Friday, January 9, 2009

A BEREAVEMENT LETTER FROM THE COMPANY

RITE-QUICK BEVERAGE DISTRIBUTION SOLUTIONS COMPANY
Northeast Division

“Delivering Drinks. Delivering Success. Coming Right Up.®”

Office of the Vice President

January 9, 2009
Dear Mrs. Renwether,
I am writing to advise that all of us here at Rite-Quick Northeast are very sad about the recent loss of your husband, Charles F. Renwether (Employee #34509A). According to his coworkers, your husband was a diligent employee with a good sense of humor, a nice smile and a friendly manner. According to official records, he also put in 8 years’ sales service for Rite-Quick. In May 2002, he was employee of the month after securing an account at two local Dairy Queen® franchises. Here at Rite-Quick, we salute your husband’s service and we share your loss. We know you must be going through some difficult times right now; but as you grieve, think of us: We have to hire someone else now. In this market, that is no easy task. Your husband died at the worst possible time for the company. We wish he had been more considerate in choosing his death time.

Rite-Quick is the Northeast’s premiere beverage distributor. Over the past two decades, we surpassed our main competitor, Spigot Enterprises, in total accounts serviced. We have a winning sales, distribution and delivery team. We provide jobs to over 400 people. But the team stops working effectively when someone leaves or dies. It costs us valuable time to retrain new employees, and that cuts into our monthly totals. Your husband may have been a friendly face in the office, but by dying, he will cost the company a significant amount of money. Nonetheless, at Rite-Quick we know how to adapt. We will bounce back quickly and replace your husband with a sprightly young man who in all likelihood will not die on the job.

I write also to advise that your husband fell one month short of eligibility for Rite-Quick’s pension plan. Had he worked 18 more full days, you would have been contractually entitled to a monthly payment of $896.21 until your death. But he did not make it. Consequently, you will receive no money from your husband’s pension plan. Additionally, you will no longer be covered under your husband’s health insurance coverage through Rite-Quick. Health insurance is expensive. It would not be in our company’s best interest to gratuitously care for the surviving spouse of an employee, even May 2002’s employee of the month. I am sure you can understand our situation. In that light, I suggest that you start looking for private health insurance immediately. If your health is anything like your husband’s was, I would get cracking without delay.

I write further to advise that Rite-Quick intends to honor its obligation to pay you a $50,000 employee death benefit, pretax. According to our accounting records, we note that, as of the date of his death, your husband had paid his premium toward Rite-Quick’s Employee Life Insurance Fund. We salute your husband for never missing a premium payment. Believe me, we tried very hard to find a gap in his payment history in order to deny this benefit to you. We even examined your husband’s insurance application from 2001 in order to determine whether he lied about any material health conditions at the time. We also examined your husband’s medical records to determine whether he failed in his obligation to inform us regarding any newly-discovered health conditions. Even our trained lawyers were unable to find any evidence of fraud. They could not even find an irregularity that might suggest your husband committed fraud. Thus, we have no choice but to pay you the death benefit. If we did not, we could land in litigation that would cost more than the $50,000 we pay you now. Enjoy the money.

Your husband may have been very important to you. He may have brightened the lives of his coworkers and made many people smile and laugh. He may have been loyal and true to you. You may think there will never be another man in the world like your husband, and that no monetary amount could ever compensate you for his loss. But you would be wrong. Every life has a monetary value. If Donald Trump dies wrongly, his life would be worth billions of dollars in a legal case. But if a beggar dies wrongly, his life would be worth next to nothing, assuming any lawyer would waste the time to represent a dead beggar. Life insurance would not function if every life were priceless. As a matter of contract law, life is worth a fixed amount in U.S. currency, payable contingent upon death and legitimate contract performance. However unique every life may be, they are not equal in monetary terms. He who spends $450 per month for a $1,000,000 life insurance policy has a more valuable life than he who spends $29.99 per month for a $50,000 life insurance policy. Your husband only spent $29.99 per month. Hence, he was only worth $50,000. Sorry, lady. He just wasn’t worth that much.

We repeat that we are sorry for your loss. Well, we say we are sorry, but here at Rite-Quick, we recover fast. We are not that sorry. We will not be taking a day off to remember your husband. May we be frank? Neither you nor your husband really matter. Sure, you are still alive and he died. You both were individuals with special things to offer the people in your life. But you really do not have any money. No one really cares whether you live or die. You mean absolutely nothing. You are not doing anything for the economy. You are just breathing carbon dioxide into the air and letting the plants absorb it. Donald Trump matters. I matter, because I am Vice President of a leading business in the Northeast. People with substantial incomes matter. You, on the other hand, do not matter. You are just a hanger-on, a do-nothing. You will just sit there and grieve while other people try to make something of their lives. Soon, you too will die, and it will not matter to anyone here at Rite-Quick. Before that happens, enjoy the $50,000 that we send you (pretax).

In sum, we are grateful for your husband’s service to the company. But we are not grateful for the facts that: (1) We now have to spend money on a replacement; and (2) We have to send you $50,000 under the terms of a contract we can’t escape. I would not have had to write this letter if your husband had not died. But he did, and here we are. It is done now. I need to get back to work.

Yours sincerely and truly,


E. Branford “Ebb” Bennigan, Jr.,

Vice President, Rite-Quick Beverage Distribution Solutions Company

EBB : mh

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