The Home Depot

Find a big concrete warehouse, fill it up with sawdust and plumbing, stir in some orange dye, and you have The Home Depot. Normally one would not consider the inner workings and relations of the company staff, but our family has had the priviledge of enjoying the benefits of the wonderful staff of the Home Depot for 20 years.

Dad was fortunate to be hired as a sales associate back in 1989. The trucking industry had been restructured (thanks to the earlier Carter administration) and for years Dad had a difficult time maintaining employement. It was hard to justify paying a 50+ year old man over $40K a year when you could get a recent college grad to do the same work for $20K. A childhood friend of Dad's, Sister Jude Walsh, R.S.M., had a nephew who was the store manager of the new HD location in town, and she put in a good enough reference to get Dad on the payroll.

I can remember how happy Mom and Dad were when he landed the job. Even though their fiberglass business drew enough cash to live off of, the HD job enabled them to once again have health insurance! They also took advantage of the other perks - particulary the employee stock option purchase, buying the max every paycheck. The stock soared in the 1990's and with it, they were able to cash in enough to build their dream house on the marsh.

In 2002 Dad was diagnosed with interstitial pulmonary fibrosis. Best guess is that the disease was contracted after working with that fiberglass so many years. A terminal disease, best hope was 4 years worth of life on average after diagnosis. However, an experimental drug, Acctimune, was (and is) still in the trial phases, and Dad was a candidate for the trial. Good news was the HD's EAP program was also willing to pay the $5K per month this drug costs, since insurance wouldn't pay for a non FDA approved medication. So for 7 years, HD provided my father with an extended lease on life.

It has now been 6 days since Dad passed away. So many stories are now coming out from the HD about how much he loved every co-worker and how much they loved him. The past 3 years have been particularly difficult for him as he went to work each day, but having that job and having those co-workers gave him a reason to keep living and getting out of bed every morning. Any other retailer would have fired Dad years ago. He was a liability and cut into the bottom-line net profit. But the Home Depot not only kept Dad, every few months they went out of their way to find ways to accomodate him in better ways to keep him comfortable and extend his time there.

God bless the Home Depot.