I worked as a senior duty officer for a security firm that was stationed at a gold mine in California. Our headquarters was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My supervisor got promoted to headquarters, and a new supervisor was brought in.

“Phil” the new supervisor, was a jerk. He ignored regulations, did his job sloppily, and gave me hell, because as the senior duty officer, I was second in command, and he’d found out that a few years before he’d married his wife, I had had a one night stand with her.

His boss, we’ll call him “Gary”, didn’t like him. Gary told Phil on his first day of the job, “Congrats on your promotion. Just so you know, you’re first six months on the job will determine if you get to keep it. So do well. I’ll check on you occasionally, and in six months I’ll give you the results of your evaluation.”

When Gary visited, all was spit and polish. But when Gary left, Phil turned into frat boy. During this time, Phil decided I was a threat to his job, so he trumped up excuses and demoted me. I didn’t lose any money, and I had less responsibility, so I shrugged and soldiered on.

Six months pass, and Phil’s evaluation day came. Gary came in, sat across from Phil’s desk and told him, “In order to make sure your evaluation was sound, I kept meticulous records of all of your infractions.” He then proceeded to name every date, time, and occurrence that Phil had been less than stellar.

Phil had to ask. “How did you get all that information?”

Gary said, “From your evaluator. Want to meet him?”

Phil gulped and nodded. Gary went to the door and told the evaluator to come in.

Phil looked like a deer in the headlights when he learned that his evaluator was….me.

See, Gary knew that I was serious about my job. Gary liked me. I did good work. The only reason I hadn’t gotten the supervisor job myself was because I didn’t have enough seniority. Gary had personally asked me to be the evaluator, and cautioned me that Phil could never know.

For six months I had kept the secret. Every time he belittled me or another officer, it went into my notepad. Every infraction, every blunder, every stunt. Then once a week I’d call Gary and clue him in.

So Gary, trying hard not to smirk, told me I was free to go. I’d barely closed the door when Gary started roasting Phil’s ass. I could hear him yelling even as I got in my car about a hundred feet away.

The next day, I was senior duty officer again. Eventually, Phil pulled a fast one and got me fired, an act which made me be able to put him in prison. But that’s a story for another day.

PART TWO…(because you asked for it).

Gary ended up getting a better job and departed the company. Nobody was put in to replace him (they just had various people come down from the home office occasionally).

One day, one of the mine workers discovered a theft of gold. An investigation ensued. The FBI became involved because the gold was transferred to Fort Knox. They were stymied how the theft occurred. They had an idea who, but couldn’t figure out a few details.

Meanwhile, I got into an accident with the patrol vehicle (I got stuck). The truck was damaged while getting it pulled out of a wash (a dry creekbed in the desert). I filled out an incident report, catalogued everything, and informed Phil.

He was supposed to go out immediately and confirm, but he didn’t want to because it was Friday afternoon, and he wanted to go party. He decided to check on Monday instead.

Trouble is, a rainstorm came through, and washed the evidence away. Even with witnesses backing my claim, he said I was lying and suspended me. According to the policy handbook, he was to get me before a board of inquiry within three days. He didn’t get to it for two weeks…and all of it without pay. When he did get the board of inquiry together, because it was company business, I was to be paid if it went past the three day boundary. He refused. He also wanted me to take a polygraph. I told him it wasn’t up to me to prove my innocence, it was up to him to prove my guilt (according to CA labor laws). In other words, having me take a polygraph was against CA labor laws, and therefore unconstitutional. From then on, he said I quit, but I told everyone I was fired. Either way, I no longer worked there.

Two weeks is a long time to think on things.

Then I got a call from the FBI to discuss the gold theft, the day after my employment was terminated.

They asked me how a person could steal from the gold room (I was already cleared as a suspect). I (having worked there for three years and change) told them how it could be possible. The leads I gave them gave them enough evidence to pin one guard to the crime, but they still had loose ends. I casually mentioned where they could get the info they needed from the logs. I was the former senior duty officer, after all.

They were able to establish a timeline that involved the guard and Phil as co-conspirators of the theft, so both got arrested, tried, convicted, and sent off to prison.

My unemployment was approved by the state, but the company wanted to appeal. They said the firing was lawful under Arizona law. I pointed out I worked in California, so CA labor laws only applied to me, not AZ. They thought I wouldn’t fight the appeal, but I ended up showing up in court, while they decided they couldn’t be bothered to show up. The judge ruled in my favor. By the time I got my back pay, I was employed elsewhere.