SDG&E; Workers Rejoice as Merger Dies : Celebration: It was a day to eat, drink and be merry for employees who no longer have to fear losing their jobs, moving north or making long commutes.

“Ding Dong, The Merger’s Dead!” declared the computer-drawn sign hastily tacked next to the elevators Wednesday at the San Diego Gas & Electric Co. headquarters.

It effectively summed up the mood on the lower floors of downtown high-rise. Even as top managers remained sequestered on the 18th and 19th floors, the offices and hallways down below overflowed with smiles, laughter and relief.

“You could hear the screams in the stairwells,” when word reached the building electronically or by phone about the vote, said Cindy Young, as she rescued nonalcoholic champagne from spilling out of a plastic stem glass onto the floor.

“If you were in front of an elevator and the door opened, people inside were just beside themselves,” said Young, a human resources assistant. “It’s better than your team winning the World Series. The ultimate.”

At about 10:15 a.m., the State Public Utilities Commission had given their personal futures back to these San Diegans. Now they would not have to quit or possibly lose their jobs, commute, or move to the dreaded Los Angeles.

“I was not going to sell my house, was not going to pull my 13-year-old son out of the Poway School District,” said fuel manager Jim Nugent as he finished lunch in the employee cafeteria. “So I’m pleased to hear that I won’t be commuting.”

At the other end of the cafeteria, a dozen data processing employees toasted the merger’s downfall with takeout pizza and paper cups.

“I ran into the pizza delivery boy on the elevator, and I told him it was a celebration,” laughed Nollie Macceca, who has been with SDG&E; 31 years. “He said he thought it must be because, ‘We don’t usually serve this much pizza over here.’ ”

Across the table, Vi Coover said the decision will make it possible for her to keep adding to her record as the SDG&E; employee with the longest service. She had planned to retire rather than move to Rosemead, where the combined companies would have centralized many operations.

“I’m here to stay,” Coover said with a wide smile. “I’ve been here 47 years and I’m shooting for 50.”

In the human resources office, passers-by were being treated to pieces of a big cake topped by a “No Merger” sign--a circled “M” with a line drawn through the circle. Ordering the cake minutes after the decision didn’t come easy, Young said.

“It was impossible to get an outside line,” she said. “So I ran down to the lobby and called this bakery, and I told them what it was for, and they said, ‘You can have whatever you want.’ They whipped up the exact SDG&E; colors.”

An hour or so after the decision was made, word had made the rounds through the building many times over. But within the first few minutes after it occurred in San Francisco, the information flow stalled, employees said.

“It took a while to get out the official word,” said Jeff Ebright, a data processing analyst. “We have electronic mail, but so many people were trying to get onto it that it maxed out.”

Glenn Stephens, of information systems, got around that accidentally, because he had been using a public computer network, Prodigy, to track the SDG&E; stock throughout the morning.

“We wanted to see if they halted trading,” Stephens said. “And then it came over just about a quarter after 10 that (the merger) was denied, and I thought, ‘That was pretty fast.’ ”

Computer systems analyst Wayne Hallett solved the dilemma another way--by calling a local television station.

Mostly, though, the whoops in the hallways or neighboring offices were enough for people to feel confident that SDG&E; would stay a San Diego firm.

“Down the hall there was a big meeting going on. And all of a sudden we just heard a huge cheer, when they got the word,” Ebright said.

Beyond the jubilation was a deep-seated relief, said Dale Douglas, a colleague of Ebright in computer systems.

“Now we can get on with making some of the decisions that we personally delayed,” Douglas said. “So there’s a big relief individually, that we now can go buy a house or a car. We know we’re going to stay in San Diego.”

Hallett, 50, agreed. He has dreams of retiring before he is 60, and wouldn’t be able to do that if he left SDG&E.; But his wife had made it clear that even if he went to Los Angeles she certainly wasn’t.

“Yet I would have had to go,” he said. “I would probably not have been able to find a job here, so I would probably have had to commute 140 miles.”

As she boarded an elevator with--like everyone else--a big smile on her face, Sandra All bubbled over about what the decision means for her.

“It’s so exciting,” she said. “I can finally buy my Jacuzzi. I’ve been waiting 2 1/2 years!”