As a young woman, I was trying to break into the interior design field, and took a job at a furniture store. The owner was awful: I can say, without hyperbole, that if he was involved with someone or something, that it turned out to be dirty. He cheated on his wife, his customers, his suppliers, his insurance company, his employees—and this is just the stuff I had personal knowledge of. He was best friends with the governor of our state at a time when, it was discovered much later, that official was having an affair with a young teenager. No surprise to me. He would have suppliers in for trunk shows, and, in the middle of the night, have an entrusted employee come to the store to pull product out of the vendor’s stock. Outright theft. He filed false insurance claims, saying that shopworn furniture, or even just used furniture from his own home, were part of truck fender benders, and collect on them.

The women who worked there for any length of time were, almost without exception, abused at home, and in twisted relationships with this guy; he would rage, swear, degrade them, and then apologize, and the women would —quite literally—weep with gratitude. It was shocking to me. One day, he went off on me, in a phone call. It was absolutely awful. I asked a question for a customer, and he raged obscenities at me for ten minutes. I decided that moment that, as soon as I had another job, I was out of there. I told my manager, an older woman whose took beatings from her husband at home and verbal and emotional abuse at the store, that I would be gone as soon as I could. The next day, one of the owner’s daughters showed up at the store with a dozen red roses for me, with a weird note apologizing for being ‘inappropriate’. The women there at the store gathered around me like I was being pinned: “Oh, he’s changed so much! How wonderful!” I was revolted by it. He called me later to ask if I’d received them, expecting, I’m sure, for me to marvel over them; I couldn’t.

The Revenge.

I was aware (as everyone else there was) of a long term layaway—a couple who had a sadly damaged newborn, and were almost ruined by it, at a time that they had furniture on order. Rather than cancel the order, as the people asked when they saw what was happening with their baby, their order was changed to a layaway, and they were charged 21% interest, for seven years, for furniture they didn’t receive. Further, much of that furniture, ordered, being paid for over all that time, had been sold to other people! So this owner was paid for the furniture and delivered it, to others, while collecting monthly payments, with 21% interest, from these people who just wanted out.

One time, the consumer arrived in: “My name's _________ ____________ and we simply paid down our furnishings! We Should create distribution!” I was thinking, whoa…..how does he manage this? We listened as customer chatted regarding the phone on owner. “Yes, our company is proud of ourselves too!” absolutely nothing about a problem, or reselecting. Instead of just state, there's been a blunder, i have to make use of one to get a hold of some replacement furnishings, this grifter owner’s option was to just fake it, deliver up one thing he had, and hold their cash. We watched throughout the after that couple of days, given that warehouse men worked to attempt to spray chairs to suit an old, shopworn table that they had found. After the delivery, I inquired the people how it moved, in the event that consumers accepted that which was delivered, and additionally they said the couple really experienced an argument about whether the furniture ended up being right!

So We published to them. I informed them that they had been done a disservice within their furnishings order, of course they wished to keep in touch with myself, they should call me in the home. They labeled as at 6 am the morning after they received it, therefore we talked it through. We advised they make an effort to allow the owner save face, give him proof your furniture had been wrong (he had substituted $99 Made in Taiwan-marked seats due to their $400 Drexel Heritage chairs, and Drexel was made in North Carolina: BINGO!); the owner’s reaction to him ended up being “The statute of limitations had been over years back with this, and don’t bother me.”

So they sued him. With my help. And won!! I testified against him, We introduced others. An attorney for their insurance provider was at the courtroom and called me to get a take on him. He succeeded against him also. One or more times. I'm sure I happened to be under his skin because, for a long time after, any moment I would be publicized for an innovative new place, however deliver exclusive investigators around to present as consumers, attempt to get us to say anything bad about him. (A sales rep learned about it, and called to warn myself, and so I understood is vigilant.) Since I constantly spoke truth, he never ever got anywhere. He is nonetheless operating, larger than ever before, but I cost him some significant money and time and status, and feel just like I did my part. Nice revenge.