It had become time to face the devil and take him head on. The devil that was facing me from my poor choice of employers and the same snake who wanted me to suffer and die personally.
I started the legal response process by talking with my personal attorney who had handled the employment contract. We knew it contained provisions that the former employer agreed to that made it nearly impossible for me to do what they were accusing me of doing. For starters I had a provision inserted that stated specifically I had no authority to sign checks or indebt the company. My duties were specific and none involved corporate board activities or positions. In other words, my authority was limited to operations activities and even the people I wanted to hire had to be approved by ownership. I had no access to company property after hours. What they were accusing me of simply would never survive even the most casual smell test.
However, they did have money and access to prominent people in the legal and judicial community. So my personal attorney recommended using a proven litigation attorney we both knew. He was a guy for whom I had deep respect and had actually completed financing for in a business partnership in which he was an owner. He was a former Vietnam era Marine with significant battlefield experience and a senior partner in a well known firm that employed several partners from the firm of former Sen. Howard Baker of Watergate fame. My litigating attorney would treat me well (translation: discount) on his billings and be patient in collecting them as a favor for our past relationship. We countersued for payment of compensation due for the entire employment contract. If they wanted a fight, well, they found one.
Playing Dirty
We soon learned what they had spent nearly a year trying to do without achieving the level of success they wanted. They had made similar claims about me also to FIB and DODGE. They had even gone to the point of researching my past banking employment and sent FIB investigators checking out all of my past financings of businesses. Turns out their corporate attorney was drinking buddies with several FIB agents. They had other cases in which they had been intertwined. Their attorney had asked his buddies to look for dirt.
They had chosen a path of blaming me for all of the losses they would be forced to take on their financial statement and tax returns from the write down of the equipment and inventory they stole from themselves over the years, which included receiving funds on the fraudulent insurance claims. Apparently it was the only way they saw to potentially stall the bank that had made the loans that had required the audit and equipment appraisal. They wanted to trot this guy out as the scapegoat and tell those questioning that they had fired the bad guy. All that was left was to file the civil lawsuit to justify the claims and show it in the footnotes. Check the box.
Their plan was to stall it all out for as many years as possible for the flames to die down on themselves even if they were unsuccessful with making me the fall guy.
Once we figured out their game plan over the next year we worked to obtain evidence and witness statements. These led to depositions of course. If you have never been through that experience, they are not fun. Fortunately, I had in a couple of previous business related lawsuits so I knew what to expect during them along with the legal bills that followed.
In our case, it was during the deposition of the wife of the owner, who was actually listed as President, that they made a critical mistake. First, they had the son as President in my employment contract when he was only the General Manager. But she went on to say something even more enlightening to us. She stated that their attorney was the actual Chairman and CEO of the company. There was no denying it – straight out said it in questioning. The blood rushed out of their attorney’s face. My attorney had a huge grin on his. He knew that their attorney had a huge conflict of interest that had been undisclosed that was subject to referral to the Board of Professional Responsibility. He had attempted to keep it hidden. But he was the Chairman and CEO when the alleged activities occurred before I was employed and after while never disclosing his position. We now knew why he was fighting so hard to take me down, he had double jeopardy as the business’ CEO and within the legal profession.
My attorney made the referral to the Board the next week. It was time to up the ante.
It was during this period that FIB paid an unannounced visit to my residence while I was on the road in business meetings. I guess they wanted to see for themselves where I would hide over a million dollars of equipment on our half acre lot and 3 bedroom rancher in podunk. Being an ex-banker with a good understanding of how the legal game was played through her own past experiences, my wife saw them pull in the driveway and knew to not open the door. After a few minutes they left and never returned to our knowledge.
Next, I was able to witness the judiciary protect one of their own. We filed to have their attorney removed as attorney of record due to his status as CEO of the company. We now had the deposition and had secured additional information from company filings at the state as evidence. The judge acknowledged it all, yet, let him stay on as their attorney. My attorney offered to appeal, however, he felt the benefit was minimal compared to cost. He felt strongly we had the upper hand and already had what needed to make their attorney squirm.
The next major event that happened was a phone call I received from the FIB agents, who wanted to have a conversation with me. My attorney was on vacation, so I made the decision to go and have it. I wanted to hear what they were trying to accomplish. They played good cop bad cop and I knew they were trying to read me. They said there had been questionable loans made by me at my last employer, which I knew was fabricated. They asked about a couple, one of which I had not even approved. I had referred the customer to a consumer banking area to handle since I had previously worked with that customer at another employer. I asked them if they had a copy of the Code of Ethics form I had completed and signed with my former bank employer that listed prior business relationships previous to my employment there. They said they did not. I told them to check it out, that my copy was in my attorney’s office. I then asked them if they had a copy of my assigned lending authority documents as well as that of the bank overall in assigning authorities in all of the officers in the various departments. They said they did not. Whether they did or not, asking the questions let them know that I knew.
They then asked questions about my role at the equipment company. I proceeded to give them what I hoped would get back to their attorney buddy. I started with my employment contract details and let the air out of their balloon. I let them know clearly that there was over a million dollars worth of equipment and parts missing from our internal audit and third party appraisal, that the company had made insurance claims fraudulently, that they had not paid taxes on the missing equipment they sold for cash, that the agents should pay a visit to the owner’s farm, and that they were committing EPA violations at all of their locations. That took about 5 minutes and they decided to stop asking questions. They thanked me for coming in.
When my attorney returned from vacation he let me have it for talking to them. He told me to never acknowledge their existence. He said they were liars and would entrap innocent people just to win cases. I told him I was aware, that I had moved here from Arkansas. He knew what I meant. I also told him my referral network and the business community needed to know I was not the bad guy or it would kill my career.
He was right though, FIB and DODGE were not done. We found out later they had tried to indict me. A couple of past business associates let me know they were called to answer questions at a grand jury hearing. According to my attorney who researched it and the called witnesses the jury itself challenged the prosecutors about wasting their time with false accusations with no evidence. However, the thought that they had even attempted to do that sent shivers down my spine. Evil is as evil does. I am a sinner saved by grace, but I would never conspire to destroy an innocent person’s life and family like those evil doers did – ever.
However, my attorney and I knew factually the company had a problem that would never go away, which were the equipment and parts audit worksheets and third party appraisal of same. My guy had conducted the audits, I knew they were accurate as they were audited twice as a precaution, with the equipment also verified on the third party appraisal. All of that would go into evidence. The lack of investigation and follow-up by FIB after having been made aware in our meeting of their buddy’s criminality would come out as our meeting was recorded and the details had also been discussed in the depositions. They knew the equipment and parts were missing as they had used that claim from the company as the basis for conducting an investigation of me.
Which is why they would never have won a case against me even if the grand jury rubber stamped their claim. However, it is why I now know for certain that actual innocence or guilt has nothing to do with the outcomes of some of the cases you hear and read about. There are unknown motives and bad actors in positions of trust.
There had to be other motives to lie and run interference for those criminals besides friendship. Somebody owed somebody else something. The company may have been an undercover trap that local law enforcement, FIB and DODGE used for other purposes. Who knows? I had lost my curiosity for knowing more.
For the next six months or so we heard nothing. Until we received a letter releasing me from all claims and ending it all from the same devious Asst. U. S. Attorney who had tried to convince the grand jury. At the same time the equipment company was also now ready to end our lawsuits against each other. Shocker. Four years had gone by and four annual audited financial statements and federal tax returns submitted by them to the bank and to the IRS. I knew it was pointless to continue the process of my countersuit as the legal bills would only get larger. I had taken cash advances on credit cards to pay the more recent legal bills and we were just then starting to come out of the paycheck to paycheck life with my increasing commission income.
We prayed about it and the peace we received was clear. It was time to end this civilized war and focus on living free of that stress ever again. God would provide and vengeance is His to determine
Meanwhile…
After nearly four years of utter turmoil in one part of our lives, the Lord had blessed us beyond any expectation we could have in another. I knew I finally had found my career calling and I knew why it had happened. Which also brought peace to Rock Star.
There are strange people like me in this world that love small businesses and their entrepreneurial owners. Weird, huh? I admire their tenacity, belief in what they are doing, inventiveness and focus. They tend to be really creative in general and unafraid to take risks. Being a financial partner with many of these type folks is inspiring. Most working Americans do not realize that half of them are employed by small businesses. All of my work life experiences had led me to the strong support of the average Joe and Jane, the underdogs trying to succeed against the odds and the elites, corporate behemoths, and other naysayers who wanted to tamp them down. I no longer took pride in assisting the Pilots and Regal Cinemas of the world. I wanted to help us – real people who did not sell their souls to the devil for money and power, who believed in the American Dream.
In the process of handling this career I could do well for my employer, take care of my family and have more personal time available to do the work of the church. Self centered pride had exited and was replaced by sincerity and purpose.
Rebirth
Four years before I hit bottom with that termination and lawsuits, I knew more personal changes needed to be made. I could no longer have one foot in the world and one in God’s kingdom and expect to be blessed. I never wanted to experience anything like that ever again. The weight of providing for the well being of my family as well as living as Christ would have me live had brought me to my knees. Literally.
At age 40, I finally gave in. I chose that from that point on it would be Him and me. He could lift me up or toss me down. He could use me or not. I placed myself totally in His hands. Whatever happened would be what He desired to have happen, not me. I promised to be more thoughtful and to test decisions and actions against His word to the best of my human ability. I informed Rock Star and she had a puzzled look, but did not question it. My home office in the extra bedroom would become a sanctuary of sorts. Prayers would be offered and conversations held with the Lord daily. I had purchased a large dry erase board for the wall to track prospects and loan closings. I repurposed the top for a description of what each member of the Holy Trinity meant to me. To start my day I would read it and modify as more was revealed to me. I needed to become the best me so that I could love and serve others as He would have me do it.
Forty years…
Conclusion
With the next part we will go back and fill in some details, talk a little politics, expand the faith journey aspect and discuss what happened to various actors over time in this strange Goober Gump movie. Some say karma. I say, what goes around comes around. Until then…
I, too, have sad experience with malicious legal persecution — much of which, in the corporate world, can be spearheaded by HR.
Sorry to hear we are kindred brothers with this. The normie simply has no idea.
Sadly, getting lawyers involved seldom goes as smoothly as this —
😂
At my last job I saw I was being set up as the fall guy and skedaddled!
As head of the lab I was signing off that the material met specification. However I found out that behind my back there were constant meetings of a lab tech (Who I caught falsifying data) the OLD lab manager who moved into a different position and one of the engineers. I tried to fire the Lab tech and got NO WHERE so I quit.
The problem was a trace amount of bismuth in the ceramic used to make turbine blade molds rendered the aircraft blade BRITTLE. Three aircraft crashes have been traced back to the company I worked for. I was signing off on the FALSIFIED quality reports certifying no bismuth…
I was black balled by that company just to make sure my reputation was tarnished in the event of a lawsuit against them.
Thanks for sharing, Gail. The more people come forward with their stories, the more informed the public will be. People need to be aware of the evil schemes all around them.
In my case there will be a rise from the ashes like the Phoenix. Like you I lost many a battle along the way, but in this case – they lost big time.
I was just glad I saw the trap before it snapped shut.
It cost us monetarily but I do not regret the moves I made to NOT compromise my honesty.
This was not the only corporation. Over and over I have been asked to lie.
Every other time I left jobs voluntarily through the years when they were bad fits or I saw bad stuff was happening. Life is too short for that stuff.
Glad you got through it all OK. They are lessons we never forget.
To begin with, an appetizer….
I walked into a Corporate Controller position just before an EEOC claim for illegal discrimination from a former employee who was Black.
Review of all the business records showed that he was indeed treated poorly….but there was an odd and unexpected pattern I could see during my review.
So, when the investigator showed up, I had copious documentation that his tenure at the company was complete abusive crap. I further demonstrated that every other employee at the company was similarly abused, regardless of race, creed, color, gender, national origin, sexual preference, disability, or anything else. The average time of employment was something like 75 days before people quit or were fired — and, in fact, the employee that had contacted the EEOC had lasted almost 100.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had no jurisdiction, because of the equality of the abuse suffered by employees.
After stirring around for a few days, and talking to the (very few) employees who were still around from that time, they decided I was right and went away.
lololololol! 👍
That was an excellent catch. Well done.
Toward the end of my days at my last bank employer that I will discuss down the road, a consultant was hired by bank ownership to review EEOC and other HR practices and policies relating to harassment in our divisional operations. I asked him if we needed to include some related training for the primary owner who kept hitting on my credit manager’s executive assistant every time he was in town. He turned beet red because that owner’s daughter was the head of HR for the bank.
Oopsie.
I presume he kept his mouth shut.
The saga that I’m thinking of (at a different company) will take a little bit to tell, so I’m going to try to put it out there in logical chunks. The Silicon Valley company made specialized parts for semiconductor equipment manufacturers. We sold to companies like Applied Materials, KLA-Tencor, or Lam Research, who then sold to the Intel, Micron, Cypress, and AMD crowd. The company had about 200 people, with about ten in accounting.
Soon after I joined the company, it was acquired by a public company on the East Coast, who promptly put us through four name changes — “XYZ, a Division of ABC”, “ABC — XYZ Division”, “ABC, Specialty Parts Division”, “ABC/Specialty Parts.” With each name change, the expectation was that we would purchase new letterhead, check stock, invoice stock, business cards, etc. I pointedly ignored most of this, knowing that our vendors were mostly concerned with whether the checks would clear rather than the colors of the logo. Not that this needed reinforcement, but I increased my reputation as a curmudgeon.
A couple of other episodes probably made me even more popular in MA. In one, we were getting chewed-out because our Accounts Receivable Days’ Sales Outstanding (DSOs) had slipped from 42 to 44 days. During a telephone call, I casually asked what ABC’s DSO might be…..and was told that they were at 126 days. Another time, ABC was instituting a round of layoffs and we were informed that we needed to “share the pain” — and I pointed out that our division was the only profitable one in the company.
Somewhere in there, one of my staff left. We reshuffled a bit, and ended-up with an open accounts payable person (accounts payable is extremely basic and logical, and I’ve taught receptionists and other non-accountants to do it well on several occasions). I told HR to get me candidates as soon as possible. After basically no candidates, I found out that the company was participating in a job fair — so I went over there to find out what kind of accounts payable resumes were being collected.
And I discovered, to my shock, that this position wasn’t included on the openings list. As might be imagined, I wrote it on a sheet of paper and taped it on, then stayed for the rest of the afternoon to make sure it stayed up there.
Unbeknownst to me, ABC was going to move the company from Mountain View, CA to Billerica, MA in the next two years. Under the “headcount is fungible” theory beloved of upper management, they probably figured that my accounting department could limp along half-staffed in A/P until that day.
I got about six resumes, and talked to each candidate. None were great, but I picked one. We would send them to a temp agency for several months on a temp-to-perm deal and I needed someone immediately. I could always replace them…..
[There is a story of a man brought before Tiberius Caesar for some minor scandal who would ordinarily be sentenced to death. Dragged before the Emperor and thwown woughly to the gwound, he was asked if there were any reason he should live to see the evening — and blurted out that he could teach Tiberius’ horse to sing.
Well, this was different. The Emperor, himself, asked “when?”
And the man hurriedly babbled, “in one year! One year, and I shall train your horse to sing!”
Documents were drawn up, arrangements were made for the man to collect the horse from the Imperial Stables the next morning, and a calendar item made for the man’s execution in one year and one day — after which the man was roughly booted out the front door of the Palace.
His friends caught up to him there and exclaimed, “what are you so happy about? You have a death sentence already drawn up, and you know nothing about music….”
The man said, “a lot can happen in a year. I might die…. Tiberius might die…. Rome might fall….or the horse, it might sing….”
Running a small accounting department is a lot like that Roman.]
Part 2 — I have a weak candidate, but at least they show up at a desk.
The reason Accounts Payable is a good beginner position in an accounting department is that it is straightforward.
First, the company has to have asked for something at a specific price. Specifically, an appropriate person has to have asked for something appropriate — if a bookkeeping drone wanted a red stapler, they might or might not get it….but if they wanted a stack of Krugerrands, they probably shouldn’t.
Second, the company has to have gotten what they asked for. There are a couple of cases where this may not be completely obvious, but they’re not too bad — if purchasing wanted three cases of Mead copy paper from Staples, and got three cases of Hammermill copy paper from Staples at the same cost, it shouldn’t take too much time to discern whether this is acceptable.
Third, the vendor should have invoiced the conforming goods at the agreed price.
These three items are typically evidenced by a Purchase Order (PO), a Packing Slip, and an Invoice. If you have all three things that match, the transaction is vouchered into the Accounts Payable computer system and will be paid in due course. Mind you, you will be constantly pestered by vendor calls to whom “due course” means “yesterday”.
As a side note, let us consider a company that purchases everything on net 30 terms and runs checks once per week. This typically means that it selects invoices to be paid on Wednesday that are due, then prints the checks Wednesday afternoon and attaches all the relevant backup data (the three matching documents, along with explanations of all exceptions) on Thursday. The resulting pile is dropped on the accounting manager on Thursday afternoon for review (this has sometimes been me and sometimes is four stacked feet of documents). If everything is in good order, payments can be approved and signed and sent out late Friday, to be received at the vendor on Monday. Accordingly, net 30 purchasing terms often turn into net 35 payment terms due to the logistics of processing that many vouchers…..and that’s before cash-strapped businesses start to intentionally drag their payments.
So I start explaining and training this n00b into the way that high-volume Accounts Payable needs to work. She immediately starts lobbying to become a regular full-time employee (with benefits) — this is entirely normal, and nobody gives it much thought. I’ve got three months with her as a temp.
A couple of months go by, and she is still decidedly slow and not accelerating. So I start asking if we can get another temp…..interview some people, tell her on Friday that she’s not coming back and start another person on Monday. That’s how temps generally work. I am told that the only reason I have her is that I crashed the job fair and that a replacement can’t be interviewed because there’s someone in the chair.
So, another couple of months go by, and the whining is redoubled — temp-to-perm, temp-to-perm! In the meantime, big name Silicon Valley companies like Apple and Analog Devices are getting hammered in court for running long-term “temp-to-temp” arrangements. HR tells her that it’s me that’s keeping her in limbo….
And, like the Roman, I say, “perhaps this horse can process high-volume A/P” and tell HR to put her on the payroll. This was, by the way, a mistake — but a mistake I’d been backed into by a feral HR.
Part 3 — Things take on a bad odor.
About a month after she was on the payroll, I was called onto the carpet by HR about “my hire”. It seems that people throughout the organization — including purchasing and stockroom — were complaining to the HR group that she smelled bad. Literally. As in, she had massively obnoxious BO.
My first reaction was sheer disbelief. Was this some weird plot from Billerica’s HR? But I talked to people I trusted in my group and they were even more specific — she’d worn the same outfit for five days straight and the miasma was drifting among the cubies. Mind you, she was also of an ethnicity where a certain amount of garlic and curry were not unusual. So I went back to HR and said, “gee, this sounds like an HR problem.”
You can just guess how well that went over. I was told that this was a managerial issue and that I needed to deal with it. [I should note that much of this communication was via email and I still have it.] I asked for HR guidance, and got bupkis. I tried to see if she had friends at the company who I could ask to intercede — nada. I started logging her outfits and making spreadsheets (as any accountant would do).
I tried, for weeks, to find a way to gently correct this errant behavior. Knowing what I know now, I should have just told her that she had to decrease the stink by bathing and changing clothes more regularly because people were complaining. She probably had become homeless.
Finally, there came a day when she wore something different to the office and I commented that it was nice to see her wearing something fresh…….
Part 4 — did I drop acid and forget that I had done so?
A couple of weeks after that, I was startled to find out that I had a severe case of priapism and had been lustfully pursuing her around the accounting department.
Yes, indeedy, she had contacted a lawyer to assert that any lack of success she had at the company was due to my lewd advances and not because she was a malodorous incompetent. Again, like Hollywood in #MeToo, Silicon Valley was full of bad behavior — and there were swarms of lawyers ready to extract loose cash from such….but I had the receipts. There was an investigation of about three months where we were both employed but enjoined from communicating — she had an office in an adjacent building.
Finally, there was a small notice that I had been fully acquitted — and a couple of months later, I was gone (under my own power). And about a year after that, the company was gone to Billerica.
Epilogue — this cancer proceeding throughout Silicon Valley wasn’t limited to eldritch horrors such as myself. A couple of years later, one of the people reporting to the Fiancee at her company accused her of sexual favoritism. As part of that investigation, an HR rep had to review the porn that he had downloaded to his office computer to ensure that it did not contain reportable child pornography.
One of the reasons that we remained affianced for so long was to provide protection of our joint assets from baseless attacks against us in our capacity as managers.
Talk about a BIMD worthy of authorship. Could be some episodes to The Office in there. Enjoyed it.
We used the temp to perm as well.
There will be a brief Accounting Department story to come in BIMD. You will find it worthy.
Beautiful testimony…
Thank you and thanks for reading. The Lord is the way, the truth and the life.
Great story. I fear we will never get things on track, and FBI will forever be corrupt.
Thanks and I agree with you. If needs to be shuttered and the legitimate duties assigned to the U. S. Marshals, but I doubt the politicians will ever let that happen, They use it along with the legal community.