#by mekio_san

[prorevenge]

Do you know what chuck Barry said ever night before counting 1,2,3,4?

I work in the IT field, and for years I worked for myself. This was during the early years some time ago. I only had about 2 years worth of professional experience at the time even though fixing and rebuilding machines had been my thing since child hood. So I reckoned I'd start doing contract work on my own. This went well for some time, and eventually I partnered with a few people and started a company. We had many clients and return business, things were going well.

We had one big client who resold PCs and Laptops online and in a storefront. We were his "refurbisher". Now there was a massive "grey" area with this client. In that they would purchase machines from dang near anyone, and it was pretty obvious that some of these systems didn't come from the most reputable of sources. However, they paid on-time, and over the course of a year we had no major issues, so we overlooked some things. Typically we would refurbish around 10 or so laptops, and maybe 4-6 desktops at a time. We would perform pickups at night around 9 or 10 pm at what was essentially an illegal gambling room they also ran. Now when I say gambling room, I don't mean a few machines, I mean several tables with games starting with a buy in of $500.00 US and up to $25,000.00 US! On some nights you'd walk in to see local politicians, constables, sheriffs, etc on the tables. It was clean, it was quite, and it had been there for some time. We did some work there as well, but for the most part, If we weren't directly involved in it, we turned a blind eye to what he was doing. No one was getting hurt so meh.

So enough of the back story, here comes the incident. We would work for as many days as we could straight making money, so on an off day I get a call from said client asking for a really late pickup after midnight that he wanted all wiped and reloaded and back by Monday night (it was Friday). I pull myself away from my gaming session and beer, hop in the car and go to make some money! I get there and his estimate is off, there are more machines than he originally stated!

I'll me $Mekio and he will be $TOD (that one dude).

$Mekio: Soooo... That's way more than usual.

$TOD: Is that a problem?

The stack it was big! There were at least 50 laptops, and maybe 30+ desktops, and several servers.

$Mekio: Don't get me wrong, I can do it, but it won't be by Monday. Lets say Wednesday. Also, I'm going to need some help loading these. You do realize how much this is going to be right?

$TOD: Of Course! Have I ever NOT paid you?

I think ok, and pull out the contract and add up the machines for the estimate. A few things to note. Our prices on wipe and reloads at the time was the set in stone.

$90.00 for a Desktop

$125.00 for a Laptop

$190.00 for a Server

Essentially, $2,700.00+ for the desktops | $6,250.00+ for the laptops, and around $1,330.00 for the servers. At the end of the day, We invoiced him for around $11,000.00 US for labor and time. A few parts were needed that added to the final, but he signed and off we went. Wednesday comes around and I finally finish loading my last Dell latitide D600, and repack all of these items in my truck (filled the back bench seat, bed, floor and passenger seat to get these all back!) I make the calls needed and drive down to meet him at his house instead of the room for some reason at his request. I pull up and walk to the door with 4 machines. 2 laptops in bags around my neck, and 2 desktops under my arms. I knock and he opens the door and takes the machines.

$Mekio: Alrighty, here's the invoice. If you'd like to settle up, I'll go grab the rest of the stuff out of the truck.

$TOD: This is more than usual.

$Mekio: Yeah, there are more machines than usual.

$TOD: You didn't tell me that.

Now I have been called a lot of things, and non informative isn't one of them. I tend to explain things too much, like hammer them in. It gets me called an ass hole a ton, but at the end of the day you know what's on my mind and what I mean! Also it is important to note that I had an iron clad non payment section in my contracts! 90 days for payment in full, after that, I would sell off items to recover what was owed, and send you a check for anything over along with any additional items left. Clearly TOD had forgotten about this.

$Mekio: TOD, You know that, my contract is blunt and obvious and I don't hide anything. This is 4 or 5 times what you usually have us do a month, of course it costs more. You already singed as well. You get where I'm going with this right?

$TOD: Get my equipment out of your car! I'm not paying this. We can discuss this inside. Unload first.

I was dumbstruck, but again... I'm also an Ass Hole! I asked him if he was sure this is how he wanted to proceed? He just walked off leaving the door open. So I walked back to my truck, and left! Id din't close the door or anything. I got back home and unloaded all of the equipment again, and added the mileage from the trip back to my invoice. In my eye, he wasted my gas, and time, I was going to bill him for it. I then placed all of the equipment in my office, grabbed a beer, and played much WOW! A few days later TOD called.

$TOD: Where is my equipment? You can't just steal it. Bring it back now!

He was highly upset and I assure you I am missing most of the "colorful" words he used.

$Mekio: All you have to do is pay your invoice. Also I'm billing you for the wasted trip, so the invoice is now $25.00 US more (TOD is NOT close to my house/office).

$TOD: I'll sue!

$Mekio: Tod, look at that contract. Page 3, second paragraph. The section called Non-Payment.

$TOD: You're contract isn't legit! You're what.. 15? F*** your contract!

I will never forget being told to F my contract. I had the biggest shit eating grin on my face at that moment. You see I had learned about that section of my contract from another guy I had worked for when I was 19. It has been in my contracts ever since.

$Mekio: TOD... If my calculations are correct, you have 87 days left to pay your invoice in full before I start to recover my losses. Have a nice day TOD.

And I hung up. Not worth it getting into a shouting match on the phone. Contracts are contracts. You live and die by them. The next few weeks were filled with nasty emails from TOD, with replies from me that were essentially countdowns tot he days of "Recovery". The final 10 days I sent an email daily counting down. None of them were answered. 90 days came and went, and I was debating what I would sell, when I got my last call from TOD.

$TOD: You ready to stop this dumb shit and give me my equipment?

$Mekio: Are you going to pay your invoice? All of your stuff is still here technically. (I had claimed a laptop for myself, a little 17" emachine that I liked.)

$TOD: I'm not giving you a dime! I pay your bills. I make it so you can survive. Who else will hire you little boy?

The rest of his rant went dark! Mixed between the bouts of "I'm a big man" to the random fits of prejudice and bigotry, I had had enough. I put the phone down while he continued to yell, and started doing math. I had my invoice total. I started calculating what I needed to sell each component for to make what he owed to just me!

$TOD: Hello?! HELLO!!! Are you still there, if you hung up I swear I'll..

$Mekio: I'm still here TOD. I'll send you a check!

I hung up the phone with the biggest evil grin on my face. See what TOD did not know is that I was good at my job, and in the past 9 days I was killing it with small companies. I decided to become the small business angel. I sold machines for next to nothing! I was selling 700 dollar laptops for 150 dollars. The servers were gone in a week to 3 different companies. The desktops in the same length of time, and I sold those laptops like a crack head at the barber shop. I always had at least 5 on my to sell for dirt cheap. It took a little over a month, but I sold everything save for 5 machines which I sold to myself for a dollar each! At the end of the day, my invoice was paid. And I sent TOD a money order for just over 3 dollars!

(source) (story by mekio_san)