Being an Adult

I was drawn to writing this blog on hearing of the sad news of the death of the mother of one my previous Directors.

Many years ago when I was working as the Client Services Manager for another firm of debt collectors, I wasn’t offered a contract as the Directors told me on many occasions that I was a friend and I didn’t need one. This was all well and good when I started working for them, but very quickly I discovered in business you cannot be friends with your employers. After a couple of years of being constantly being told that I was not worth the money I was being paid and constant running down of suggestions, I did what any sane person should do and found an escape route.

The Directors were not best pleased when they realised that I was moving to another agency, especially when they realised by not having a contract they could not stop me from speaking to, or visiting anyone I chose to. It upset them even more when they discovered that some preferred what was being offered by the new agency. My ex-directors tried many ways of stopping my new employers including reporting them to the OFT for not having a Consumer Credit Licence, when in fact they did.

About a year later when my then parent company decided to pull out of the UK, I decided with the approval of my current directors’ to set up Deanem Collections Ltd . One of the first things I tried to do was to hold out an olive branch to my previous employers unfortunately, all I got back from them was hostility that “I was stealing the food from my previous colleagues plates”. I also heard that they had wanted to break my legs!

I found it fascinating that one particular director has gone out of his way to avoid any form of contact including crossing the road and the silliest turning around and leaving a shop when he saw me or my family were already shopping. One day I managed to corner him & his wife in a local supermarket when I said “Hello” he ignored me, when I said “Hello” for a second time he screamed “Don’t you talk to me, you’re stealing my customers”.

Over the years since leaving their employ one of the other directors had seemed to have accepted what had happened and we had had some interesting and friendly conversations. If he ever saw my family in the street he always appeared to be genuinely happy to see them. Unfortunately, I recently lost my father and while the 2nd director sent condolences via my wife, when he saw me he totally blanked me. Just goes to show how petty and small minded some people are.

When I heard the news of the death of my previous employers’ mother, my first action was to do nothing, but on reflection I think as an adult I may send a note of condolence to his father.