Thanks for the kind words everyone. Since joining the TeAm nearly a year an a half ago, it's been a wonderful release from the everyday stress we all have to deal with. Knowing that you're doing something good is the real icing on the cake .
Even in a worst case scenario though, I'll still have at least two A64's, two older P4's, and the new Sempron. Plus, the tellers are due for upgrades (they're only P4's, but with HT, and there are 9 of them ). I just need to start looking at the bright side.
Then again, after this past 2 weeks, it's a bit harder to do. We had an FDIC exam (for you non USA folks, that's one of our primary banking regulatory agencies) and it was brutal. After I brought our Bank's information technology area from a poor rating (a 4 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the best) to a 1 on the last two exams, they decide to institute a new methodology. Essentially, they compared my small, 2 branch bank to a large national bank, and they kept drilling me on why we didn't have the controls and risk management infrastructure in place that the large national banks have. Kind of like asking why the local computer shop guy doesn't have all the bells and whistles that Dell has. We still got a 2, which is above average, but I'm a perfectionist.
On top of that, my "real" job is as a commercial lender, and I've had customers screaming for stuff during this whole process. Then, yesterday, I had a potential new customer call. He was buying some land that he was going to have approved for a housing development and then sell to a builder for a nice profit. He was paying $800,000 for the land, and had spent about $100,000 more in engineering and other costs. The property is under contract for over $2.6 million. The person he's buying the land from was trying to force him to go to settlement sooner than he wanted, and he was scrambling to not lose the property. The big bank's couldn't help him, so he came to us. We saved his arse by approving the loan in record time, and getting him a committment letter to stall the seller and delay the forced settlement. Then he shopped the deal to the big banks, who now had time and left us high and dry for a total difference of about $2,000.
I just pray that he comes to us again in the future in a similar situation so I can tell him to go....... And people wonder why some Bank's charge an application fee. I wasted nearly 4 days of my time for nothing. My only regret is that WE didn't charge an application fee.
It's just not what I needed to hear this week.
Thanks for allowing me to vent...
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