When You Don’t Know What You’ve Got, Prepare To Lose It

My bookkeeper reminded me of this now that she’s retiring; I’d forgotten how she came to work for us. She’s been our “Mother Hen” and office fixture for so long!

Close to twenty-five years ago, I was estimating and quoting a metalworking factory expansion job about 100 miles from my home and shop.

The owner was berating a fairly young bookkeeper about how a computer glitch was her fault, and he was using completely inappropriate language.

When we went to the job site, he explained how she “only” had a local college degree in bookkeeping and business, and if he didn’t keep her on the back foot, she would want a raise and benefits. He mentioned that she had to keep the job because she was a single mother.

We cut steel and installed it, so I saw this girl cry, work through lunch, be the last one to leave her department, etc.

I talked it over with my then-girlfriend (now wife) about poaching this trained girl since we desperately needed a resident bookkeeper/comptroller — like, needed one five years ago — but if I did, it would burn bridges with a customer.

I don’t think I did anything that wasn’t goal-oriented for me and my business. We had serious issues with taxes and compliance at the time.

My girlfriend went to the job site with me, sat with this young lady, and slipped her a business card, not knowing if she would want to move from a city to the country and such.

[Bookkeeper] had worked there for five years, got no raises or benefits in those five years, and desperately wanted another job, but knew the boss/owner would kill her job reference since she had seen him do it before.

My girlfriend rented [Bookkeeper] a little place for cheap. She started with us and untangled the last three years of mess in about three months. For the first time ever, the monthly reports were on time and the tax paperwork was done on time. She even managed to talk the IRS/state revenue out of most of the fines and penalties.

She quickly became “My Girl Friday” since she killed problems in minutes that had plagued me for years, thanks to actual education and experience, along with being sharp as a tack.

[Bookkeeper] met her husband here and had her wedding lakeside here, they built a house here, they had two more kids here, and she spent twenty-five years working here. She’s been the High-Grand poo-bah of the office! Killer of paperwork dragons!

She and my wife have become great friends since they both lived “city” lives at one point and we are all country folks.

I kept a professional distance, so I was quite surprised when [Bookkeeper] broke down in tears at her retirement get-together, saying she owed her entire life to us.

Well, no, she doesn’t. I was more than willing to throw money at the paperwork monsters to get the tax/compliance people off my a**! She saved the company! She doesn’t “owe” us anything; she earned everything and she worked hard to get it. It’s my good fortune to have been in the right place at the right time, and the right time in her life. I’m sure with her intelligence and willingness to work and learn, she would have done well once she got away from that A-hole.

I knew the customer I poached [Bookkeeper] from got into all kinds of tax, employee pay, and state/federal regulation problems about six months after she left. But I just found out that when [Bookkeeper] was working with the state and federal tax people, she leaked about his shady dealings, when we dealt with labor relations people she leaked about his shady dealings, and so on. She knew exactly where to point the investigators, and they didn’t disappoint.

I’ve seen her use the innocent lines, “My last employer did this this way,” or, “My boss is going to be very angry that I messed this up,” when talking people out of fines or penalties from back when she didn’t even work here! So, thinking about it, I know how she worked it into conversation without actually “snitching”, and they ran off, foaming at the mouth, and left us alone.

Sly girl! But our sly girl!

[Bookkeeper]’s former boss lost the company within eighteen months of her leaving. It’s still there and producing, just under entirely new owners and management.