10.Resignation
February 24-25, 2021
Work distracts the mind.
Our responsibilities carry us through hard times. You can’t hide under the covers when there are things you need to do.
The morning after the funeral, I email Nenshad: I will return to work at DataRobot the following Monday, March 1. Thomas is dead, but the mortgage is still alive.
Sure, he says. No problem. Whenever you’re ready to come back.
First, I need to get started on Thomas’s estate.
Another kindness: a friend at Ropes and Gray suggests I contact Elizabeth Heiner of Boardman & Clark in Madison.
I call the main number. The receptionist puts me through to Heiner’s office; when she answers, I introduce myself.
My name is Thomas Dinsmore. I live in the Boston area. My son, Thomas, was living in Madison, but he just killed himself. Please help me; I don’t know how to get started with his estate.
I can barely say the words.
Heiner immediately promises to help. She returns an engagement letter within the hour.
I call Madison Police and touch base with Detective Trevarthen.
The investigation is finished, she says. The security cameras in his building don’t work, so we don’t know Thomas’s exact movements before the 911 call. We never found his phone.
It’s a moot point, though. There’s enough evidence for the Medical Examiner to rule his death a suicide. She explains about contact gunshot wounds.
Michael and I will be in Madison on Friday to clean out his apartment, I say. Can we pick up his stuff?
We will release his personal belongings, she says. I will be out of the office, but you can go straight to the Central District Property Room. They have his wallet, some cash, and his keys. They have his guns, too. You can have his guns back.
We don’t want his guns.
Can we get into his apartment?
Yes. There’s a Police seal on the door; you can remove it.
What should we expect in his apartment? It’s cluttered, she says, but no worse than her son’s apartment. He’s about the same age as Thomas.
What about his car? I need to search it.
His car is at Schmidt’s Tow in Madison. It’s a bloody mess inside, you might want someone else to search the vehicle.
I thank her for that bit of guidance, but there is nobody else I can ask to do it.
I remember Thomas setting up a checking account at Chase when he moved to Madison in 2013. But I don’t know whether he still banked there. I contact Epic’s payroll people. Yes, they say. His paychecks go to a Chase account.
That’s helpful.
I call Chase’s Madison branch. Fiona, a Financial Services Representative, answers the phone. She sounds like she just got off the boat from Dublin.
Hello, I say. My name is Thomas Dinsmore. I am the father of Thomas B. Dinsmore, who has an account at your branch. He died, and I am handling his estate. How do we get started transferring the account?
Fiona has no idea how to handle dead customers' accounts. She transfers the call to Svetlana, who is a Senior Financial Advisor. Svetlana sounds like she just arrived from Minsk. Svetlana has no experience with accounts of dead customers either.
I think you need a court order, she says.
No shit, Sherlock. I just want to confirm that he has an account at your branch so we can list it on the application for a court order.
Svetlana from Minsk says she cannot confirm information about depositors.
What insurance company did Thomas use for his car? Once I get into his bank account I can look for an insurance company payee. But that could take a while.
First, I check to see if the Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles has an online site. They do – but the information they show for Thomas does not show his insurance carrier.
There are a couple of insurance industry experts working for DataRobot. I ask them if there is a database with Thomas’s insurance information. At first, they can’t think of one. Then one of them calls me back – check with your insurance agent, he says. Agents may be able to look up that information.
I call my insurance agent. He promises to investigate and get back to me.
An hour later, he calls back. An underwriter at Liberty Mutual looked up Thomas in their database. He uses GEICO.
Hallelujah. Problem solved. Now I know how Edmund Hillary felt on cresting Mount Everest.
I have a call scheduled with Gabe, Thomas’s manager. Last week, we exchanged emails briefly.
Today, we Zoom.
He is sorry for our loss.
How long was Thomas on your team?
He transferred to Grand Central in July 2019 – so eighteen months, he responds.
When Thomas started with Epic in 2013, he joined the Radiant team. Radiant is Epic’s application for Radiology. He seemed happy there. I met Andy, his boss, a couple of years ago. Thomas told me about his transfer to Grand Central, but he didn’t say why. I’m not sure what Grand Central does, something to do with keeping track of patients in the hospital so they don’t get lost or whatever.
Did you meet often?
Once a week.
Thomas worked in Epic Technical Services, a matrix organization. Consultants like Thomas report to a manager like Gabe for performance appraisals. They are assigned to projects and clients; most of their daily contact is with their assigned project team.
I tell him that I heard from HR that Thomas resigned.
Yes, he resigned on February 3.
How odd, I say. Thomas never said anything about resigning.
Gabe doesn’t react.
So, um – why did he quit?
Gabe says he doesn’t know why he quit.
This is preposterous, of course. Any manager with a brain knows exactly why an employee quits. Gabe is either really stupid, or he’s deliberately bullshitting me. I ponder this briefly, then settle on the possibility that it could be both.
You don’t know why he quit?
No idea. Complete mystery.
That must have been an interesting chat the two of you had on February 3, I remark.
Gabe is obviously uncomfortable. Yes, he says. It was contentious.
He says that Thomas gave two weeks’ notice at the meeting. However, he had to email Thomas to tell him that Epic expects technical consultants to give four weeks’ notice so they can transition their projects. It’s a clause in the employment contract.
So, I say, the two of you had a contentious conversation on February 3, and as a result, Thomas resigned abruptly, but you don’t know why?
Yes, that’s right, says Gabe.
What an idiot. If I had to work for this clown, I would kill myself too.