The True Believers

Ten emails sent to Ken Lay’s inbox between October and January, bookended by two artifacts from happier years. Presented in chronological order, which is to say: in order of increasing devastation.

Number 24 With a Bullet

On December 21, 1999, the Office of the Chairman sent a company-wide announcement. Enron had been ranked number 24 on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work for in America,” up from 73 the year before. The email radiated confidence. It mentioned the Vision and Values Task Force. It mentioned the Chairman’s Award. It thanked employees for their “dedication, innovation, enthusiasm and creative spirit.”

SELECT sender_name, body FROM read_pst_messages('zl_rogers-b_000.pst') WHERE node_id = 2279140

The survey was employee-driven. The employees genuinely said it was a great place to work. That is worth remembering for everything that follows.

The Case Study

On April 27, 2001, Harvard Business School professor Christopher Bartlett wrote to Jeff Skilling thanking him for visiting campus to participate in a case study about Enron’s success. Bartlett was developing multimedia materials. Students would be able to click on video of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling discussing the company’s culture, values, and personal style. He called Skilling’s visit “the maiden voyage of this case.”

SELECT sender_name, body FROM read_pst_messages('zl_skilling-j_000.pst') WHERE node_id = 2148932

Six months later, Enron restated earnings back to 1997. Harvard did eventually write a case study about Enron. It was not about the culture, values, and personal style the professor had in mind.

Confidence

October 24, 2001. The SEC had opened its inquiry two days earlier. That afternoon, Andrew Fastow was removed as CFO. The stock had lost two-thirds of its value in eight days.

At 12:42 PM, Georgia Matula wrote to Ken Lay. She was in Data Management at Enron Energy Services. She had been with the company since the Northern Natural Gas days. Got laid off five years ago. Came back thirteen months ago. Had just celebrated her tenth anniversary. Her subject line was one word.

SELECT sender_name, body FROM read_pst_messages('zl_lay-k_000.pst') WHERE node_id = 2162596

She got laid off once and came back. She was about to get laid off again.

We Do Not Want Our Baby to Die

November 12, 2001. Three days after the Dynegy merger announcement pegged Enron’s value at $10 per share – a 90% discount from its January high. Nasim Khan, President of Gas TransBoliviano in Bolivia, sent Ken Lay two messages. The first, forwarded from two weeks earlier, compared himself to the volunteers who showed up at Ground Zero with shovels. The second, written fresh, led with what he minded more than losing his retirement.

SELECT sender_name, body FROM read_pst_messages('zl_lay-k_000.pst') WHERE node_id = 2171108

Khan had been with the company twenty-one years. He started in Omaha, before it was Enron. He remembered when Lay came to Nebraska and promised to make it a great company. He put everything – his 401(k), his career, his family’s financial future – into the stock because he believed in it. Now he was writing from South America, thousands of miles from Houston, volunteering to sacrifice whatever he had left for a company that would not exist in twenty days.

The typo in “diappear” is his. He was not writing a draft. He was writing at midnight.

The Anniversary Lunch

Two days later. November 14, 2001. Ken Lay waived his $60 million change-of-control payment. Dynegy was renegotiating the merger terms. Enron had just restated earnings back to 1997.

Rebecca Longoria wrote to Lay at 9:40 AM. It was her fifteenth anniversary with the company. She was having a luncheon. She invited the chairman.

SELECT sender_name, body FROM read_pst_messages('zl_lay-k_000.pst') WHERE node_id = 2172932

“I too grew up on a farm in Missouri.” She found common ground with the man who cost her everything. She told him about her father’s values – the convictions about not borrowing money, not suing – and then she asked, politely, “Should I have seen this coming?” She put her cell phone number at the bottom. There is no record that Lay called.

Does Capitalism Have a Conscience?

Same day. Same announcement about Lay waiving his $60 million. A different letter.

Cynthia Boseman-Harris, a Gas Industry Specialist, was not writing to say thank you. Her subject line was a question. Her sign-off identified her as “Not just merely a whiner, but a long suffering Gas Industry Specialist.”

SELECT sender_name, body FROM read_pst_messages('zl_lay-k_000.pst') WHERE node_id = 2173444

Where the believers saw a family in crisis, Boseman-Harris saw a crime scene. Where Longoria asked “Should I have seen this coming?” Boseman-Harris answered: yes. “It appears that there is a thin line between intelligence and arrogance and Enron appears to have stepped over that line.” Both letters arrived in Lay’s inbox the same day. Both women loved their jobs. One trusted the institution. The other trusted her own eyes.

The Last Letters

November 29, 2001. The day after the Dynegy merger collapsed. Enron’s stock would close at $0.26 the next day. Two employees, independently, sat down to write Ken Lay letters of gratitude.

Zachary Streight had already been informed he was on the layoff list. He wrote anyway. Not to complain. To encourage.

SELECT sender_name, body FROM read_pst_messages('zl_lay-k_000.pst') WHERE node_id = 2175428

The same day, V.V. Rao, a Director of Origination in the Global LNG Group, wrote his own letter. His subject line was marked PERSONAL.

SELECT sender_name, body FROM read_pst_messages('zl_lay-k_000.pst') WHERE node_id = 2175172

Streight was losing his job and encouraging his boss to keep fighting. Rao was watching the company die and thanking it for making him a better person. Both letters were sent on November 29th. Enron filed for bankruptcy three days later.

Monty Python

On November 28th, someone forwarded Ken Lay’s official announcement that Dynegy was terminating the merger. They changed the subject line.

SELECT sender_name, body FROM read_pst_messages('zl_dorland-c_000.pst') WHERE node_id = 2111364

The dead parrot. “This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be.” Whether Dorland meant it as grief or comedy or both, the subject line is the only editorial comment the situation required.

The Night Before

December 1, 2001. 11:53 PM. In approximately twelve hours, Enron would file for Chapter 11 – the largest bankruptcy in American history. Virginia Cavazos, writing in response to Lay’s announcement about layoffs, composed her note.

SELECT sender_name, body FROM read_pst_messages('zl_lay-k_000.pst') WHERE node_id = 2177028

“I really don’t know if you will read this.” She wrote it anyway, at midnight, the night before the company that had defined the culture, values, and personal style of its key players ceased to exist.

The 4,000

December 3, 2001. The day after bankruptcy. Enron laid off four thousand employees with $4,500 in severance – less than two weeks’ pay for most. Kathleen Pope-Sance went home. She wrote to Lay from her personal email the next day.

SELECT sender_name, body FROM read_pst_messages('zl_lay-k_000.pst') WHERE node_id = 2178244

She signed it “ex-Manager.” She was writing from an @swbell.net address because she no longer had an Enron account. She listed Enron Energy Services under her name anyway. She cried for the friendships. She asked for more severance money so people could keep food on the table. And then, two paragraphs after “this free fall,” she wrote: “I will never regret my 5 years at Enron. They are an important part of my past.”

Continental Airlines, Compaq, and Enron had all downsized in the same Houston job market in the same season. It was December. The holidays were upon them.

The Actor in San Francisco

Two months after the bankruptcy, Lay’s inbox began filling with form letters. A coordinated campaign – “Demand Ken Lay Donate Proceeds from Enron Stock Sales” – had mobilized people across the country to write. Most sent the template verbatim. One did not.

J. Harrison, an actor in San Francisco, added a personal introduction. He made less than $7,000 a year from his craft. He had skipped meals to pay his energy bill during the California energy crisis. He was not an Enron employee. He was not a shareholder. He was a person who could not afford to eat because of what Enron had done to the price of electricity.

SELECT sender_name, body FROM read_pst_messages('zl_lay-k_000.pst') WHERE node_id = 2325028

Nasim Khan, working till he dies, wrote that what he minded most was having Enron’s name disappear. J. Harrison, skipping meals to pay his light bill, just wanted Lay to give the money back. Both letters ended up in the same inbox. Neither got a reply.

See Also

• Ken Lay – the recipient of nearly every letter in this collection
• Enron Bankruptcy – the event these letters orbit
• Dynegy Merger – the failed rescue that prompted the November wave
• Stock Price Collapse – the financial backdrop to every letter
• California Energy Crisis – the context for J. Harrison’s rage
• Life During the Collapse – companion collection from the same period
• Gallows Humor – how other employees processed the same weeks