Memory Lane - The Rise of the Magic Kingdom (September - October 1982)

At the end of my last Memory Lane post, Christy had celebrated her first birthday with fanfare and flourishes on Ipperwash Beach capping off a pretty fun summer. September of 1982 would see some interesting developments including the blossoming of a special era in my work life. A little background.

The IRS like the rest of the Federal Government is funded on an annual basis. Additionally, about 85% of the IRS budget goes for employee salaries. In other words if the IRS has to cut significant costs for whatever reason, it has to do it through a reduction in salary costs. And since most IRS employees are full-time permanent, this can be tricky.

Over time the budget wizards have come up with numerous policies and procedures to match resources with needs. One of those is to vary hiring practices. As there is high turnover in many IRS jobs, not filling vacancies for a while can help cope with a shrinking budget. This has resulted in a feast-or-famine approach to on-boarding new staff.

Due to an extended period of lean budgets, by the spring of 1982 the IRS Collection Division of the Detroit District (the State of Michigan) hadn't hired but a handful of revenue officers over the previous several years. Our authorized staffing of 300 had dwindled to about 180. Of course, during this time the workload had actually increased. 

Finally the new budget for Fiscal Year 1983, which would begin October 1st of 1982, provided funding to restore our revenue officer complement back to 300. The bulk of the new hires were brought on board in July with all the hiring completed by the end of September. Our goal was to have the new hires contributing to Collection Division productivity as early in the new fiscal year as possible. 

How the Collection Division was able to hire and train 120 newbies with an existing staff of only 180 while keeping the Field operation viable is an interesting story in itself. But it will have to wait for another time. Suffice it to say that we did it using smoke, mirrors and a few creative skill-development techniques. Not dissimilar to teaching your kids to swim by tossing them off the back of the boat and hoping for the best.  

Despite the obstacles, by late summer I and my hand-picked staff were saddled with 110 of the new trainees (the additional 10 new hires were part of a separate operation in Pontiac). Of our 110, 90 were located together on the 19th floor of the McNamara Building in downtown Detroit. The other 20 were split between Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids. So with the eight new managers, 20 (mostly) experienced coaches and one brand spanking new branch chief (yours truly), the training branch had a total of 131 BIS. That would be butts-in-seats, a technical budget term.

Setting aside the operational challenges for the moment, the McNamara-based staff was facing a daunting socialization obstacle. How quickly could we get this diverse group of 90 individuals to embrace each other and focus jointly on our mission? Let me clarify.

An IRS revenue officer is a strange job. Not everyone is cut out for it which is why we have high turnover in the first place. Essentially, ROs as we refer to them spend much of their time interacting with people who in some manner have failed to meet their tax obligations. This failure is usually the result of poor money management, lack of business acumen, unforeseen health or personal problems, or occasionally just outright disregard for the law. You might say it's complicated.

An RO's stock in trade is the ability to poke into other people's business, ask a lot of personal questions, identify the root cause of the problem and get the taxpayer to make whatever changes are needed to return to proper compliance. And do all this without putting him or herself in danger or alienating the taxpayer. Not an easy task. 

True, ROs have some legal authority to enforce their demands. But those procedures take time and usually damage relationships, and as such are generally used as a last resort. The more ROs can achieve results through informing and persuading, the more effective and productive they are.  

So you can see why we hire strong, independent types for this job. On the down side, such individuals often come with a competitive streak. And having 90 of these smiling, empathetic, pit-bulls-in-training in close proximity could be troublesome. We wanted to avoid having them sharpen their skills on each other. But how to do that?

What we came up with was - fun. We would encourage and accommodate as much fun among the trainees as we could. This we thought would build relationships within the group that would lead to mutual support and a sense of teamwork. They would compete together against the challenges of the job rather than against each other. For the most part, the strategy worked.

The fun took on many forms. In the work place we held group lunches and Monday morning ugly-tie contests. There were the after-work happy hours at local watering holes and the occasional outing to Tiger Stadium. To introduce the trainees to the rest of their Collection division colleagues in the McNamara Building we took special steps. We hosted a catered reception in our 19th floor space and invited everybody.  

About a hundred guests came to this virtually unprecedented event for a Collection division office. Most I think were just curious about what the heck was going on down on the 19th floor. But many ended up introducing themselves and spending time chatting with our new people, which was the whole idea. We thought it was a great success.

It was at this event that a senior advisor from our Special Procedures unit, Al K., coined the term that stuck with our operation from that day forth. Smiling, with a cup of coffee and a sandwich in hand, gazing out over the nearly two-hundred people enjoying themselves, Al noted, "This looks more like the Magic Kingdom than a Collection operation." And indeed it did.

Now to why I dragged you through all this. During the first few months of "The Magic Kingdom" we held a couple of social events that cemented our social structure firmly in place. They were a branch-wide picnic at Kensington Metro Park and a killer Halloween party.

Let's start with the picnic which was held in mid-September. The day began with a softball game. I've opted to include shots of personalities that might be familiar to some of my readers. Hard to believe these pictures were taken nearly 40 years ago.

In this first pic we have an eager young lady (can't make out exactly who from this angle) swinging away at a high hard one. Well, not that hard as we were playing softball. And from the position of the ball I would guess she's just popped out to the pitcher.

Behind our aggressive batter are me, in a position I can no longer assume, and Tony C. happily making like an umpire. Like most ROs, Tony liked to be in charge.

Next a couple of wannabe heavy hitters. First is Dick Hickson, our division chief at the time.

Dick was a controversial figure in those years, caught between some ugly top-level politics and his genuine desire to make life in the Collection Division better for all of us. For my part, he always treated me well and taught me a lot about being prepared for when opportunities come along. It was his confidence in our management and coaching staff that encouraged us to take risks and learn by doing. 

Here we have yours truly in an outfit that could only be worn in public in the '80s. Note the socks.

I'm hesitant to admit that I still have the hat, the shirt and the shorts. The socks are long gone, but it may be time for a little more wardrobe purging. Perhaps some thrift shop could offer the whole ensemble as an '80s-look package.

After softball and a couple of beers, we moved to volleyball. Here's a group shot of the action, just to document that at one time some of us actually had vigor.

I can't identify all the faces, but a few are clear. That's Bruce C. second from the left with the curly hair and glasses. On the far side of the net in the left spiker position is Tony C. again. And to the right are me and Dick M. trying to avoid getting hurt.  

In this shot Ralph S. is focused on avoiding the embarrassment of a "beer" serve (that would be hitting the ball into the net because of too much beer), a too-common experience in picnic volleyball.

After the action we relaxed, grilled and in general promoted the good will we were trying to build. In this pic Greg T. is enjoying the day with Anne K. on the left and his bride Melissa on the right.

Below is Dick M., known for the last 40 years in our circles as the "Duke of Inkster" (yet another story for another time), stirring up a pot of beans with what appears to be an able assistant (I don't recognize the young lady behind the Foster Grants). Good will blooming all over the place.

In this shot, I in my bucket hat am demonstrating why I'm seldom seen tending a charcoal grill. I never mastered the smoke thing, nor have a clue when things are done. As a result I'm' usually restricted to toting charcoal and cleaning the grill. 

Also in the pic are Tony C., just heading off for help I think. And that's Ralph S. giving the photographer that "can you believe this guy" look. Despite the subject matter, I was very glad to come across this pic in my prep for this post. We lost both these old friends in recent years, and I have fond memories of each.

I'll share this one final but classic shot from the picnic. Bruce C. carving a watermelon in the way that only he can. No mystery as to why Bruce's nickname for decades has been "Sledge". 

While work during this time was demanding, with long hours and a steep learning curve, I did get to relax every once in a while. At least that's the way I remember it. I went to a college football game once or twice. Here's a pick of the MSU-OSU game that year. You can tell the quality of tickets I was able to get by the angle of this pic. I call it "unremarkable alumni, upper-end-zone reserved".

I was okay being far from the action that day as my Spartans were hammered by the Bucks 31-10.

Back at home, Christy was still viewing the world mostly over the rail of her playpen.

And as often as we could, Nancy and I sat on the large front porch of our Baby Ford home in Dearborn. It was the best feature of the house.

If we tired of watching the neighbors go about their business on Francis Street, we would retire to our small but inviting screen porch at the back of the house to watch the local wild life (birds, squirrels, the occasional opossum and one year a crop of cicadae).

But, most of what was happening to us was work. I in the "Magic Kingdom" and Nancy in her pressure-cooker management job in the yet-to-be-automated, sea-of-paper telephone operation known as Office Branch.

Back to the training branch. Things were working well as we rolled into the new fiscal year on October 1st. After a couple of months of classroom training and generous exposure to field collection techniques, the new hires were getting their feet wet on the streets of Detroit and surrounding communities. The coaches in the McNamara contingent were working hard to expose their charges to the broad range of issues and situations they had to master. And the six managers just down the hall were asserting their independence more and darkening my office door less. For my part, I was learning mostly the hard way what to share with Collection Division leadership and what to keep to myself. So we all thought it was time to party again.

Tony C. stepped up and offered to host a Halloween party. The word went out, plans were made and excitement began to grow. Everybody got into it. And I don't just mean the costumes. They were ready to party like people who had high-pressure day jobs. You know, like spending all day greeting people with "I'm from the IRS and I'm here to help." 

The party - as well as Tony's house - literally rocked. I mean the vibe had to have shown up on somebody's Richter scale. Here are a few pics of some perhaps familiar personalities.

In this first one, Dave K. is bustin' a move. Mae R. looks like she's calling for backup.

Here's Dave again in a pensive moment with French maid Mary Beth D. Probably reflecting on the rush one gets from completing a well-written case history sheet. Not.

Speaking about a rush, here I am as an MSU cheerleader. Somehow I'm managing to make conversation with mime Anne K. 

I'm including this second shot of me fighting off vampire Nancy M. mainly because of my beer. If you look closely at the distinctive bottle you'll see it's a Stroh Signature, a premium brew of the time that was sort of the official beer of our social circle.

Here's a shot of our host, pirate Tony C., taking it all in and enjoying the hullaballoo. Also, it looks like another Signature fan had passed this way.

In this shot sheikh Frank P. is holding court with his bride Lucy who went AWOL from the nunnery for the party. Frank is famous in our social circle as the only one of us who ever rolled a golf court. 

Behind this award winning werewolf costume was another one of our new managers, Al M. Though you would never know it from this look, Al was a softie.  

Here's a shot of Al's bride Nancy as a vampire. Also a bigtime softie. 

In this shot Susie B. is saying something in Greek. I think it was about her drink, but as I don't speak Greek...  

Here veteran RO Imogene O. is passing along a few tricks of the trade to newbie Mike P. As I recall, Imogene was pretty tricky.

Posing as Smurfs were George K. and his bride. George did double duty for us as a coach and a classroom instructor. Under that fake beard he wore a pretty well-tended handlebar moustache. 

Closing out our photo review again is Bruce C. first in a frog outfit. 

And then performing his normal end-of-party ritual (remember the picnic) - carving plant life with a large sharp instrument. This time a pumpkin.

There were many more strange attendees at the big do, but I think you get the idea. It was a memorable night. In my opinion, the 1982 Halloween party was a turning point in the life of the training branch. We had risen, shall we say, and went on to a number of operational accomplishments before the experiment ended as planned in May of '83. That's when the now full-fledged ROs were distributed to line Collection groups. 

For my part, I still have a number of close friends from those days. And we still tell stories about the work, and the parties, that we collectively refer to as "The Magic Kingdom".

Grosse Pointe Charles