Chapter 8 - I LOST MY JOB
Colebridge terminated me three months after placing me on leave.
Official reason:
Loss of trust and unavoidable conflict arising from “family participation in adverse proceedings.”
My attorney almost smiled when she read it.
“They actually wrote this?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful.”
“It doesn’t feel wonderful.”
“No.”
She became serious.
“It feels like unemployment.”
Exactly.
I had worked there for six years.
I knew the people.
Had friends there.
Expected to become a director.
Instead, I became “the employee whose father found the body.”
Job interviews became awkward.
Then investigators uncovered another issue.
Richard had used Colebridge employees to review personal-property expenses.
Legal invoices.
Contractor payments.
North Shore Structural Preservation bills associated with his home had been coded through company accounts as “executive property-security consulting.”
Some were reimbursed later.
Some were not.
My old financial team became part of the investigation.
The irony was painful.
Richard had removed my access because he feared conflict.
That removal attracted attention to transactions I might never have noticed.
Board members placed him on leave.
Then terminated him.
Colebridge did not collapse.
Another lesson.
Companies often act as though one powerful person is the building.
Usually the building remains after the office is empty.
My employment case settled months later.
I cannot discuss every term.
I can say I did not become a millionaire.
I received enough to cover lost income, legal expenses, and the disruption Richard caused.
More importantly, my termination record was corrected.
I joined a smaller investment firm.
During my interview, the managing partner asked:
“Would you report your own CEO if you found something improper?”
I laughed.
“I would prefer not to make it a hobby.”
May you like
He hired me.
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