How hard the mighty fall

Some years ago, I was working for a regional bank. We were a large bank in the region and I had a decent position that was pretty high up the ladder at the time. We traveled to corporate leader's meetings, flew on the company jet and thrilled to be part of the upper management team.

There was a person who was in charge of reviewing the budgets and expenses for all of the  departments in our division. That person often seemed petty, loving to catch others in mistakes or pointing out during public meetings where you weren't meeting budget goals. This person seemed to enjoy trying to force others to do things their way.

Along came a much larger national bank who bought us out. We soon learned that continual layoffs were part of business as usual. My power hungry friend, who tried to expand to a nationwide position rather than just regional, was one of the first to go.

Yesterday, I was sitting in the cancer center with my daughter when I saw this person, in a wheelchair and picking up a prescription from the cancer center. Quite a change from the days of power. I've added my old nemesis to my prayer list. And I've decided that the lesson learned has to be that I an extremely grateful for my life - that my severance was a blessing that gave me time to spend with my sister and now with my daughter.