Crazy Employers

Every work for a crazy person? Or a dishonest person? I have.

I have no idea what sparked this memory. But, well, enjoy.

In the late '90's, someone my family knew asked me to work for him.

It sounded interesting so I went for it. 

I had known this man to be a brilliant financial planner. We'll call him...BS as that is what he was full of. Truly, BS was very good and gifted as a financial planner. Things were great at first. But then he got into an upstart business that was draining him financially. He had dumped all of his savings into this new company. 

I knew something was wrong when some of the employees' paychecks bounced. Yikes! From then on, I would take my check to the company bank and cash it the morning it was given to me.

After that initial bounce, I noticed BS would get snippy and anxious a few days before payday. Then the clients would come in. BS would have his financial clients come in for a sales pitch on his upstart. If 5 people came in, at least 2-3 would have signed over their investment funds to him. And payroll was mostly met. Again, if you were the last to cash your check, you were screwed! So were the investors who were unwittingly giving their savings to make payroll.

BS had started off being nice to me. But he started to get mean. One day, I thought he was going to hit me! He actually started to charge towards me. Lucky for him, he caught himself, turned around and walked out of my office.

He had become so mean to everyone. One of the financial planners had quit. The financial strain was wearing on him. I'm fairly confident what he was doing with the payroll making scheme was illegal. He was careful to not include me in that aspect of his business dealings because I had personal relationships with many of his financial clients. 

BS was such a jerk, I actually contemplated spiking his coffee with ExLax. I wasn't sure how to do it, but I did think about it. When you start thinking crazy like that, it's time to quit. I cleared out my desk of all personal belongings. I was going to give him my notice. Lucky for me, he called me in to his office to lay me off due to financial difficulties. He offered me severance and was all apologetic. 

I was so happy to get out of there, it was all I could not to dance and sing, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last!"