Exciting Day at Work

Every now and then, work gets exciting, especially in the default servicing industry. When I was working at Countrywide, some disgruntled homeowner made it past security with a baseball bat and managed to destroy half a dozen computers in the foreclosure department before he was tackled and removed by security. Another baseball bat incident occurred during my Countrywide tenure when an ex-husband of an employee came to the building to find the employee who had an affair with his ex-wife and caused the divorce. There was a third incident where a man was tackled in the lobby by security before he could do any damage. I guess Countrywide realized early on that they need a very large and well trained security detail in their corporate buildings. The default servicing industry (especially Bankruptcy and Foreclosure) creates a lot of angry and disgruntled customers who, evidently, are willing to take out their aggression on the company property and employees who did the foreclosing or other negative action. Most of the people that I work with came from other mortgage companies and have told me countless similar stories to the ones above. (every now and then on slow days, we will tell eachother our stories to see who has the worst one.) Today was similar to one of those exciting days at work. This morning we were on lockdown at my office for about two hours. There is a bank in one of the suites in the building right next to my building and it was being robbed and there were police with guns drawn taking shelter behind their cars. I did not hear any gunshots, but it was all very exciting. When you work in an office, and you hear a message over the PA system from someone who is noticeably distraught say, “Nobody leave the building, we have an emergency” I must say it gives a nice little shot of adrenaline.