Parallel Universe?

I have the distinction of having worked for both Enron and Washington Mutual - two disastrous corporate tales of woe. How will my resume look to future clients or employers? Will they find me to be cursed and shred my resume to ensure the bad juju doesn’t seep into their organization? I don’t think so. Well, at least, I hope not. I was with a subsidiary of Enron for seven months and WaMu for seven plus years. I feel certain that they’ll cut me a break.

I only went to Houston twice during my short stint – Enron’s HQ building was magnificent, I remember. In fact, I was there when they were breaking ground for their space for a trading floor that would resemble the NYSE. WaMu, several years later, decided to make its mark in Seattle by building a wonderful leadership center called Cedarbrook and a few years later a new corporate tower called WaMu Center. Also a magnificent building.

It makes me wonder: Do companies who think they are making history in a certain industry get too big for their britches and fall under the weight of their arrogance and collective ego?

If you haven’t watched “Smartest Guys in the Room,” you should. It thoughtfully shows the rise and fall of “one of the most innovative” companies in its day. The well researched documentary on Enron (with a tag line of: It’s Just Business) will one day be a classic in business schools – teaching up and coming business leaders about how executives can rationalize anything and how people who are involved in strategic decisions can lose their minds if they sniff out great profit and think they are too smart to get caught.

Let’s see if these companies resemble one another:

Enron was once the 7th largest company in the United States and it fell into bankruptcy a year later after making that distinguished mark on Wall Street. WaMu was the 7th largest bank and fell into receivership with the FDIC within weeks of looking for a potential buyer

Top executives at Enron padded their banking accounts with billions of dollars leaving their shareholders and employees in the dust. Most of the WaMu executives got screwed when the company went into receivership, as did the employees and shareholders and institutional investors.

Enron got into an interesting game in California trying to capitalize on deregulation. One of the reasons why WaMu was hit so hard was that it was heavily invested in California – particularly in the housing market.

Enron had some dodgy accounting practices that ultimately burnt their behinds. WaMu, the media is reporting, bet on the housing boom and got into some “exotic loans” and the unstable sub-prime market. That decision, in hindsight, turned out to be poison to the system.

Kenneth Lay was convicted and sentenced to jail (but died of a heart attack about three months before he had to start serving his term.) Jeff Skilling is serving out his sentence at a Federal Correctional Institute in Colorado.

I’m not sure what the top brass is doing at the now defunct WaMu nor do I have an inkling about what’s in store for them legally. But, I do hope someone is sketching out a documentary that will follow the recent financial services debacle. And I wouldn’t mind if they put in something about the FDIC’s seizure of WaMu. All the shareholders, institutional investors and employees deserve the facts of what went on behind closed doors. At least that’s my opinion. Knowing the nitty-gritty would not change things or turn back time. I’m not looking for a “re-start” button. I’d be satisfied with some answers.

I feel bad writing this – but when the implosion of Enron came, I felt no kinship. No anything really. It was just a news story. And now, having gone through a similar scenario – a company failing so many people in so many ways - I am haunted with a sense of remorse. How could I have been so dispassionate? So many Enron employees lost their life savings. They had believed in the media hype. They had felt special and like they were changing the world. They had invested in their company. And it all went bye-bye in a snap of a finger. What a brutal tragedy.

There are so many people in the Seattle area who have no compassion for WaMu. On blogs they call all of us greedy crooks. They think we walk around without a soul. And I’m hurt by these accusations. People say we deserved what we got. I can sincerely say, they don’t know what they are talking about. But, they won’t listen until, perhaps, one day, something similar happens to them.

Life, we’re all learning, is not just about the Benjamins. There’s a sweetness in simplifying, in thinking twice about purchases, in valuing and making the most of this gift of time. That’s what I’m going to be focusing on from here-on-out. Thinking positively about the future isn’t just a state of mind. I really do believe some good will come out of these experiences and I am open to what the universe will throw at me next.

By the way, I don't know the answer to my original question of are Enron and WaMu in parallel universes. Time will tell.