This is the real story of a guy who sets up a network of forums for people to talk about organizations and their stories. Despite being nearly destroyed by a few unscrupulous employees at a major bank, the Story of OZZ illustrates how this guy refuses to lose faith in people and in the organizations they create.

THE STORY OF OZZ: How the Few Affect So Many
Written by John Pineau, MCP for www.OZZmediacorp.com

OZZ began by writing a fiction, a story about a guy robbed by a Bank.

This is my story.

In the Beginning

I’ve often wondered why we’re put here, if each of us has some higher purpose to serve, if our failures are lessons to be learned that prepare us for some greater existence after we move on.  I’d like to think so, but while I figure that out I’ve decided to leverage a period in my life to help others realize they aren’t the only ones to have suffered, and that despite how illogical things may be, there is always a purpose to it.

My purpose is clear to me now.  My purpose is to establish forums for organizations to tell their stories, and for the people they serve to tell these organizations how they can be better.  These are stories of setbacks as much as they are successes, stories of human struggle and stories of personal triumph.

These are Everybody’s Stories.

With that said, I don’t want to give anyone the impression that I’ve suffered worse than the next guy.  There are millions worse off then I am.  But I can say that no one has lived my life and frankly, I’m not sure a lot of people would have wanted to.  I can say that it was the sequence of events, the kind of events, and the creatures involved that made my story unique.  And I can say that without having experienced this period of my life there is no way I would have conceived what OZZ has become.  My story falls in the major setback category, but it also bridges the negative with the positive because it is this story that planted the seed for what OZZ has become.

Mine is a bizarre story that parallels a lot of the things going on in the world right now.  Normally the guy robs the Bank, like a John Dillinger kind of thing.  But this was the opposite.  A Bank robbed me, and based on the news reports we’re all seeing, this actually isn’t such a bizarre story after all.  A few people out there appear to have given a lot of good banks a bad name, but hey, such is life.

These are extraordinary times.  During extraordinary times we look for answers to make us feel better.  Sometimes the answers are right in front of us but most often they can be found in reflection.  Looking into our past helps us determine why things are the way they are now, it helps us define what’s holding us back which helps us move forward again.

I want to make it clear that my challenge was not the result of all banks.  It was the result of an individual in a bank, and a particular bank that did not take responsibility for the actions of its employee.  Our bank is very good to us and during my time I have met many good people who work with banks.  I guess I’m telling this story to illustrate how it takes only a few people to tarnish the reputation of many others, as was the case with my story, and with the story of many others affected by the banks during the recent economic collapse.