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"D" is for Drop

It was a dark and stormy night. El Niño was attacking Northern California with a punch usually reserved for championship fights. Daylight had been blanketed away by a posse of clouds trying to atone for years of drought in a matter of hours. The pounding of the rain was finally cleaning my office windows. I had not been out of my office for days. Eight retirement plan design options, seven alternate assumption sets, six pricing groups, five-year forecasts. . .and a partridge in a pear tree. The combinatorial compounding gave me a rush usually associated with marathoners. I am an actuary, and numbers are my life-blood.

I had just finished reviewing final results when the phone rang. It was late for a call. I let it ring a second time before picking up the receiver. "Good evening." Technically it should have been good night, but that sounded too final.

"I’m glad you’re still there," she responded in her distinctive high soprano. From the hour and her tone I could tell she had made one too many visits to Starbucks. She told me why. Negotiations with the firefighters had been going on for months. Last week, the firefighters asked for a DROP plan. The agency was told it would save money. "I’ve got 36 hours to put together a proposal for the Board." There was not enough time, but she knew I couldn’t turn her down. Retirement plans – an actuary’s favorite subject.

I told her I would stop by her office at 8:00 the next morning, and to lay off the lattes until I got there. She was going to need a clear head if we were to get through this. I checked the batteries in my calculator and charged the laptop as I cleared the files from my desk. This might require extra firepower.