps to recommend a bonus for pulling off a win for our bank. We worked in different areas of the bank and had not had any prior business or personal meetings before. 

I can imagine a scenario where Micheal Wolff, the seemingly ever-present bald guy hanging around the White House, would get a lot of people to make ill advised remarks about President Trump. I can't imagine anyone would have envisioned their quips would have been repeated in a tell all book about the boss. Howard Fatbutt was my Micheal Wolff. 

If you are looking for a Realtor in Key West and want someone with life learning experiences, please consider calling me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642 or send me an email at kw1101v@aol.com. I am a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West.