So as many of you know, I started a new job back in May. It was something I had been considering doing for a while and was given the final abrupt push when I was fired in early May from The Myers Group Inc. DBA Management Recruiters of Kankakee County. Since I have never been fired in my life, you would think it would have been a bad experience, but really it turned out to be the answer to my prayers. The Myers Group was nothing more than a shotty company with shotty management run by an owner who knows nothing more than greed and intimidation. I was sick of the constant lies he pumped into his staff, sick of the astronomical turnover, sick of the hidden agenda, and sick of his attempts to mentally beat me up. I cannot begin to tell you how many times this jerk asked me to write letters to him about why I deserved to keep my job, told me I was worthless and naieve, and constantly pointed out that I was lucky to have the opportunity to work for his "world-class" company.
I'm sorry, but in my book a "world-class" company does not exist when you have a regualr staff of about 6 people and you turn-over at least 10-12 employees a year. A "world-class" company listens and reacts to the needs of it's employees. A "world-class" company doesn't micromanage every breath you take and find every opportunity to tell you how worthless you are. A "world-class" company doesn't advertise that they are members of a particualr organization in order to secure clients, when in reality they stopped paying dues 2 years prior." A "world-class" company also doesn't lie about invoices and AP/AR and threaten their office manager to never discuss when receivables came in the mail. The only reason I stayed for nearly 3 years was because I absolutely loved my actual job, and due to a ridiculous non-compete I signed, I didn't think I would be able to work anywhere else.
In my attempt to find a way to get out of this living hell, I talked with other ex-Myers Group employees. Believe me, there are probably over 100 of us out there, and I discovered that the owner actually attempted to sue some of them for continuing to work as recruiters after they left. I spoke with lawyers and I pulled the public-record court cases and found that he lost every case and also was counter-sued. In every case I was told that his "non-compete" was an illegal contract and could not be considered binding. I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I also had some dirt to prove that the company was unethical and that I was treated unfairly time and again in terms of being paid my commissions on time. One of the last things I found was that we had been advertising that we were members of AMSA - The American Moving and Storage Association - since 1999. We stopped getting AMSA's newsletter a while ago. When I asked my boss why, he told me that AMSA stopped publishing a newsletter. In a later google search I found the newsletter was still up and running, I emailed AMSA and they told me that The Myers Group had not paid dues since 2004 and were in fact NOT members of AMSA. I printed this email for myself, and forwarded it to my home email address.
Then, the day after I pulled those court cases, and after I forwarded the email, I was mysteriously fired. When I asked why I was being fired, the owner said it was "with cause" and that I had "violated my electronic media covenant." Hmmmm does anyone else here think that either he has insiders at the court house or he somehow found out about my job interviewing? I asked him to be more specific and he told me I needed to "think long and hard about it" and that I would "figure it out." Basically there was no real reason. He owed me thousands of dollars in commissions and knew I wanted to leave and thought he could get out of paying me what he owed me.
Let's really think about it. If you have a business that is struggling so bad that you have to lie to your salespeople and withold their commissions, and you only have 3 people producing your revenue, would you really just fire one of them?
He then proceeded to "brag" to everyone else in the office that my wedding would be ruined because I would be unemployed, that I wouldn't be able to close on my house without verification of employment, and that he knew I would never find another job where I could make "this kind of money" Well guess what buddy - I have, it's better, and I will make much more money and be treated fairly and with respect.
He then proceeded to take the new girl he hired that week and instead of having her recruit in banking like he planned, he put her in my desk - moving and storage. He directed her to use all of the documents that I had created over the past 3 years and just change the signature to say her name instead of mine. He even attempted to secure exclusive contracts with clients that had been loyal to me. Needless to say, none of that was a success.
As I sit here in my new job, working with my new company, I can't help but laugh at all the phone calls coming in to me every day. People that I worked with in the past are calling The Myers Group looking for me. The new girl has been directed to tell them that "Julie Brewer got married and her husband didn't want her to work, so she retired." Yah ok honey, I am not quite at retirement age yet. Because these people know me, and know I would have been honest and told them I would be leaving had I known, they do a quick google search, find me, and call to laugh with me about what a hack job the new girl is doing and how unethical The Myers Group really is. On a daily basis I get calls from people telling me that "the new girl from The Myers Group" called them and she hadn't a clue what she was talking about. People even forward me emails she has sent them just to show me that she is essentially forging what was my work.
I agree that the work I did while I was with The Myers Group is considered to be property of The Myers Group. And they can have all the data, notes, and paperwork I created while I was there. But the one thing they can't have is my personality, my successful ability to make and maintain relationships, my charisma and charm...the one thing that the Myer's Group can't have is me. They didn't want me. And without me, they will no longer enjoy the success they once had. This should be the biggest lesson ever to the owner. Candidates and Clients don't work The Myers Group because of the reputation of The Myers Group. They work with Julie Brewer i.e. Julie Smith because they liked her.
But really who am I anyway, just a naieve, small-minded, bad seed. Call me what you will, and say what you will say, but anyone looking in from the outside can see me for who I really am. I am smart, successful, and young. And as young as I am, I will become a much bigger success with much bigger accomplishments in my lifetime than the owner of The Myers Group ever had.
And as I look back on what my working life was like while I was there, I know I made the right decision. I was a hard working, dedicated employee. I was always the one in the office to come up with new ideas, new forms, ways of streamlining things. I managed my day meticulously to make the most out of it and I truly cared about improving myself as a recruiter. While all the other employees are local people who drive 2-10 minutes to get to the office, I drove over an hour to get there and usually 90 minutes to get home. I truly cared about my job. And what did I get for it? not much. Not only that, but other ex-employees have started telling me how the owner told them that if they collected unemployment he would give them a bad reference, he would never hire a minority, he would tell one of us one thing and another one of us something entirely different. There were so many lies that he couldn't even manage them. You can't work for a company like that. You never know what to expect and you always worry if your boss is being honest with you. Eliminating that stress from my life has turned my whole perspective around and I am now achieving more success than ever before. Had I not been fired, I surely would have resigned, but I guess I can thank the ex-boss for getting me to a better place faster than I ever thought possible. What goes around comes around and now I am getting what I deserve.
1 comment:
Dear Julie,
Well put!!! I have always said,
"If you have to make someone else look bad to make yourself look good, then you are the problem." Your ex-boss was a perfect examle of this. That combined with his paranoia, his encouraging employees to plagarize your work, his management by intimidation of his employees is a pathetic way to attempt to show his so-called, self implied authority. It is obvious in what he did that his lack of management skills, and lack of ability to have a working relationship with his employees will be his company's demise. Intimidation just makes him look like an absolute, uneducated, fool.
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