Mr. Lay-

After reading the news of your $60,000,000 to $80,000,000 payout, I am disgusted and appalled all over again.  Unfortunately, that's a daily occurrence. 

I have been employed with Enron since May of 1993, when Enron purchased LRC.  I was very skeptical of Enron back then and was unsure of my future with the company.  As time went on, I got more comfortable with the Enron way and learned how to survive and even be a little successful here.  I became a believer in the things Enron could accomplish, a champion of our hard-nosed, driven executives (at least some of them).  I bought Enron stock and held on to those valuable options.

Over the last 18 months, my coworkers and I have viewed the weekly, sometimes daily, selling of Enron stock and exercising of options by our top executives (past and present and including you).  We came up with all kinds of reasons that the executives would be doing this -- they're so overly compensated that they have to cash out some every now and then, divorce settlements, mistress settlements, buying a new home in Aspen, buying an island in the Caribbean, etc., etc. etc....  We never wanted to admit that they knew something we didn't.  Things were great, weren't they?  Jeff Skilling told us that Enron was going to be the "World's Leading Company."  He even put the goofy acronyms on his car license plate.  He told us gas traders in February how the stock was going to $126 by the end of the year. Now, being the cynic that I am, I didn't believe the $126, although I have to admit I was hopeful; I figured that if Jeff had the audacity to throw out a number that high, then it was reasonable to expect the stock to be fairly stable, i.e., +/- 20%.  

Needless to say, I didn't sell my stock and didn't exercise any more options.  In fact, I bought more stock when it first started going down.  I'm afraid that there are many more just like me.  I'm fortunate in that I have many working years ahead of me (where, I don't know) to try to build up my savings again.  Many others are not that fortunate.  So many have spent their entire careers here, helping to build this company up.  They were looking forward to retiring soon and enjoying the fruits of their labor.  And let me remind you that their retirement accounts were in many cases a lot less than a month's compensation for you.  Now even that is essentially gone.  Other employees were just ready to cash in some of their options to pay for their children's college tuition.  The stories are too numerous to list, and the more I think about it, the more sickened I become.

It is painfully obvious to me and my coworkers, as well as the rest of the industry and Houston, that Enron's executives knew that there were skeletons in the closet and began cashing in ahead of this freefall.  The employees and the rest of the world were fed a bunch of half-truths and mystery mumbo-jumbo.  There should be an accounting for this behavior.  You and your cohorts have ruined so many lives.  Think about that while you're spending your millions.....


Susan Pereira
ENA Gas Trader