#356. Can you hear me now?

“Good evening, Jeremy.” said the CEO that used to sign my checks.
“That’s Mr. Nickels to you!” I asserted, slamming my fist into the table instead of shaking his hand.
“We’re hear to buy you out. So lets get this over with and make a deal.”
The CEO was the only one speaking during the meeting. His yes-men and a few accountants were sitting comfortably in the back.
“ I want the same money and benefits that you have. But I don’t want to work here. Not after spending 20 years working under you.”
“Why would we ever do that?”
“Because you’re losing all your customers. I bet the board is ecstatic about that.” I said, oozing confidence.
“We know you can’t keep up with this for long. Your prices are too low for such a small company to be profitable.”
“However my company is doing really isn’t your concern. You’re losing money, a lot of it. All you have to do is buy me out with what I want and this will all be over.”
“Fine! You have a deal.”
I started working at the company straight out of high school. I worked my way up to mid level management. Then the layoffs came. I thought my position would save me from the layoffs, but upper management didn’t care about my experience. They appointed some kid straight out of college.
So there I was, out of a job during the worst depression the country has seen in years. The company betrayed me even though I had given 20 years to it. But I wasn’t going to let them get away with betraying one of their own.
I created a company made specifically to rival the company. I created the Jeremy Nickels cell phone company. Then I got to work.
I constructed my prices specifically to compete with the company that scorned me. I created prices so low that their customers switched immediately. I used the same towers as they did. I offered the same phones as they did. All at an astronomically low price. Unfortunately. the low prices didn’t make the company profitable, but nobody had to know that.
I began eating away all of the company’s market in the area. Stores closed downs. The company was inching toward destruction if they didn’t stop me.
So they brought me, the founder and CEO of the Jeremy Nickels Phone Company to a meeting with the big guns. Upper management. I had a meeting with the men that fired me for the fate of the company I had loved for 20 years. Too bad the company didn’t know my company was going broke.

