Music store manager sells off $25,000 of his crooked business partner's equipment after finding out he was skimming their profits into bankruptcy: ‘His smug smile turned to fury’

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Jan 23, 2025 1:00 PM EST

We're taught from a very young age to respect our elders, but what about respecting your business partner? Age aside, if you're doing business with someone, you ought to hold them in the highest regard, treating their business success as your own. However, the middle-aged man in this next story tried to take advantage of his 26-year-old partner's career naivety, skimming the company profits to line his own pockets right under his partner's nose.

It's always interesting to have a coworker who's significantly older than you. As they become your workplace mom or dad (or even your dear old workplace Meemaw), a kinship forms that goes beyond a regular coworker relationship. And after the long hours spent together in the workplace, you'd think that your mutual respect would grow, however, in the case of the traitorous business partner in this next story, a coworker relationship was never going to be more than transactional, and his business partner's trust was worth less than the money in the register. 

Keep scrolling for the details of this workplace karma that came back in the form of a $25,000 RePo sale. 

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    via DAPA Images

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "Outsmarting your crooked partner can be very satisfying"

    Years ago, at 26, I entered a partnership in a small CD/music store with a man in his 50s who already owned another store. The partnership was meant to share buying costs and advertising. Once we opened, I discovered he was skimming
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  • inventory, and we had leased a much larger space than necessary under the pretense of him subleasing the extra space for his office, which never happened. After three exhausting years, during which he continued his dishonest practices, the store went broke.
    via TechRidr
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  • We had around $25k in equipment and another $20k in inventory. Although he ripped me off, to avoid a legal battle, I agreed that we'd sell off the remaining inventory and equipment, and split the profits. I needed to get away from him quickly, even though my share would be far less than what he took from me.
    via TechRidr
  • My star my partner had since taken to his other store-informed me that my partner was negotiating a sale of everything the next morning, to settle a debt of his. Realizing my partner intended to keep me in the dark, I hired movers to empty the employee/manager-whom
    via TechRidr
  • storage garage we had rented. I took back all my belongings early the next morning. As we were leaving, I saw the other truck arriving. Later that day, my ex-manager confirmed that the truck was from the debt collector. Their crew
    via TechRidr
  • arrived to find the garage empty. They ended up in court, each accusing the other. It ended with my ex-partner still on the hook for his debt. I called him acting like I wanted the update on when we'd sell the inventory and furnishings.
    via TechRidr
  • He simply said it was stolen. I just hung up as if I was upset. I sold off the remaining equipment over the next year, slowly recouping part of my losses. Had he been honest with me, at least during our liquidation, nearly $20k of that
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  • Cheezburger Image 10458241792
    via pixelshot

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models

  • would have been his. In total, he took much more than that from me, so no, I didn't feel I took a thing from him. Fast forward 4-5 years; I spotted him in a restaurant parking lot as I was driving off. He smugly asked
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  • how I was doing, fully aware of his wrongdoing. I replied that I was fantastic. Then, with a huge grin, I said: "So, you still haven't figured out where the stuff went?" His smug smile turned to fury as I drove off telling him to have a wonderful day.
    via TechRidr

  • It just goes to show you that loyalty goes a lot farther than a business loan and when times are tough financially, perhaps it's time to turn your sole proprietorship mentality into a team effort. Because nothing pays back in spades more than a crooked workplace betrayal–especially when you've already underestimated your partner.

  • Fubaryall chef's kiss revenge! Well done!
    via Fubaryall
  • AprilB916 Superb revenge and kudos to the employee for letting you know!
    via AprilB916
  • MajorFox2720 He protected his stake in shared assets and collected his debt before the other owner could rob him. The only wrong here was not backing it up with a lawyer after he protected shared assets from sale and presenting his partnership claim stake in the dissolution of the business. Then he could have sold everything openly all at once.
    via MajorFox2720

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deserved boss worker deserves justice employee manager job work coworkers working ceo employees supervisor workplace company coworker business
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