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 day, the customer came in: “My name is _________ ____________ and we just paid off our furniture! We want to set up delivery!” I thought, whoa…..how does he handle this? I listened as the customer talked on the phone to the owner. “Yes, we are proud of ourselves too!” Nothing about a problem, or reselecting. Rather than just say, there has been a mistake, I need to work with you to find some replacement furniture, this grifter owner’s choice was to just fake it, deliver up something he had, and keep their money. I watched over the next few days, as the warehouse guys worked to try to spray chairs to match an old, shopworn table they had found. After the delivery, I asked the guys how it went, if the customers accepted what was delivered, and they said the couple actually got into an argument about whether the furniture was right!

So I wrote to them. I told them they had been done a disservice in their furniture order, and if they wanted to talk to me, they should call me at home. They called at 6 am the morning after they received it, and we talked it through. I suggested they try to let the owner save face, give him proof that the furniture was wrong (he had substituted $99 Made in Taiwan-marked chairs for their $400 Drexel Heritage chairs, and Drexel was made in North Carolina: BINGO!); the owner’s response to him was “The statute of limitations was over years ago on this, and don’t bother me.”

So they sued him. With my help. And won!! I testified against him, I brought in others. A lawyer for his insurance company was in the courtroom and called me to get a take on him. He succeeded against him too. At least once. I know I was under his skin because, for years after, any time I would be publicized for a new position, he would send private investigators around to pose as clients, try to get me to say something bad about him. (A sales rep heard about it, and called to warn me, so I knew to be vigilant.) Since I always spoke truth, he never got anywhere. He is still in business, bigger than ever, but I cost him some significant time and money and prestige, and feel like I did my part. Sweet revenge.