Obie Tilden, the young Vice-President of the Auburn Pilots semi-pro baseball team (Pacific Northwest Women’s Independent Baseball League), just a year-and-a-half out of high school, fired two executives of the team. One of them, Felix Starr, 70, gray-and-black-peppered-haired, likes tan suits, the Traveling and Scheduling Manager, and the other, Buster Brewster, 59, the Scouting and Player Development Manager. Starr, popularly known as “Coach Felix”, pleaded with Miss Tilden to give him another chance, telling her that his kind of erratic employment and ne’er-do-well past and early buy-in to his Social Security pension (at 62) would leave him with just a practical pittance, monthly, for income post-firing. Obie told him, rather bluntly, that management does not take into consideration the personal finances or general economic difficulties of employees when making personnel decisions. She said it was unfortunate that he did not make better decisions as far as handling his finances and lifestyle were concerned, not to mention better decisions in his job with the Pilots, but that was not her concern at this point, nor the team’s. Starr struggled to maintain a dignified composure but the moisture in his eyes was barely containable of tears. He tried to say more, but Obie cut him off and told him to have his desk and office cleared out of his personal belongings in 20 minutes, and if it took longer than that, unfortunately she would have to have a security guard, or however many guards were needed, to escort him out the building, and his belongings would be mailed to him. Starr gasped at the abruptness of the firing, and when he looked at the office wall clock, it was twenty minutes til 12 noon.
When Starr tried to bring up the subject of severance pay, Miss Tilden cut him off again and said the team would consider paying him the rest of his month’s salary. It was the 25th of the month, so that basically consisted of six and a half days of pro-rated severance, quite abject. Starr objected; Obie curtly responded by telling him he now had 17 minutes to pack up and get out. While Obie observed everything, eventually standing with her arms folded, Starr was practically sweating, trying to get out of the office before 12, papers scattered everywhere and struggling to get his stuff into a couple of boxes that he had to rush and find outside of his office, in a storage room. With security on his tail because he left the office briefly, Obie told him he would be billed for the two boxes. Starr choked up. Since Starr was at least timely, barely, security kept a respectful distance from him while he walked out of the building. Relieved at that small accomplishment since he knew that when Obie detailed the time he had left to exit the building in such a minute manner, his time was really up.
Buster Brewster, the Player Development Executive, was fired by Obie in the next half-hourly window, 12 to 12:30. She arrived at his office at exactly 12:10 PM. She basically gave the same spiel to Brewster as she did to Starr, and similarly gave him 20 minutes to clear out his desk. Brewster was more flamboyant and angry than depressed or throwing himself at the mercy of Miss Tilden, but nonetheless startled and taken aback. Given Brewster’s defiant demeanor, Miss Tilden immediately motioned for security, as they were standing just outside the office door, out of view from Brewster’s vision. Unlike Starr, Brewster dilly-dallied around and took his time gathering his things, thereby warranting three beefy security guards to escort him out of the building at exactly the 20 minute deadline. When Obie said 20 minutes, she meant 20 minutes. At that point, Brewster grudgingly complied with little confrontation and walked out of the office and the building with the accompaniment of guards directly in front and behind him as well as shoulder to shoulder. He only had some of his belongings with him, the rest would be mailed, just as Obie had given him fair warning would be the case if hadn’t gathered them up in time. Walking to his car, he was grumbling to himself about being too old to find another job…nobody cared.
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