Once a Con Man, Always a Con Man.

Well, I said that I wasn't going to use this blog to wrote down all the negative things that happen in my life, but this is one of those times that I think that someone else might be able to learn from the mistake I've made, and I think that I should post about it in case you are to find yourself in a similar circumstance.

About a month ago, I hired a gentleman (and he WAS, at the time) to work in my store that I'd known for several years as a great guy gone astray. He had gone to prison a few years back and had served all of his time, exiting the system almost completely free, with only the "felon" tag attached to him, and not having to do the probation or parole thing. He had gone in for identity theft, and had spent nearly a full three years in the prison system.

He came to me as a friend about a month back, and asked me for a job. He had been going to school to learn computers while he was in prison, and he was sooo excited to get out in the world and get a job, as well as continuing his education. I just happened to need a night clerk, so I told him yes, and that he could even use the dead time in the boutique in the evenings to do his homework. It SHOULD have been perfect.

After he and I forged this new "working friendship," I contacted the person which whom he had committed the prior Identity Theft charge on, as coincidentally he is now one of my roommates and told him about this hiring that I had done, and convinced the guy that he had really changed since the time of that incident, and that he should talk to the guy and maybe they could work out some kind of personal restitution. At first he didn't want to, but after a time he reluctantly agreed. Even they began to form a new friendship, and the two of us were invited to spend out Thanksgiving evening with my new employee and his new roommate. It was a great time, and we thought that all was going very well.

Yesterday I came into work and it looked like no one had cleaned the place in three days it was so dirty. I wondered what had happened on Night Shift the night before that the normal everyday cleaning wasn't done. I decided to call my employee to find out. No answer...which I kinda expected as he had closed the night before and I figured he was still sleeping. About three hours later, his roommate called me asking "Have you seen him? He didn't come home last night! I'm worried!" Well....me being who I am just had to learn everything about what was going on...and I investigated it.

My new clerk had purchased a truck from a fellow employee just the night before, and his roommate had told me that my employee had borrowed his truck the night before, and neither truck was either in the lot at work, or in the parking lot at his home. Interesting! How did he manage to drive two trucks? A better question--It's TUESDAY, and my new employee is someone who lives paycheck to paycheck--how did he afford to buy a truck from this fellow employee last night? I call his roommate to find out...

"He made a $500 deposit in the ATM last night, and withdrew $250 after he made that deposit. I wonder where He got the $500?" is what his roommate said to me when I called him back. Alarms started going off in my head as I hung up the phone and contemplated the whole situation. The only place I could think of that he could have gotten that kind of money was here at work...in MY store! I started checking things out around the business, but never found anything missing. I began to get less worried after a while. I knew that he was scheduled to come in to work last night and I figured that I would talk to him then. Surely he wouldn't skip work having just purchased a new car from a co-worker.

BUT he did a no-call/no-show for work last night, and here is where I'm going to condense this story. My tech came in this morning to balance down a portion of the business that operates on machines, and discovered $50 missing from the total. I was once again worried. Where had the $500 bucks come from? And then I got the call. He had apparently made 3 $500 deposits yesterday! Wow!

He deposited 3 envelopes into the atm with only $1 in each envelope, and less cashed $250 each time from his friend/roommates account! I couldn't believe it. These two guys were like peas in a pod, sharing an apartment, saving for the same things, sharing their lives together, and trusting eachother implicitly. And one of them goes and does someting like this, totally betraying the other. And it gets worse...so very many things are missing from his roommates apartement now--valuable jewelry, etc. He left the house yesterday telling his roommate that he was going to work too, but he never made it here. He just lied, and now he's disappeared off of the face of the planet. There's more to this story too, but it's even more long winded, and involves suicide threats, betrayal, and even more theft.

I guess I'm telling this story because I feel hurt and betrayed. I feel as though I gave someone a chance, and they totally screwed me...and planned to do it all along. Even though he didn't do all those things to ME, I feel like a total idiot for thinking that this guy had paid for his crimes and deserved a second chance. All he did to me was steal $50 (so far that we know) and then not show up for work, so I should count myself lucky. For some reason I don't feel that way. I feel cut to the bone, as though my already non-existent faith in humanity has dropped yet another notch. I can't even imagine how his roommate feels. How could someone do that to their best friend...someone who would have gladly thrown down his life for that of his buddy? How could he treat him that way??? And then to drop off the face of the planet so he can't even confront him....what a freakin coward! He's a Liar, a Thief, AND a Coward. I can't believe it. HOW could I have been so wrong about someone?

And now, I have an added problem. I stuck my neck out for this person to have a job here where I work. I promised the owners that this guy had changed, and they allowed me to go ahead and hire him, against their better judgement. How can they ever trust me to hire anyone ever again based on my own gut instincts and my ability to know how to trust someone? I'm very distressed over this.

The lesson here is that a Leopard doesn't change his spots, or Once a Con Man, Always a Con Man. Be careful who you trust people, as people really don't change after they've grown up into adulthood. It's sad, and I hate to admit it, but I'm almost at a point where I don't trust people anymore. It scares me to think of what kind of world it will be when we've all hit a point where we can't trust eachother anymore? Will we really want to live there? I don't think I'd want to. (Not to be taken as a potential suicide threat....I like being alive!)

ciao for now.