An old employer calls to say he'd been sent a letter from the state saying I'd been on unemployment.
“Are you doing alright?” he asks.
I was.
“I thought maybe you didn't have a job and was going to see if you wanted to come back to the warehouse.”
“That's really nice of you.”
“Yeah, see, I'm going to shut everything down, but after [manager] left a couple years ago I made him a lot of promises to get him back. So, he might be mad, and if he quits, I'm worried I won't be able to get all the shipments out.”
He went on to say…….
“Yeah, the state is forcing me to either give everyone 2 months' notice, or pay them that amount, like a severance.”
The severance was off the table because he didn't think people should just “get paid,” even though 1 guy had been there 50 years.
So, his plan if the manager walked was to see if I'd still get the shipments out the doors for him, and he'd pay me $20 an hour.
THE MATH: He sold his building for $8,000,000. After taxes and commissions, he probably kept $5,000,000. Payroll was $50,000 a week, so he'd have been out $450,000.
HOW HE GOT THIS BUILDING: Before being able to cash out, the typical person with a business like this is in the middle class (they have an asset, but un-sold it's just wealth in theory), but that's not the case with this guy.
When his dad died, he'd bought the building from his mom, out from under his siblings, for $700,000. When his mom died, he inherited 1/3 of her assets, allowing him to pay off the loan he'd taken out. His siblings might have thought they'd be receiving part of the building…….they did not.
Also, the company still exists on a much smaller scale, and if I had to guess he personally still makes around his old salary of like $100,000.
WHY STILL WORK? He needs somewhere to go. His wife drives him fucking nuts – always on his case if he drinks a cup of coffee or eats a piece of meat, but never when he smokes marijuana. Meanwhile, she'll drink a whole bottle of wine, which is very healthy, she says.