Schadenfreude

scha-den-freu-de (shahd-n-froi-duh), noun, “satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else’s misfortune.”

It was just announced in the local news that a company I worked for a few years ago – for a grand total of 83 days – has been accused in a multi-point civil complaint by the state attorney general’s office of using deceptive advertising and bait-n-switch tactics.  People with whom I’ve spoken about this have told me that this is Serious.  Capital-S serious.

I say, couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of fellas.

My short tenure there was one of the worst work experiences of my life.  No, scratch that – it was the worse.  I stuck it out at the runner-up for seven months before being laid off.  No, at this place I realized right around Day Seven that any tenure there would be an unpleasant, unrelenting suckfest.

And it was.

Now, while I didn’t witness any deliberate acts of malfeasance in those twelve weeks of hell, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that they did occur, regularly, daily, hourly.  And that it came from the top, the very top.  The place was corrupt, lawless, dog-eat-dog.  Crazily so.  Stupidly so.  Didn’t have to be, but it was.  And it all originated from the top.  As the Russian proverb goes, the fish stinks from the head down.

When I came in there was talk of reforming the place, with me spearheading a lot of the new changes.  But I quickly realized that the reforms were not implemented to make the company a better place.  They were not to transform it into a fruitful place to work, to grow a career, to make a difference.  No, it was to protect the owner’s behind, as well as those of his cadre of top managers.  All three of them, including the owner’s brother.

As a business, there are two philosophies you adopt in dealing with your customers.  One is to be gentle, be friendly, to cultivate relationships where you and they will do business together over the years, and they will keep coming back and back for a mutually satisfactory sales experience.  Or you can hammer him for as much money as you can wring from him on the spot and never see him again.  Guess which philosophy this company follows, without exception, right up to, I have no doubt, the very day the legal papers were served?

So I am happy that there is some form of cosmic justice in the world.  I will be happier if and when the doors close on that disgusting place.  Don’t know if that will ever happen, but I go out of my way to warn friends and acquaintances in the market for a certain product to never, ever, ever deal with them.  It’s been a productive negative word-of-mouth, from what I can tell.

I am the embodiment of Schadenfreude.