It Sucks to be the Little Guy

There is a story I haven’t told. I don’t know why I’m telling it today. Perhaps I’m just sick to death of dealing with the fallout. Perhaps it’s because a friend told me recently that reading my blog makes her feel jealous of my life. Which surprised me. It’s a good life. I like it. This is the space where I try to savor all the good that has been given to me. But that doesn’t mean that I never have to deal with crap. I choose to not dwell on it as much as possible, but it’s there. So in the interest of a more complete picture of my life, I’ll share this story.

It involves a man who has a lot of money, and two men who don’t.

The man with a lot of money, and I mean, a lot of money, has a very big mansion in the midwest. He’s a commercial developer. He builds private clinics onto hospitals with Saudi oil money. He has 600 million dollar meetings. He owns an 8 million dollar “beach house” in La Jolla, CA. He has a temper and he’s proud of it.

He owes my husband’s boss(MHB) $8000 dollars. He has violated the terms of their contract. MHB doesn’t think he will ever see that money again. He can’t afford the legal battle to get it.

It started when MHB told one of this man’s long term employees that his boss was behind in payments by $8000 for custom renovations they have been doing for him. THis man got angry and accused MHB of slandering him and lying.

It continued with this man trying to renegotiate the contract so that it would be more favorable to him, in the the middle of the job. It ended when MHB, a good man with a newborn at home, refused, and was fired.

Of course there is legal recourse. He could put a lien on the home, so it can’t be sold until he is paid. But this man, who shall remain nameless because we can’t afford a law suit, is vindictive. He has a history of destroying people, and he has the money to do it. Lawyers call it f*ck you money. He could sue for slander, he could take out frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit until MHB is bankrupted by legal fees. His lawyers tell him this man has done it before, to other people who have tried to bring him to justice.

So, it has been hard, very hard for the whole company for several months. For two months after that MHB paid his employs, but didn’t pay himself. Since then they’ve been struggling to find work that is steady enough, which happens. You expect unsteadiness in the construction business. You plan ahead. But when you’ve lost a cushion of oh about $8000 there isn’t much to fall back on. Four times since February he’s not been able to pay us on time. Like right now. Jobs need to be finished before contractors get paid. So how do you pay your employees every two weeks when you don’t get paid until the end of the month and you have nothing left in reserve? It’s never happened to him before this year. He is terribly undone by it all.

Yet, we’ve been fine. We’ve made it through so far. There is work tomorrow. Don’t know about the day after that.

But it chafes me. It’s wrong. This man should not be able to get away with ruining lives just because he’s wealthy enough to do what he wants. There shouldn’t be such a thing as wealthy enough to do what he wants. There should be justice. But there isn’t. I find myself less than pragmatic today about the whole thing. It may or may not have to do with the way our rent check bounced recently because of not having a steady income anymore. Just one of those things when all the bills came out at once and a deposit wasn’t made when it usually is.

It makes me angry.

It is wrong.

It doesn’t seem there is anything to do.

Any ideas?