Deals with the Bald-Headed Devil

       This time is another one of my dad's stories. My dad has had the fortune of a stable job and work that he loves to do. Well, at least the former is true. There have been several times where my dad has gotten disturbingly close to being fired and here is one of them

       My dad is an environmental engineer, which is a job that not many people really know or care about, so most of the time my dad can get away with doing things behind the scenes. For example, my dad once had to deal with setting up a factory for TI. In order to do so, you need to get a permit to allow the company to run the factory. So, my dad went to OSHA (the govt environmental regulation agency) and filled out all the paperwork and got the permit, or so he thought. He then went over to the factory with the piece of paper that gave them permission to run the factory and started it up. About six months later they got a letter from OSHA saying that they were in violation of their permit and that the company would get a $250,000 fine. That is expensive for a fine nowadays, but back then when money was worth more it was a huge sum for the company to pay. My dad and the manager of the factory looked at the permit and saw in little letters under the stamp approving their permit that the permit only worked if and only if they solved the environmental problem that OSHA gave. My dad and his coworker looked at the factory and saw that there indeed was a problem with the factory and that it was entirely their fault for not fixing it. They were already pretty sad about not fulfilling the conditions, but afterwards my dad and the manager of the factory got a call to be boss's office to talk about why the company suddenly owed $250,000 to the government.

       The two went into the boss's office to have their fate decided. Now, the boss was this tall bald guy who had been working at the company for years, and no one liked him. He was the kind of boss that loves seeing his employees cry themselves to sleep. My grandmother once met him and he said to her, "Out of all the methods to lead others, my favorite is fear." This guy routinely went made salesmen go home in tears for making only one failed sell. He was an awful boss, but he was smart enough to benifit the company enough to never get fired.

       The boss and his equivalent in General Electric were waiting for my dad and his coworker in the office. At this point, my dad and his coworker were already making new resumes in their head to try and get another job. The problem was that no one wanted to hire the two idiots who gave their previous company a $250,000 fine. They were very boned. The boss, obviously trying to show off, leaned to his friend and said, "You give me one good reason not to fire these two idiots right now." His friend replied, " Well, I think they did a good job. Those environmental laws are so confusing and complicated that I think you guys are lucky only to get a $250,000 fine!"

       After hearing that, my dad's boss couldn't fire them anymore. He couldn't find a reason two. If it weren't for that guy in that office in that exact moment, then my dad wouldn't have a job today. His entire career could be boiled down to that one moment of pure dumb luck.