I’ve been a private military contractor for a solid chunk of my career, but I took a break because I was burnt out and had seen some bad things.

Anyhow, during my break, I decided to take some jobs in the rosy, perfect, Stepford-esque paradise that is the civilian world.

There was a company in Los Angeles, California, that was willing to hire me. It was owned by a Chinese man of not much stature, who wore slightly-too-loose Marshall’s suits while proclaiming to be a “big businessman”.

A bit of background. Sometime in the early 21st century, the internet and digital age wreaked absolute havoc within the printing industry in the US. China, however, still relied heavily on printing on a large scale.

So those printing companies that failed in America began to liquidate their industrial printers (large, room-sized behemoths), which often costed upwards of $200,000 each.

In came thousands of sleepy, lazy, parasitical Chinese businesspeople eager to reap the loot from the blood and tears of bankrupt print shops nationwide. They’d buy liquidated printers for dirt cheap, and turn them out for 300% profit in China. This business went crazy, and lasted a good decade or two. The company that hired me was one of them.

I was brought on to run operations of his little sales force while he went out to drink with and bribe clients, taking them in his auctioned, rebuilt-title S-Class Mercedes and acting like a big shot.

The people who worked for him? Recent college grads from China. Why? Because he didn’t want to pay them more than $2000 a month. A salary which, in Los Angeles, amounts to sharing a bedroom with 2 other people and eating top ramen every day.

Anywho… His assistant, who is almost like his VP in terms of the scope of work she ACTUALLY does, was feeling quite underpaid (obviously). She confronted him about it, saying that $2000 a month is not even enough for a single person to cover their basic costs in most of California. His response, in Chinese, was the equivalent of “Spend it wisely”, meaning to live more frugally.

Eventually, none of his sales team was willing to stay. Each new hire lasted less than a month. One day, He came into my office, saying, “Two companies in China bought ___________ printing machine from us. Take the deposit from both companies, and then just send the machine to one of them. They aren’t gonna sue internationally for just a deposit. I’ll give you $30,000 for it.”

My jaw dropped. Did he really just ask me to renege on a deal? Nope. Not freaking happening. I said, “You can take your $30,000 and pay for your bail when you get imprisoned for fraud one day.”

I quit. Two months later, the assistant called me and said, “Hey guess what? I quit too!” Without his assistant OR his operations manager, he was forced to carry out deals and manage his team by himself. Recently, I checked in curiously to see how his company was doing. He reneged on a deal with a client, who did sue him in federal court. His company declared bankruptcy, his wife left him (There was a public divorce proceeding in the LA County court where it said his wife filed it against him), and he hasn’t appeared anywhere in business since.

Later on, I met the assistant over sushi, and she said, “When I told him I’m quitting, he said ‘You didn’t give me enough time for a notice.’ So I told him he should ‘spend it wisely’ LOL.”

Gold star for using his own words against him.