In 1986 I was at M.R. Weiser for 3 years and had learned a great deal, not only about auditing, but also accounting, tax, business consulting and business in general. As a senior accountant and then a Manager, I had developed a management style that seemed to resonate with others. I was also coming to realize that there was only so far I could take these newly developed skills at Weiser. I was starting to get the itch for other opportunities.

In a couple of years since starting the cable TV syndication work from Sarg, M.R. Weiser developed a reputation as the go-to accounting firm for small cable TV businesses. This included traditional audit and tax work, in addition to the syndication and due diligence work we did for Sarg. One such traditional audit client was located in Washington DC.

There were three of us assigned to the Washington DC client including the now famous Joel and another junior accountant who had become a personal friend. His name was Alex. I first worked with Alex on Weiser’s first cable TV client, Sunbelt Cable (that I mentioned in “The Weiser Years – Part I”). Alex was a unique person and not one you would associate with being an auditor or an accountant. My gut feeling was correct as he only lasted about 3 years in the profession. His first passion was baseball followed by building and construction. His father was a contractor and Alex grew up helping his father build things.

Alex was almost successful with his first passion. He was a star catcher for the Stetson University baseball team. Florida colleges were known for developing baseball talent and Stetson has had a number of graduates make it to the Majors. Alex was drafted out of college by the Philadelphia Phillies and was quickly promoted to their AA minor league club. He was destined to continue to climb the ranks as his offensive statistics were quite impressive. That was until his shoulder got damaged in a collision with a runner at home plate. This was 1982 and the surgical techniques that are available to players in 2022 did not exist 40 years ago. It would have required major reconstructive surgery, and while Alex was willing, the Phillies were not. Unfortunately for Alex, the Phillies had already committed to another young catcher by the name of Ozzie Virgil Jr. Unfortunately for the Phillies, Virgil did not turn out as they had hoped. Although he was a good defensive catcher, he was not a great hitter and they ended up trading him away in 1986. I’m sure this eats at Alex even to this day. If they only invested the money and time on him…….

During our time together at Weiser, as I said earlier, Alex and I became friends. He knew that we were painstakingly renovating our money pit in Jersey City into a home and with his construction experience that he acquired while working for his dad growing up, he offered to help. I was warned by others not to have friends or family help with projects such as this, but as it happens, I was struggling doing some of the sheetrock work by myself. I was happy to get a helping hand. He showed up at the house one Saturday morning all gung-ho and ready to get to work. When we finished for the day, and he left to go home I inspected the work that he did. To say that it was not very good is an understatement. Everything he did had to be redone. After this, he would occasionally ask if he could come over to continue to help with the build. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but I think the fact that I never invited him back did just that. We began to drift apart after that. Lesson learned.

Prior to any of this happening, Alex, Joel and I, went to Washington DC for a week to work on this audit.

This was a nice client. They put us up in a beautiful boutique hotel called “The Canterbury”, which is no longer there. It is a Marriott Courtyard Hotel now. We were there for a week and had plenty of time to explore DC. However, Weiser was not very generous with their meal budgets for staff on the road, so our options were financially limited. The meal allowance was a measly $5 for breakfast and lunch and $15 for dinner. If we went over $25 a day, we were expected to cover the difference. Even though this was 1986 and prices were cheaper than they are now, this was still a very small allowance, but we had a plan. All three of us agreed to eat as cheaply as possible all week and save whatever meal allowance we could, even skipping meals. We were saving for a nice steak dinner for our last night in DC.

We each saved about $25 by the time we got to Friday. When we asked the concierge at The Canterbury to recommend a great steak restaurant, she told us to go to a place in Georgetown called Morton’s of Chicago. “Just tell the cab driver the name of the restaurant. He’ll know where it is.”, she said. We were excited to go to a place that was famous enough that a cab driver just needed its name to know where to take us. We had no idea what to expect when we arrived at Morton’s, but soon had a very rude awakening about prices at a high-end restaurant.

Morton’s (no longer “of Chicago”) is now part of the Landry Restaurant Group and has over 50 locations throughout the United States in addition to many locations in other countries. However, back in 1986 they had 2 locations: the original in Chicago and the one in Georgetown.

None of us were big drinkers and when we did drink it was only beer, so when the server asked for our cocktail order we all asked for Heinekens and to see the menu. Morton’s of Chicago was trying to make a name for itself as a premier high-end steak restaurant, so there were no menus. There was a cart. The server wheeled over a cart that had an example of each cut of beef they offered, the seafood platter, lobster, and other prepared dishes.  There was a list of salads and sides, but the main dishes were only on display. More importantly, there were no prices listed anywhere, nor did the server offer any. We were in unchartered territory.

Alex and I ordered the small NY Strip steak. Joel wanted lobster, and since he had never ordered a whole lobster at a restaurant before he was at the mercy of the server when he asked, “What size would you prefer, sir.” Both Alex and I looked over at Joel and with a sheepish grin. He asked, “What do most people order?” “About 2 to 3 pounds is about standard, sir.” “Great,” Joel replied, “give me the 3 pounder”. The server was thrilled. I now know (and I suspect so does Joel) that a typical whole lobster is about 1 and a half pounds in most restaurants. This thing was monstrous.

We had about $75 between us and the bill was twice that amount. After the initial shock, panic and jokes about having to wash dishes, as the senior manager I offered to cover the difference, (not that I could afford to do so). I was hoping that Stanley, who was once again the Audit Partner for this client, would be forgiving and generous.  He was not. As I mentioned in “The Weiser Years – Part II” Stanley liked to harp on the fact that I came from DH&S and said something like, “You mean the hot shot accountant from the big eight can’t afford to eat dinner at a restaurant.” He just wouldn’t let it go. (Note: about 30 years after this incident, I made a similar but much more expensive blunder, but that’s a story for a future chapter.) Despite this expense reimbursement faux pas, it was an enjoyable and successful week.

Sometimes it’s not what you say…….
So far, in parts one and two of the Weiser Years, I have focused primarily on my cable TV adventures with Stanley and his team, but I also worked on clients for other partners as well. One of those partners was Henry Glasser. Henry had been an employee for Weiser for most of his career and had been a partner for a number of decades by the time I arrived. I would guess that he was in his early 70’s when I began working with him. Early in my tenure at Weiser, prior to the creation of the Cable TV specialized team was formed, I had worked as a senior accountant on one of Henry’s clients and we had a great working relationship.

The thing about Henry was that he was very absent-minded, and his office looked like a hoarder’s home. There were piles of uneven and unkempt papers, files, letters, newspapers, and trade magazines everywhere. Anyone who dared to move anything or tried to straighten out those stacks were subjected to the Henry “angry stare”. He would never yell, but you knew when you screwed up and you felt like you just disappointed your dad. Even Henry’s assistant never touched anything in his office. He rarely spoke and when he did it was almost in a whisper. Henry was quirky even in his appearance. When he was in the office, he always wore a wrinkled white shirt and light-colored pants, his tie was never pulled tight, and the sleeves of his shirt were always rolled up to the middle of his forearms.  Henry sported the most obvious comb-over hairstyle that failed, miserably, to hide his baldness, and he wore his vintage dark-rimmed half-circle reading glasses all the way down his long pointy nose. That said, any time he had a meeting with a client or prospect, whether in the office or at the client's location, he looked like he could grace the cover of any business magazine. Completely buttoned up and professional. He was an enigma.

Henry’s services were sought after because, simply put, he was a tax genius. He had a reputation for having such a thorough understanding of the tax code that he could save clients thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars in potential tax over-payments or savings. On top of his quirkiness, his quiet demeanor, and his genius he was also a really nice person. He was, without a doubt, my favorite boss in my 30-year career. I was very saddened to hear that he passed away in 1990, only three years after I left Weiser.

Even though Stanley had most of the cable TV clients at the firm there was one legacy client that belonged to Henry. It was called Cooper Wireless Cable of New York. Before DirectTV or Dish Network apartment buildings in the 5 boroughs of New York City could get cable TV-like signals using satellite dishes provided by Cooper Wireless Cable. They were the largest provider of satellite TV service in NY for many years. They were a family company and operated out of the Bronx. When I was assigned as the senior accountant for the audit, they were already on a steep decline given the accessibility of other cable services that offered a better signal and more channels. I believe Cooper declared bankruptcy before 1990. On top of declining revenue their books and records were a mess. They had lost operational control and one of our jobs was to help them get back on track. Cooper had just hired a young, smart and ambitious new Chief Financial Officer, whose name was Rich. Rich’s first act as CFO was to move all of the accounting and controls out of the Bronx location and relocate to Secaucus, NJ. That is where we spent most of our time doing our work. This assignment was long and arduous. Rich and I worked very closely in the trenches of this mismanaged company and developed a deep respect for each other’s abilities. That respect wavered a bit at the end of the assignment as I made some consulting suggestions as to how to get better control of their accounting and operational controls to which he did not agree. Before this happened, though, we did have a good relationship and even shared experiencing one of the saddest events in the history of the United States.

Since Cooper’s business was to provide TV services there were always TVs on throughout the office. It was January 28, 1986, and we were working in an open conference room and we had a good view of a few TVs. It was late morning and I remember looking up at one of the screens just as the Challenger Space Shuttle exploded on live TV. What made this even more horrific was that among the seven people aboard the shuttle who perished one was Christa McAuliffe. Ms. McAuliffe was a high school social studies teacher. Her mission was to do some research and actually teach her high school class from space. As a result, schoolchildren from all over the country were watching the shuttle launch and witnessed the explosion. A hush fell over the offices at Cooper and Rich and I both thought it best to call it a day.

The now-famous Joel was once again assigned to the Cooper audit with me. (You would think that being on so many engagements with this man I would remember his last name, but alas, it’s not to be). Some of our work for Cooper required us to go to their Bronx location which was on Walton Avenue in the shadows of the old Yankee Stadium. We dreaded having to do work there for two reasons; this is where all the messy files were located and finding anything was always a chore, and there weren’t any good places to eat. Joel and I wanted to get out of the musty old warehouse and find someplace for lunch. We did discover a small Spanish, or maybe it was Puerto Rican, restaurant. I don’t remember if we enjoyed our lunch but I do remember what happened that afternoon. I ended up with food poisoning, and so did Joel. Both of us barely made it home. I was luckier than Joel who ended up getting sick on the train. I was really sick and missed a couple of days of work. However, Joel missed an entire week. It was bad. I was very happy when that assignment was over.

Another one of Henry’s clients was a company called Hazel Bishop, Inc. which was a women’s cosmetic manufacturer. The company was named after its founder, Hazel Gladys Bishop. Ms. Bishop was a famous chemist who invented the world’s first long-lasting, anti-smear lipstick. She patented this invention in the mid-1940s at a time when women were rarely involved in science. She was a pioneer. Hazel Bishop, Inc. was formed in 1948 and by 1952 it had over 25% of the lipstick market in the United States. It also branched into other cosmetic products and throughout the 1950s and 1960s Hazel Bishop was the top seller of women’s cosmetics in the country. Later in the 1960s when other large cosmetic companies, such as Revlon and Maybelline, started taking market share and offering higher-end products, the demand for Hazel Bishop’s products tumbled and it quickly became a provider of discount cosmetics. Instead of finding their products in the cosmetic department at Macy’s, they were being sold at supermarket check-out lines. By the mid 1980’s it was a failing company and Weiser’s role was to help with the efficient and orderly winding down of operations and ultimately shutting the company down. This included handling all the complicated tax issues that arise when a long-standing company shuts its doors.

As we were wrapping up the work at Hazel Bishop, I needed to discuss a few items with Henry. The door to his office was open, but as usual, there was no place to sit. It was obvious that Henry was deep in thought, and I had learned not to interrupt him when he was like that. It’s not that he would get angry, it was just fruitless. He wouldn’t hear you anyway. His concentration was that intense. So, I waited.

After a good five minutes or so he looked up and noticed that I was there, or at least it appeared that he noticed me. He mumbled something about “tax deferral”. I had absolutely no idea what he meant, so in my confusion, I simply repeated back what he said, “I’m sorry, Henry, but ‘tax deferral’??” I asked. His eyes immediately opened, came out of his trance, and with some urgency, he exclaimed, “Tom! That’s brilliant!” He then got out of his chair and rushed by me as he left his office without saying another word. I saw him enter the managing partner’s office, (Ken Weiser, the son of the firm’s founder). I shrugged and went back to my desk. I would try to catch him later in the day. After all, this was Henry Glasser, and you kind of expect his mad scientist-like behavior.

About an hour later another senior partner, Hal Resnick, (Jeff’s father from Part I), came to my desk and said, “Henry told us what you did. Congratulations, Tom, well done.” I’m sure he was a bit confused by my dumbfounded look, but I had no idea what he was talking about. A few minutes later Ken Weiser also approached me to congratulate me on my “excellent work” and said that my actions saved Hazel Bishop hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes. “This will not be forgotten come year-end, Tom.”, he said. To this day I have no idea what I did, but apparently Henry knew. All of my colleagues looked at me and asked what I did. All I could say was “I repeated back to Henry what he said to me.” Everyone just shook their heads, because after all….it was Henry.

Mr. Weiser was true to his word and at the end of 1986, I was promoted to Manager, which is one step below partner level, and received a significant raise to $45,000/year. I should also say, proudly, that at 28 years old I was one of the youngest accountants ever promoted to manager at M.R. Weiser.

Restlessness started taking hold….
The cable TV syndication business started winding down as big corporate players were gobbling up the smaller companies just as we predicted. While the syndication business brought us a lot of revenue for a few years we knew it wouldn’t last, and many of my clients began to disappear. In addition, the other two big clients that I worked on, Hazel Bishop and Cooper Wireless, were all going out of business as well. I was becoming a manager without any clients.

Also, in 1987 Weiser was looking to expand and grow beyond the New York City area and was negotiating a merger with another firm. One of the attractions of working at Weiser was that it was a small, intimate firm where I knew I would get a wide range of experience including audit, tax, consulting, etc. This pending merger would make that harder to do, so I started to look at other opportunities.