30 Days of Truth - Day 04: Something you have to forgive someone for.

I don't make enemies easily.   I'm a very non-confrontational person unless REALLY pushed.  So if you've done something and I haven't forgiven you for it, chances are it was incredibly upsetting to me and I doubt I'll forgive you anytime soon.  There is one exception to this though.  There is one thing that someone has done that I doubt I'll ever really be able to put behind me.  And that would be something my boss did about a year ago.

I work for an insurance brokerage general agency, and for those that don't know what that is we are kind of a go-between from an independent insurance agent to the carrier home offices.  We'll process all the dirty work for you... like application processing, underwriting follow-up, and just generally assist you as a back-office for the agents that don't have their own staff.  Obviously, since we are tied to the financial industry closely, our economic position has been somewhat tenuous of late... teetering on bankruptcy, if I'm honest.  The thing is... it didn't have to be this way.

Nearly 2 years ago (just before the collapse of the banking system and the housing crisis), we placed a VERY large case internally... meaning the boss/owner of the company was the agent on it.  Due to HIPAA regulations, I can't tell you any details of it... but suffice it to say the case's commission check would have nearly covered a full year of expenses on it's own.  Move ahead 1 year and the housing market is in full decline, the economy has tanked... and our boss decides to take all the commissions from the huge case out of the business... and renovate his house.

And by renovate I mean build-on... and by build-on I mean totally gut the existing house down to 1 wall and a bathroom and rebuild it from the ground up.  He seriously over build for the neighborhood too... and will NEVER get the money back out of it, even if the housing market recovers fully.  Add to that, the company no longer has that capital to fall back on... and the economic downturn means less people are buying insurance... meaning we don't have as much coming in... meaning we're having to lay people off to reduce operating costs... meaning the remaining staff was forced to take a 20% "temporary" (that's lasted over a year) pay cut.

All because he wanted a new house...  and it's something I probably should move on front... as it is in the past.  But at the same time... I'm reminded of it every time I get another paycheck that is 20% lower than what it use to be.  It's very hard to forgive someone of their stupidity... when every 2 weeks your pocketbook reminds you of it...