CEO suite

[unpakwon]

Would anyone please help me understand the following in bold?

1. Why would a guy turn in the keys to the CEO suite? In Tom Bloch's case, it's because he heard a call to do something radical with his life: serve inner-city kids.

Especially, what's the meaning of "suite" in the above?

2. There were no retail tax preparation firms when my father, Henry Bloch, and his brother Richard founded the company in 1955. (Although the family name is Bloch, pronounced Block, the brothers substituted the h for a k to avoid mispronunciation. After all, you'd never take your tax return to someone who would "Blotch" it.)

Is the above saying the pronunciation of "Bloch" and "Block" is the same? If so, I don't understand what it means that "the brothers substituted the h for a k to avoid mispronunciation." What mispronunciation? Or, is the pronunciation of "Bloch" the same as that of "Blotch"? Anyway, would you please paraphrase the part in bold in easy English?

Thank you.

[jlinger]

The CEO suite is his office, probably with lots of amenities, some of which are still part of the "suite" even if they are not attached. A bathroom, for sure, and likely a gym and a parking space. I think it may also be a play on words for "sweet" as in, he had a sweet deal.

The German pronounciation of Bloch's "ch" would be the hard K (or the gutteral noise as in the composer, Bach). But in English, that ch could be the ch in both ends of Church. If we pronounced Mr Bloch's name as if it were spelled Blotch, then it would sound very much like the other word, botch, which means to do a poor job of something. It was a very wise move for him to change the spelling.

Many times, spellings were changed at the point of immigration in the 18th and 19th century. The immigrants couldn't spell even their own names. They told the immigration officer, "my name is Tomas Bloch" and the officer wrote what he heard, "Thomas Block".

[unpakwon]

Thank you for the answer.

So is it saying "although the family name is Bloch, they didn't name the company 'H&R Bloch', but 'H&R Block', because Bloch can sound like Blotch or Botch which has a negative meaning?

[jlinger]

Yes.