It’s a looooong one with the possibility of multiple grammatical and spelling errors.
Several years ago, I worked for an Audio Visual company, we’ll call them No Star AV. They are a company created from the ashes of other AV companies, specifically their leadership.
So anyway, I was that guy that always made things happen. I would pick up and drop off coworkers on days they couldn’t make it unless someone picked them up which sometimes meant going in earlier or working later than scheduled. I spent nights in the hotel because of weather preventing others from coming in. I was a good worker.
So, at the end of my shift, I was waiting for clients to finish their welcome reception since I had to lock the doors to their storage room and had to be there for on-site support. Nothing new, super easy day. At the end of the day, the group asks me if they could keep their stuff in our office. I told him I’d rather not because I do not want to be responsible for their equipment but that their storage was available and that I could lock the door for him so he can do whatever he needed to do. I specifically said, the door is locked, just close it behind you. I asked him do you have everything you need before I go? He said no. Ok, cool.
Next day, I realized I accidentally held on to the office keys that I was supposed to turn in to security at the end of the night. Although it was a no no, everybody did it once in awhile because they’re human and getting off a long day of work. It happens.
So I get in my car and start driving over to take them in and say hi to the team while I’m there.
I get a phone call from my director. He wants me to walk him through the steps I took the night before. I told him everything: they were done, no issues, I locked the door for the person needing storage and told him it was locked so once it’s closed, it’s closed.
He informs me that the group has equipment missing and that I was the last one to handle it. I told him that I did not touch their equipment because I did not want to be responsible for it.
But, I told him, “look, this isn’t the best time to bring it up and I know it looks fishy but I’m actually on the way in to turn in keys I accidentally took home. I’ll be right there, we can talk about it”
I get there, tell him what happened, write a statement and left, thinking everything was ok because of my clean criminal background and great work ethic.
The next day, director tells me that he had to beg the GM of the hotel (somewhere in Portland, OR) to even let me on property. I told him that if that was the case then the hotel can do without me and that I’m going home. He asked me to please reconsider, so I told him I’d give them 2 weeks. Come in the next day, security comes up to the office and tells me “it’s not looking good for you man”
That’s when I told my director that I’m done, it’s my last day.
So that was it for a few months. I eventually my former supervisors again at friend’s party (former coworker). I honestly was holding nothing against them, I let it go. I was there to have fun and to DJ. But, one of them tells me “hey, it sucks you left” I told him, I just didn’t feel comfortable there. He then says “you wanna hear something funny? Turns out they never even brought the cameras with them, they were never missing.” To which I smirk and say, told you I didn’t do it. I didn’t even know what was “missing” in the first place. So by that point, I still don’t even care about the incident
Fast forward a few more weeks. They call me up and ask if I can freelance for them as an AV operator. I say sure, I’ll send you my rates once I get home. So they schedule me and I send them my rates. They get back to me saying, I was hoping you’d do it for the save amount you were making before. I told him that my rate was non-negotiable, trust I even dropped down by $5 an hour for them.
They cancel because they thought I’d give in to their lowball offer.
Several months pass by, another director from another property emails me asking if I could help them out with their event as an AV operator. I say yes, he doesn’t blink an eye about the rate because he knows I’m that good to be asking for that kind of money.
Come the day of the event, a person from the hotel HR tells the director I’m helping out that he needs to kick me of property, that I have stolen equipment from the company and left under bad terms. To which the director tells them “no, if you want this to be a successful event, he will stay”
I’m really pissed off now because now they were actively trying to make me lose financial opportunities and most of all, shitting all over my character
All it took was one lengthy and detailed email to the regional president and I never heard from them again.
Now that I’m older and wiser, I could have had a few extra thousand dollars for their lies involving my character and my job.
The shitty part is that they convinced me to drop my guard. We would often go on team outings for going a job well done (corporate would foot the bill on those)
We had gone to strip bars, hockey games and dinners. I thought we were all cool, but in the end, they were my directors and I was expendable