Welcome to the business world, Mr. Tuck.
I have a business and worked to build it for 23 years before retiring. Around my 12th year, and just as the business started breaking even, wouldn't you know it, I started having a hard time paying the business' bills, which had not ever happened before in 12 years. At least, it had enough increase to pay for incoming freight and outgoing wages to employees, although my net was less than nothing, thank you very much.
Finally, 2 years later and my husband's every other paycheck going directly into my business to cover its costs, I caught an employee taking money a customer paid. She was let go the next morning when she arrived. It is a horrible thing to have to fire someone for any reason, but after I cleared that one problem out, I started thinking back about the little things the employee said and did. It was the story of embezzlement, coming together for the first time. We talked to lawyers and accountants, and all said the same thing: do a check on the books along cash, credit, and check payments. The bank furnished information we didn't already have. Sure enough, the day the employee came to work, cash payments were short. She broke a piece of equipment that took her away from the cash register, so she got out of doing auxiliary tasks in the business. She mentioned another employee's faults (one who had worked for a bank and could track shortages), although I for some reason, had the good fortune not to fire her based on one person's word, particularly because she showed up on time, did a thorough job, always balanced to the penny, was pleasant to customers, and in every way helped the business when she was on the job. However, when the business couldn't pay its bills, I had to cut hours, so she took another job, so the business lost a good hand, and the other employee had one less tracker who could pin her to her crimes. Boxes that she opened always had merchandise missing, and I was stuck spending time requesting a refund or another box of whatever the problem was. I wondered how suppliers who'd never shorted an order, suddenly started shorting me. I was sure it was THEM. Doh! I found color groups of merchandise missing from time to time, and stacks of notions missing. It was a 2-year nightmare. I was sure some person who was a customer was stealing so much merchandise, I moved the cash register to the only entrance and exit so employees would notice someone carrying a barrel full of yardsticks out the door. Doh! Criminals who steal cash also have no compunctions about stealing anything else they take a fancy to, so I learned the hard way.
Was I responsible for having to pay back the bank $40,000 I had to borrow those 2 years to keep things going? Yep. I got to spend the next 5 years paying it back with interest, and after the thief was let go, the thief got zero punishment, because it took us 6 months to do the tracking of our con artist who kept all the cash she could lay her hands on, not to mention the only time I had ever noticed merchandise missing in spades. The fired employee proceeded to tell the people she met while working for me several huge lies, and she sullied my reputation for firing her. But the books were examined both for days she worked and days she didn't work. The days she worked, cash flow fell compared to all days before and after she left that showed higher cash. She was pocketing cash, same as the one time we caught her doing it red handed and for which she was terminated. Checks and credit were generally the same. It's stupid to risk taking a check or screwing with credit, even back then, and it would point to the thief at her level of expertise in the theft category.
So yes, Governor Walker will lose the money stolen and may never recover it, or maybe he will get something from those who did that. Yes, they will say bad things about him because they got caught with their fingers in the till, but most of the things they come up with will not follow a truthful course, but one that saves face with their friends who likely will change their votes, too, believing their friend's lie.
Two accountants and two lawyers all agreed we had a solid case against her. I did not go after her because she had two teenagers. Why sully someone in court when you could be damaging teenagers? In a small town, many kids don't like peers who have a parent in jail. Why they can't separate a fellow classmate from a parent, I don't know, I just know that's how kids are, because when I went to school, nobody liked a girl whose mother worked for the school and was apprehended for embezzling. She had to quit school. Later on, I felt sorry for her, although I never directly said anything to her after her mother was fired and convicted of stealing from a public school.
Thieves and mean people can show up to hurt anyone they think can provide them a bonanza in assets they can pick off quickly, away from the notice of other people.
We should feel sorry for the governor for this betrayal, not accusatory.
Just sayin'.
One thing: I am not going to answer further questions about my bad employee. Yes, I know for certain, no, I'm not mistaken, yes, she did it, yes, I'm 100% sure I did the right thing. No, this entire thing is not about my situation, it's just a fact of life: thieves pick on people they perceive as wealthy. In my case, one look at my sorry books would tell you I was not rich, I was not making money hand over fist, so much so I had to borrow money to stay afloat and give up income to repayment of loan extensions that helped cover some of the losses. I was angry I had spent 80-hour weeks trying to get customers through the door to help my business hemorrhaging cash, and I was angry for the huge amount of money she stole that I had to pay the bank back for. I was truly hurt when one of the ladies she served came in and let me know how pissed off she and her quilting group were at firing someone as sweet as the (unknown to her) thief, how rotten I was, and how she'd not be seeing her business again. My lawyer had advised me to make no defense and talk about none of this to anyone else, until any court proceedings were held. I couldn't defend myself. I lost customers, and didn't see some of them until 2 years later when she stole a lot of money from the local Catholic church. Then some of my ex-customers came back, because they were on the committee who caught her stealing money out of funds designated for impoverished people.
Thieves are pure hell.
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