On February 20 I was seated in a small conference room at Provident Bank of Maryland in Baltimore. Across the table were the vice-president of commercial banking, a pleasant woman, and the vice-president in charge of "special loans," the bank's innocent-sounding euphemism for loans that were in trouble. (In other words, you did not want your loan to be "special" at Provident Bank.) Mr. Special Loans, as I will call him, had one of those faces locked in a permanent scowl, which I supposed was a prerequisite for his job.
I told the bankers that I had ceased operations and was in the process of notifying customers and creditors that my company was closing. I had prepared a couple of summary pages showing our financial situation. We had about $473,000 in debt and accounts payable, while the receivables and assets totaled (at best) about $142,000. Not a pretty picture.
I said that I did not want to declare bankruptcy, that I wanted to pay everything I owed, even if it took years. They said nothing. The bank was first in line and therefore entitled to all receivables, all proceeds from the liquidation of assets, all money in our bank accounts. And if that wasn't enough (which it wouldn't be), there was always our house. If it was sold at auction, there would be plenty of money with which to pay off the first mortgage holder--and Provident Bank. The question was, How long would the bank wait before taking our house?
Mr. Special Loans told me that the bank had frozen the company's account and that in the future all checks I wrote had to be cleared by him or his staff. He was going to prepare a letter stating that a condition of default existed and therefore Provident Bank was officially calling the loan. He would pay me a visit at our offices soon.
Finally, he said he wanted February's loan payment immediately (it wasn't due for another eight days), and he wanted another $2,000 in principal paid immediately thereafter. Would I be so kind as to go back to my office and type out a letter "requesting" that Provident Bank take the money out of our account? I could tell this was going to be a lot of fun.
Over the next five weeks, I learned what it meant to be hounded. Mr. Special Loans called me daily (sometimes twice daily) for no particular purpose other than to let me know he was there and, unlike a bad dream, was not going to go away in the morning. Creditors called every day by the dozen. As the word got around, customers called in a panic: Who was going to finish their job? Who was going to order their part? Who was going to make the service calls?
March 7 was Flo's last day. As she was leaving she said that the company's closing was for the best, that something better would come along for me.
March 12 was Laura's last day. Our parting was awkward. Neither of us knew what to say.
Laura: I'm leaving now. (pause) Good luck, Drix.
Me: OK. Thanks. I'm sure I'll be talking to you. Thanks for finishing everything up.
Laura: That's OK. Give my best to Judi.
Me: I will. See ya.
Laura: See ya.
Then she was gone. I thought to myself, "That was the last employee of ADS. Ever." I was now totally alone.
The landlord had given me until March 24 to get out. So far, I had managed to sell three of the vans, some parts and tools, and a few pieces of equipment. I was keeping the fax machine, my computer, a bookcase, and one desk and chair. Everything else would be liquidated to pay Provident Bank.
There were eight offices and a conference room filled with furniture and files; more than 20 filing cabinets of all shapes and sizes; and the accumulated treasures of 34 years in business, including a 2,500-square-foot shop packed with welding equipment, a metal-cutting band saw, a monstrous air compressor, old tools, motors, camera housings, transformers, electrical fittings, more than 100 spools of wire, and assorted gizmos and gadgets that, even after seven and a half years as owner, I only vaguely understood.
The only option was to sell everything piece by piece, gizmo by gizmo, gadget by gadget. Whatever wasn't sold by 5 p.m. on Monday, March 24, would be going into the trash.
We were also racing against other deadlines. I had not paid the phone bill for more than two months and couldn't now. The electric bill was a month overdue. If Bell Atlantic caught up with us before March 24 and shut the phones down, I could use the cellular phone for a few days--but that bill, too, was two months overdue.
I took out some "business liquidation" ads in the newspaper. Judi came in eight days before D day to help me clean up and move out. She cleaned out one office completely and turned it into a nursery for our 2-year-old and the young children of friends who came to help. She made big pots of pasta and sauce to feed the hungry work crews.
My former office manager's husband, Norm, a self-described tool junkie (and unlike me, someone who knows what he is looking at) came in for several days to set up and properly merchandise the shop. At Judi's request, Peter, an unemployed friend from church, came with his family for the last five days to clean up, sweep out, throw away. After assessing the situation the first day, he began making phone calls at night to other friends and fellow church members, who in turn gave hours (in some cases, days) of their time to help empty out the dirty, disgusting, depressing company.
