EASTON - Sitting in his office in the town square, across from a stock brokerage and a jeweler and ringed with red-brick sidewalks and tablecloth eateries, Durrie Hayes assured that yesterday was not, despite what one might think, the worst day of his life.
True, he is the one-man economic development office for Talbot County - 1 1/2 , when you count the assistant he shares with the housing department - responsible for finding and keeping jobs in the county.
And yes, the county's largest employer, Black & Decker, did announce the day before that it will close its Easton manufacturing and assembly plant and withdraw 1,300 jobs from the local economy - a market with only 19,306 workers.
But there was little panic in Hayes' office. No frantic pleadings with corporate officials, no scrambling to land a job-wielding replacement. Because in Talbot County, he explained, people will find new jobs. Everything will be fine.
"We don't pro-actively recruit businesses to come here because we don't really need to," Hayes said. "If I go out and recruit some business and bring in 600 jobs, the council is going to call me up and say, 'Hey, what do you think you're doing? How are we going to fill all those jobs?'"
With 602 miles of estate-strewn shoreline and the towns of Easton, Oxford and St. Michaels each growing tonier and pricier than the next, Talbot County enjoys an affluence and level of economic comfort that its Eastern Shore neighbors could hardly match.
With unemployment at a scant 2.6 percent, the county faces a greater challenge finding workers than finding jobs.
At Black & Decker, Easton's sprawling industrial appendage to the west, workers are bused in from surrounding counties to assemble DeWalt tools and perform other blue-collar duties. Talbot simply doesn't have enough willing job-seekers available.
And like those in any U.S. county, the workers in Talbot can't compete with their counterparts in Mexico and other cheap-labor countries, which will eventually get the work now performed in Easton. Wages at Black & Decker started at $7.50 an hour for full-time employees, and the county's average household income is more than $56,000 - above the state and national averages.
Talbot's government leaders make no apologies for their comparative well-heeled-ness and claim no betrayal from Black & Decker. They were forming a task force yesterday to find a corporate replacement for the industrial tract that Black & Decker will vacate.
They are promising retraining programs for displaced workers and will go ahead with the affordable housing and child-care initiatives they were crafting to entice the company to stay.
And in the county seat of Easton, Black & Decker is a major corporate force, contributing $624,000 in taxes last year - almost 7 percent of the town's general fund.
But around greater Easton, where Gucci-ed patrons scuffled amid the boutiques, the florists, the antique stores and cafes, news of Black & Decker's impending departure was met more with sympathy for the workers than fears of economic calamity.
"What a shame, all those people losing their jobs. It's horrible," said Patty Watts, owner of a small lunch counter in the back of Hill's Pharmacy on Dover Street, near the center of town.
"But it shouldn't affect business here, not this far away," she said, as the town mayor and other government officials ate lunch a few feet to her left. "Business in the town doesn't really rely on Black & Decker that much."
Some businesses do, of course, and finding out which might eventually lead to that horrible workday thus far avoided in the economic development office, said Hayes.
"That's a whole different issue," he said. "Finding people jobs is one aspect, but dealing with the fallout from that number of people leaving could be the biggest challenge, and I think it will be a bigger problem than anyone realizes.
"Why do we have five national grocery chains in a town of only 12,000 people? It's because of all the people who shop here but don't live here - and a lot of them probably work at Black & Decker."
The state Department of Business and Economic Development is busy studying the potential residual impact when the plant closes late next year, but some effects already seem apparent, Hayes said. The company leases warehouse space throughout the area, for instance, all of which will be vacant. Area mechanics, welders and service workers rely on Black & Decker for much of their business.
One of Black & Decker's top suppliers, a business in nearby Cambridge called Hi-Tech Plastics, said it expects business to actually increase, as it begins supplying Black & Decker's overseas operations.
But most of the plant's less-exportable neighbors are uncertain about the future.
Charlie Fox opened the Time Out Tap & Grill along the town bypass six years ago this Thanksgiving, thankful for the low rent and abundant parking afforded by his location on the town's outskirts. But another factor weighed heavy on his decision: that vast, teeming industrial complex across the street with Black & Decker hung on the side.
About 200 to 300 people fill his restaurant's tables and stools every day, and Fox figures a good 50 or more come straight from Black & Decker. He's not sure just how much business he gets from the plant, and he is not eager to find out.
"It's not going to kill us, but it's not going to feel good either," said Fox, as the lunch-hour crowd clattered behind him. "We'll see."
Down the street, Tony Genova reminisced about Black & Decker payday and the ensuing surge in take-out orders at Rusticana Pizza, which he opened nearby eight years ago. He has 130 seats, most of them full at lunchtime. He expects that to change.
"We're going to stay, and we're going to do fine. Not all of our customers come from over there," said Genova. "But yes, we'll lose some business. We'll know soon just how important the people at Black & Decker are to the local businesses here."