Jace took a breath. "It's really not a big deal, now that I don't have to mess with them anymore. I had worked for Duct Dynasty for the last 10 years. I started there as an apprentice, learning the trade. Apparently I discovered a talent for it. In less than 5 years I had gone from knowing nothing about the trade to having a degree in it and being the one running the crews. I had seen a couple of the guys taking the old equipment home after we replaced something every now and again. It wasn't new, and it was just going to be scrapped anyway so I wasn't too worried about it. The issues started when they gave me a 'promotion.' It wasn't the owner that called me up, it was the service director, Rick Blanner. Basically I was promoted to middle management by middle management. He said he was promoting me to the newly created position of Service Supervisor."
Riley: "That already doesn't sound good. Hindsight is 20/20, though, so that could be why it jumps out at me."
Jace: "In retrospect, I missed out on a lot of red flags. They kept giving me raises, telling me how I was doing such a good job. I had been watching the material usage. Something never struck me well. I had one job, I ordered the supplies based on the job plans. The final bills came in, and I'm noticing they needed an extra thirty feet of pipe and an extra hundred feet of wire. I mentioned it to Rick, and he's all 'oh, that was a change order that I approved, don't worry about it.' And it wasn't a one time issue."
Riley: "Something smells fishy, and I don't think it's anything they sell here!"
So not only are you romantically blind, missing obvious signs like Mr. Magoo, but you're also professionally blind. Someone's robbing you in broad daylight, and you're over here offering them a receipt and a thank you note. Impressive. If I had hands, I would be giving you a slow clap.
Jace: Ouch, I'm getting beaten up on both sides here! "They saw I was in my mid twenties and naive and took full advantage of it.
Riley: "Yeah, they saw you coming a mile away!"
Jace: "So anyway, this kept happening for a couple years. Obviously it wasn't every job, but one every couple months or so. It was a pretty good sized company, so there was a lot of work being done. I didn't think to follow up on each one that seemed odd, partly because I didn't have the time for that."
You didn't think, now there's the shocker of the century. Although it does help that I don't have to work very hard to monitor your thoughts, there isn't much there to monitor.
Jace: Patchwork, would you shut up for a minute? I know you can't resist taking a jab when you have the chance, but it really makes it hard for me to tell her the story.
That reminds me, when we get you leveled up, your focus and memory is going to be the first things repaired...
Jace: "So one day, out of no where Rick calls me into his office. 'Jace, you've been doing a great job with managing the project for us the last couple years. We've really appreciated how hard you've been working on it. Unfortunately, we were going over the budget for next year and looking at the staffing. We will no longer be able to keep you as a Service Supervisor. We do need you to going back to a foreman level and running crews again. I fought for you though. I can't keep you at the same level of pay, but I was able to reduce the cut to 5 percent. They wanted to only offer you your current pay at a twenty percent cut if you wanted to keep working. I was watching out for you.' I thought it sucked at the time, but really the office job was starting to get annoying anyway. I went back to running crews for another few years. Then the you-know-what hit the fan..."
Riley: "I'm guessing Rick wasn't the one getting canned."
Jace: "Of course not, but we're not there yet. We started noticing strange people showing up at job site. We saw them roaming around the shop. All of our fuel receipts and supply receipts had to start going to new people. Then they called everyone in for a service meeting. The strange people were from a company called Streamline Dynamics. They were efficiency experts. They had all of us come into the office one at a time, basically interviewing for our own jobs. I had mine, and explained what I did currently and what my previous role was. They seemed to have a really good impression of me. Words like 'forward thinker' and 'results-driven' among other things. I left the office feeling like everything was going to be fine."
Riley: "From the sound of things, it couldn't be further from the truth, could it?"
Jace: "Sadly, no. I started hearing rumors that they had uncovered a lot of fraud in the books. The accounting wasn't adding up like it should. We were billing for much more for materials than was being written down in the accounts receivable. Apparently they recorded my pay rate as ten percent higher than what my pay was before I was demoted. They claimed they found paperwork that had requested a pay drop on paper, and wrote down I would collect the rest through bills and not have it reported as income. They claimed to have seen my signature on documents that said I would quit and sink the company if they didn't do as I asked. I was given the option of leaving right then saying I quit with no severance, or I could fight it but they would take it to court. Of course I said I would quit. I felt I had no other option."
Riley: "Oh, that sucks!"
Jace: "Come to find out a few months later that Rick was collecting the extra money. Only thing that would explain the major purchases he had started making."
Riley: "What a prick!"
Jace: "Apparently he ended up getting the CFO fired over it as well."
Riley: "It sounds like he played some really shady games! Look at it this way, you get to be my neighbor now!"
Jace smiled at her. "I do have to admit, that is one good thing that came out of all of this." Jace notices a truck drive up and stop outside. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me!"