Greed
by Alycia Head

In three months during the fall of 2001, my dad lost $270,000. His $270,000 was hard earned money that had carefully been put aside and watched over for more than twenty years in a 401K-retirement plan. It was a piece of the fruit of his labor from the two private utility companies at which he worked for thirty-three years. The company of Enron stole my dad's nest egg, along with many other people's investments, in a financial scandal that will be remembered as one of the largest in history.

Many people were involved in the Enron scandal. It was a complicated and intricate situation because it involved so many people and different cover-ups. Enron was heavily in debt for a period of time, but hid it through accounting fraud. While the large debt was unknown, Enron was seen as a highly successful company whose reputation and stock prices kept rising until word started to leak about the cover-up. Enron stock went from $80-90 a share in February 2001, to less than a dollar a share in November of the same year.

Signs of the company's trouble began to show in July 2001 when Enron Chief Executive Jeff Skilling suddenly resigned. From there as the signs of deception escalated and turned into the troubled reality, "Wall Street started selling Enron stock like crazy," my dad said. While Wall Street was selling, those employees who kept their 401K stocks in Enron couldn't do anything. Enron was changing the format of its 401K plans, which meant that nobody could make changes-their plans were frozen. At the time, people thought the stock would bounce back.

I spoke with my dad about his financial loss a couple of years after it happened. When Enron collapsed, I was a sophomore in college and understood that my dad had lost some money in the stock market. What I did not understand were the circumstances that led to his loss and I had no idea what it would mean to our family and the life we knew. Whether big or small, sacrifices were to come to my privately-educated lifestyle.

I knew the office well where my dad worked for twenty-eight years. The company that he worked for, Pacific Power of Portland, Oregon, moved a couple times to different buildings, but whenever he was stationed my dad had his long, yellow and stiff rubber chicken, his toy gun that made whizzing noises when you pulled the worn-out red trigger, and the huge white plastic gloves that only had four fingers. These were props from advertising spots he had helped out with through the years, but for me they were props of his life. As a child I associated my dad's work life with these items and drew friends to join me on "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" with promises of toys and fun. He would take us on a tour of the studio, showing us how things worked and introduce us to co-workers. It was a comfort to get to know where my dad spent the majority of his days.

While working for Pacific Power, a company that provides electricity to a large portion of Oregon , my dad started his 401K-retirement plan and built it over his years there, while holding it in a general company fund. After twenty-eight years of his contributions to the company, my dad was close to but not quite at retirement age. When offered a good financial package in 1996, my dad took an early retirement from Pacific Power, the company his dad had worked at before him.

Despite being technically retired, my dad still needed to work in order to put my brother and I through college. After a brief break from private utilities by working for the city of Lake Oswego , my dad went to work for Portland General Electric (PGE), which was the electric rival of Pacific Power. PGE offered him a similar job with friendly new people and the opportunity to switch his 401K-retirement plan into the hot fund of the company that owned PGE- Enron. He didn't immediately make the switch, but after three years of his money slightly eroding where it had always been, my dad thought to himself, "Am I nuts? Here I am working for Enron with its stock going through the roof. I should be investing in them." So my dad put 60 percent of his hard-earned 401K-retirement money into Enron stock.

I never visited the PGE office where my dad worked for five years. His props had retired with him from Pacific Power and his work life at PGE always remained a mystery to me. Although unfamiliar to me, my dad met more friends at PGE than he ever had at Pacific Power. They appreciated his sense of humor and intellect and everyone in the office loved him. When Enron disintegrated, my dad watched not only his own money disappear but also that of his friends. As I talked with my dad about his own losses, he was clearly grateful that he hadn't lost more. He rattled off victims of Enron that he knew--linemen who had lost $800,000- 900,000, employees who lost their homes, and retirees who lost everything they had to live off of.

The sacrifices I saw as the daughter were small. My personal phone line was canceled, our hot tub was turned off for most of the year, many more store-brand items were seen around the house, and I picked up from our mailbox the letter from "Save the Children" which thanked my father for his years of support. He had canceled his monthly donation to Pradeep, the little boy in Nepal that he had sponsored for years.

"Nothing radically changed," my dad answered after I questioned him about changes in his life after the loss. "I have to avoid any more significant investments and reduce monthly expenses." While he could be a lot worse off, my dad won't be able to travel and buy new cars as easily as he would have been. His retirement won't be quite the fun and games that were imagined and he now has to worry about what will happen fifteen or twenty years down the road when he might need medical care.

From my position as the daughter of an Enron victim, I feel angry with the company that stole my dad's money and angry at the fate which placed my dad as a PGE employee. It has seemed even more unfair that my dad lost his money compared to other people, because he earned it and saved it while working at a different company; one that is still responsible and trustworthy.

Enron has tainted PGE. Although the 100-year-old local company has nothing to do with Enron (except that it is owned by it), people in Oregon have voiced hatred and anger against PGE. I have friends who haven't been affected by Enron at all, yet believe that PGE is a bad company, and instead, support publicly-owned utilities. In fall 2002, citizens of Oregon voted to say whether the city's electricity should be privately or publicly owned. Those in support of a Public Utility District (PUD) used Enron as a battle cry to get rid of PGE. The measure failed, showing that the majority of Oregonians could see through the PUD supporters.

This being said, I recognize that my anger towards my dad's fate working for PGE is unjustified. PGE is a good company, but unfortunately was bought in 1997 by a group of frauds. Despite losing financial security after working for PGE, there is a bright side to my dad's job there. He met many new friends that he is still in contact with and feels fortunate for what he has. The money is gone and there is nothing my dad can do about it, so he doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. Instead, he focuses on his life now and what he has-the group movie nights, constant email exchanges, and humorous office skits performed at company events. Yes, he does hope that certain people involved with the Enron scandal will go to jail and that new rules will be made and held to about company management, but ultimately Enron is just a real life example to my dad of how far greed can go.

"If there is a lesson in Enron," my dad told me during our discussion, "It is that these huge institutions that we put our faith in are run by human beings and these human beings are driven completely by greed."

He does not expect to see any of his money again. Gone are the retirement trips and new cars, but my dad will always have his box of props from Pacific Power and his gang of friends from PGE: things that are honorable and stress-free. Their value will remain high forever.