I have found that karma kicks in and bad bosses get their due, in time if not immediately.

A long time ago when I was first starting out after college (in the late 1970’s), I took a “get by” job in the HR office of a retail company, selling upscale clothing for men. Part of my job was to do the weekly payroll. My boss told me to shave off any overtime, and then erase a quarter hour here and there. I refused. When I turned in the payroll, she went through it and cut it down herself. I was also asked to discriminate, to send all Black applicants to one store and all Jewish applicants to another, and refer all “low class” applicants to our competitor. Again, I refused. I sent all Black, Jewish and low class applicants to her. I also witnessed other discrimination, such as tailors being paid much more than seamstresses, even though they did very similar work.

The treatment got around to me one day, when I was going down the flight of stairs to our upstairs offices, and my heel caught on the frayed carpeting. I tumbled down the stairs, but fortunately my only injury was a sprained ankle and a broken heel. My boss told me to keep quiet about it, and nothing was done about the stairs.

One of the reasons I didn’t say anything was that my boss, the HR Director, was close to the President, the Comptroller and their subordinates. Their close relationship was made obvious by the way they partied and socialized together, sometimes during office hours. There were other people in the offices that saw what was going on, and we talked about turning them in to DoL, EEO and OSHA, but we didn’t dare. We knew we would be “blackballed” and have a hard time getting another job.

Sure enough, one morning my boss came in and told me I was fired and to get out — now. I left in a haze. I had been raised to believe that if you worked hard and did a good, honest job you would be okay. Not true.

I got another job in a few weeks, went to grad school part time, and made good progress. Then one day, I read in the local newspaper that the corporate owners of this retail store chain had “intervened” in the store offices, marching in and firing the President, Comptroller, my boss and others who were in on cheating employees. I called someone I knew in the office, and confirmed that the firings were true, and all were much happier. I also learned that my boss had a baby son, and named him after the company. (HO LEE *****!)

As far as I know, none of them ever worked again.