How would this guy know how anyone filed? Sounds like he just wants a corner on the market to me, using any tactics he can think of, honest or not, to get it. He’s the same guy who runs cryin’ to mama any time things don’t go his way.
A while back an “honest” company tried to blackball me cause they felt I didn’t charge enough, even though I’d used the same pricing system for over a decade. I managed this company and a couple of the bids were way higher than they should’ve been for what was being done on the site.
When I approached the church-going, law-abiding owner and expressed this concern to him he said, “So? Why not charge as much as you can get away with? Do something extra for 'em if you feel so guilty,” which I already was doing.
This bothered me tremendously, especially since such a false facade was presented to their customers and community.
About this time, unbeknownst to me, the owner had grown tired of washing windows and had decided to sell off his customer list to a fellow church-goer of his. Remember, I was the manager, and I’d never missed a day and never been late, settin’ up the help for their days then working in the field the remainder myself. I come in one day, the very week my first promised raise is due, and the office is packed up.
“What’s goin’ on,” I ask.
“Well, we’re makin’ some changes,” says the owner.
Duh!
“I just don’t want to do it anymore. I’m goin’ back to school. You can try to get on with the guys I sold the list to.” So I did.
They treated me graciously enough when I first came on, quizzin’ me on the customers I’d been servicing for months now, learning the routes and the system, promising that I’d still be in charge of those areas.
Then they started actin’ like a little fraternity, hoarding the best payin’ jobs for themselves, and throwin’ me the scraps. There was no way to feed my family on what they were giving me, so I told the customers on my final time around that I wouldn’t be back next scheduled service, returned the pole I’d borrowed, and politely turned down the next meager workload offered to me, and struck out on my own.
Amazingly, over the next few weeks I received call after call from “their” customers, saying, “You gave us the best service we’d ever had. Are you available?”
Certainly, I’d say!
Naturally, next came the threat of a lawsuit if I didn’t relinquish the customers. Knowing the state was a “right to work” one, I stood my ground against against two of the “big boys.” The tactic failed, so they resorted to spreading the word that my tools were actually theirs, and that I was undermining the whole industry with low-ball tactics. These were lies. My tool belt, and all the tools in it I’d had for years, and my prices were right down the middle of the road, not to mention system-based and honest, unlike theirs. If anything, these dishonest tactics tactics lost them more loyal customers than anything. Despite a total lack of listings or advertising, word spread and customers I’d serviced as long ago as 2 years before found me through word of mouth and referrals. I’d hear horror stories from them about the service they’d received from my previous employers.
The moral of the story is, there’s more than one way to be a low-down, dirty cheat. Just because someone appears to be honest doesn’t make it so.
