Until February, Leo Sitlin was a rising contingency manager at Cleveland financial house Holloway-Sills. A favorite among the company’s clients, he often served as host at charity events, ballgames and anywhere else high levelers needed to coddled and spoiled.
Then on February 24, he was called into CEO Marlene Hillinger’s office and told he was being reassigned to a post-contingency coordinator – six levels below his director position, .
“They said it was because I’d misidentified three precursor variables,” says Sitlin. “But I knew better than that.”
The evening before, he and his wife, Clarise, had hosted the management team from Malinworth Formulations at the annual “Nose in the Air” fundraiser for Allergic Rhinitis. It was an enjoyable evening, and Sitlin had the group in stitches telling his story about being in an elevator with Henny Youngman. Then it happened.
“Clarise said, ‘Please pass the salt, Bunny!’” Says Sitlin, still unbelieving. “Yes, it was her nickname for me, but we’d talked about never using it in public I don’t know how many times.”
At first, he thought nobody had heard – but awhile later he saw a couple of the Malinworth people standing at the bar, one with his fingers to his forehead like rabbit ears. “What’s up, Doc?” Sitlin heard him say.
“The word got out and my credibility was shot,” says Sitlin.
Even when he offered to get a divorce, the company held firm. So on October 15, Sitlin hired attorney Sheila Witherington and now the matter is headed to court. Holloway-Sills will not comment on pending litigation, other than to state through a spokeseperson: “Any employee’s position in the company would never be impacted solely by a nickname.”
Meanwhile, to play it safe, Sitlin is learning all he can about post-contingencies.
“They’re a lot more complicated than you might think,” he says.
