Some People Shouldn’t Be In Charge

Just prior to my starting at this company, the founder decided to take a step back from running it due to failing health. He sold it off to the head designer and master electrician, both of whom had long tenures there. The following narrative takes place across my entire time there.

The new owners were great at first but soon started cutting corners and trying to save money in the strangest ways while doing other financially irresponsible things. One example was that they decided to save wire nuts that came with one brand of fixtures we used because they were twenty-five cents each, but then they printed out twenty copies of a twenty-page single-sided employee handbook that could have easily been sent in an email. They also told us not to take the paid highway they’d registered the trucks on, even if it got us back significantly faster. Also of note, the head designer used it the most out of anybody by at least threefold. We spent one afternoon before our winter shutdown throwing out unused, multi-hundred dollar fixtures still in the packaging, but if we wanted to use any of them at home, we were expected to pay, even though it was literally going to waste.

We chalked a lot of this stuff up to being new to their duties as owners and figured they’d find their footing. Then, our year-end reviews came.

My foreman brought it up first.

Foreman: “Did you get any weird, nitpicky feedback on your review?”

Me: “I did. The only complaint they could make about me was that I don’t say, ‘Good morning,”’ to them every day and I’m not friendly with them in the mornings.”

Foreman: *Laughing* “I’ve never known you to be unfriendly!”

He told a similar story about his review.

By now, we were all feeling that things were off the rails a little. I now had a more senior role, so I’d taken on more responsibilities. Thus, I’d been exposed to a new aspect of the owners: dishonesty.

We had a few clients managed by a single agency who stipulated that we use long-life halogen bulbs in all outdoor fixtures instead of the standard life halogens — this was on the cusp of LED really taking off. I was assigned a maintenance call with one of these clients, so I inquired about the long-life bulbs. The owner shrugged it off saying I didn’t need to use them.

On the way there, I got a “reminder” text from the owner.

Owner: “If they ask about the long-life bulbs, just say that they are.”

The other big scam they pulled was stopping the use of underground conduits. While this was to code as long as the wires were rated for direct burial, the conduit had multiple long-term benefits from damage protection to easier repairs.

They decided that it was too expensive and took too much time to lay the pipe and pull our lines through it, so we were to just dig trenches and lay the wires in. However, they still told the clients conduit was being used and charged for it.

We ended up mutually parting ways the following year and I went into another industry. I reconnected with one of the foremen about a year later and he informed me that most people, him included, had quit. I don’t know how the company is doing now.