One Company – Four Men: Part IV

Joseph had spent most of his adult life with our company. He had given it all he had. Sure he made money, and I’m sure he did quite well financially, but there was more to Joseph than money – or else you’re reading a writer who is about the dumbest man you’ll ever know. As I said in my first post in this series, either Joseph was naive and he didn’t know about the fraud, or I was naive and I didn’t know the real Joseph. To this day I don’t think he knew what was happening right under his nose. Should he have known? Yes, he was president and he should have known – I can’t argue with that.

The VP of sales and marketing was also fired – you can be damn sure he knew about the fraud - and he was replaced by a boy-wonder from our national office, who was actually a pretty nice guy. Joseph was replaced by Charles which created the opening for Mike and Sammy to vie for, and you know from a previous post that Sammy got the job and I ended up working for Sammy. I’ll have more about both Sammy and Charles in this series.

When Joseph was fired it sent him into a tailspin. He had a wife and children and I would think that he was set for life financially – but he couldn’t get over the fact that this company that he had given so much to had pushed him out the door. Maybe there was no alternative to terminating him, after all he was the division president and he should have known what was happening in his division – on the other hand the fraudulent practices were so widespread – it affected other divisions and perhaps even other firms  in our industry were engaging in it – that you have to wonder what was going on…but he still should have known about it.

Joseph went into depression. He’d take off from home and not be seen for weeks. He’d call his wife from the West Coast. It was a mess. During this time I thought about trying to connect with Joseph – but I felt out of my league so I didn’t…I regret not trying.

Joseph committed suicide out in California. I couldn’t believe it. This professorial gentle man who had considered becoming a priest had gone and killed himself, leaving behind his wife and kids.

I recall looking at the corporate headquarter's representatives at the funeral and wondering what the heck they were doing there. Why didn’t they get him help? He had grown up in the firm with some of those very men, he’d known them for years – why did this happen? How could this have happened?

Now maybe they did try to help at some point, the fact is that I don’t know, I’m just sharing where I was then and what my thoughts were. Hey, if Joseph should have known what was going on, perhaps some of those guys in corporate should have known too – after all, the fraud wasn’t confined to our division.

I realize you didn’t know Joseph, but I think if you had known him that you’d agree that he didn’t know about the fraud.