I just don't get it. What am I missing?
Was this an extortion plot, an attempt to get you fired?
What was the point? and what was the end result?
I never was fired. I suppose you have to understand the character of the people involved. The controller had a personality disorder and the Financial analyst was as egotistical maniac and petty. Maybe the pettiest person I ever met. He also couldn't handle the smallest of conflicts. He was the sort of guy who could dish it out but couldn't take it. For some reason these two thought I was the stupidest person ever to come along. Trust me I'm not! I'm also an easy target. I was way overweight and I have a soft voice. Then I'm very open and often take things in stride or let slights go. Hence it started out as teasing and fun. Then taunting and later it turned ever more vicious.
There are two other characters involved in this, the President and the Vice President of finance. Now some of this is conjecture. However there were signs all along the way that pointed to how the president and VP played a role. The president was the type of guy that when you did something good he wouldn't say it to you. He would turn to those that should have thought of it and say, "Why didn't you think of that?" Always accusatory.
The VP was a setup artist himself. He once told me to raise the credit limit of a company that was going bankrupt. I said are you sure?! He said go ahead and I will send you an email confirming it. Well Okay??? No email came. We had several large customers in the steel industry who were filing bankruptcy. Later I was called into the office for raising the limit by my then controller, a woman I liked. She said I know he told you. I said yes he did. He peaked his head over my cubicle and told me and I questioned it. Well you better go talk to him. So I did. He said did I send you an email to verifying I told you. Well uh, no. He then said well then I didn't tell you. Wow! Later I was searching our customer base and found a letter the VP had written to the parent company. It said "while things were bad because of major customers filling bankruptcy (USXet. al.) it could have been much worse. Fortunately I caught where we had raised the credit limit of an insolvent customer by $200,000." He set me up as a scape goat to save his tail. Then of course to make things complete I had to be disciplined. Probably the parent company wanted me fired. I know how these people think.
The VP also hired the new Controller, with the personality disorder, and the ego maniac Senior financial analyst. They fit right in with his personality. Both of them had worked together at the same company for years prior to coming to my company. I have always wondered if their former company manipulated circumstances to get rid of these two.
If you understand the characters then you will understand the reason for the set up. At the time I was coming into my own. The company asked for suggestions to cut costs. I came up with a great catch. Someone had misclassified (my controller, the insane one) a phone bill into my electric account. I knew it wasn't the right account because I was familiar with the vendor numbers and the number was much smaller than the usual amounts. So I go to the vendor files to look it up. This was during the same period as the key incident. Taking a look at the bill I was stunned at what I saw. We were paying 98 cents per minute for long distance charges! The average rate at the time was 5 cents. I though oh man!, we can cut some costs here. So I started looking at the other phone bills. As it turned out we were paying on average 100% more than current rates. Then I looked at the I.T. lines. It was the same. So I researched and gathered information to support my position.
Now you get an award for cost cutting suggestions. I was giddy about it. Other people involved will get a smaller award. I thought this was a great opportunity to show the insane controller I was a team player and get some points. Well that didn't work out at all. When I told her about the suggestion and tried to bring her in on it she screamed at me. I mean screamed. I really don't know why. I theorize she realized that she had been signing a bill that she hadn't really looked at.
Then I told the ego maniac about my findings. Thinking at the time he was my friend and golfing buddy. He went nuts as well. He did what I began calling his Darth Vader imitation, Lower his voice and octave and raising the volume. He then said something I will never forget. "This is just normal course of business." That came back to bite me. Now I turned the suggestion in anyway and was anticipating an award and a pat on the back. Neither happened. After a good while I inquired about the suggestion. As it turned out the ego maniac had the ear of the president, they said no award because "This was the normal course of business." There was another suggestion within that suggestion as well. One that most would not think of I believe. I said ask for that money back on the account that charged 98 cents per minute. They did and received cash back in the amount of $7,000. They also ended up saving $63,000 per year in phone and I.T. line charges.
Later I caught where the controller had dropped off accounts she didn't understand. One was the 100% deductible account. If a company buys a meal on the premises for the employees and for the employer's convenience it is 100% deductible for tax purposes. If it is outside the office or company grounds it is only 50% deductible. So I researched the IRS code and showed her this. Those accounts were added. It further changed the way the company did their employee meetings and outings. I had good word the latter suggestion seeped up to the VP and President. They started holding employee picnics at company sites instead of at the zoo or some other off site location.
Then one day I caught were they were using the freight-in account for courier service to HQ. Now for those not familiar with accounting Freight-in is an inventory account. That means it goes into the cost of inventory and thus reduces profit per unit sold. It makes a difference believe it or not. So I pointed that out in a humble way and very indirectly since I had to walk on egg shells all the time.
Also during the same period I noticed that expenses would be debited and credited at the same time, thus adding an expense and then removing the expense. What the heck! Then when it was paid it would reappear. It was like cash basis accounting instead of the accrual method. Cash basis is what you use for your personal checking account but not suitable for business under General Accepted Accounting Principals. (Our guidelines). So I investigated it by comparing good entries to the bad entries. Then I looked at the vendors associated with both the good and bad entries. During this I recalled they had moved a new person to the front desk where one of her responsibilities was to set up new vendors. Well she was entering the expense account twice instead of an expense account and a liability account. The liability account affects the balance sheet and the expense account affects the income statement. So with permission I go to her and explain the difference. When I told the insane controller this she was stunned. So she wouldn't scream at me I took my friend, the former controller, into the office with me. You could tell she wanted to scream and yet you could see her self reflecting. Neither of those two knew how to fix it. I suggested I could do a reversing entry so the balance sheet was correct this month and not overstated next month. So we went with that.
Again during this period, I was given the task to make sure the balance sheet accounts were correctly coded. As it turns out Purchasing didn't have a clue about the new accounts. So after month end closing, where I spent a huge amount of time correcting the coding, I asked for permission to work with purchasing on account classification. I was able to reduce the number of errors from 5 pages to about 3 errors per month. This caused a rift as well with the new controller. How was I so able to convince these folks to do this?! Why didn't she think of it? As it turns out purchasing was full of great people who wanted to do a great job. So it was easy.
Then their was schooling. I was working on my Masters at the time. It had to appear them I was the most ambitious employee on the planet. It was well known I was working on my Masters to sit for the CPA exam. Which I did and passed last year.
All during this period the attacks on me by the controller became more vicious and almost daily. Never ever a good word. I was beat up beyond belief. My raises were half of that of the other employees. I was insulted in front of everyone in the office time and time again. None of the insults were explained or had merit. Just blind sided attacks.
So in short the reason for the setup was jealousy. I was running circles around these people. Honestly I never thought about it at the time. My thinking was that I was doing good for the company. They on the other hand took it personal.
Am I bitter ex-employee. Yes I think so. I was actually over it until Monday when I realized what had happened. I'll move on again. I have quite a few accomplishments whether they were recognized or not.
Apologies for the length folks. I was trying to make the original concise.
