Shortly before Christmas the three top liquor commissioners in NH got busted for using business cars for personal use. The cars were taken away from them. They are allowed 15% of their mileage to be personal but they greatly exceeded this.
Here's something else for you to think about. I worked yesterday at The Booze Emporium on the official Christmas holiday. No other state employees were at work, except the obviously essential ones: police, firefighters, hookers. We are typically paid time and a half for working on a holiday, but this year the liquor commission put out a memo saying we would only get straight time, claiming strict interpretation of holiday pay rules allows this.
This means that while these crooks were robbing me of my holiday pay they were simultaneously robbing the state for their own benefit.
It may surprise you to learn this, but these guys earn substantially more than I do. Does this situation sound fair to you?
Each of these bozos submitted waiver requests disputing the personal mileage reported by the committee that managed the investigation. They didn't deny the personal usage, they just revised the numbers downward, and the smallest number admitted to was 5,520 miles.
One of these clowns made the following comment regarding the surrendering of his state-owned car: "I think, given the nature of the economy and the emphasis on frugality, within that spirit, I think it was appropriate." That is a vile comment by a vile man. Stripping his employees of their holiday pay and robbing from the state is his view of the nature of the economy and his definition of the word spirit.
This is how corporations work. The top guys lie, cheat and steal and the employees get used and abused. I imagine if I got caught stealing a $2.99 nip of Crown Royal, I would get fired, no questions asked. These guys stole big time and they won't get fired. In fact it won't hurt them at all because of the salaries they are paid. I refuse to use the term "the salaries they earn." Driving their personal cars is not a hardship for them and they will probably find a way to abuse that situation to their benefit as well.
And I don't believe they found an interpretation of holiday pay rules to allow them to pay straight time only. I believe they went ahead and did it because of the current "screw the employees and the unions" mentality, daring anybody to challenge them, all in the name of saving a couple of bucks, while destroying any possibility of employee loyalty.
They should be fired. Period.
The liquor commission in this state is a funny thing. The mentality goes back to prohibition days when gangsters got involved. Nothing has changed much, except that booze is legal and the gangsters wear cheaper suits. These guys walk around like tough guys, exuding an air of intimidation and false importance. When they make occasional stops into the store, we have to scuttle around like bugs, making sure everything is just so, bowing in supplication. Then they suggest we should move every bottle in the store one millimeter to the left, as they walk out with a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue under their arm on the way to their mistresses house, before heading home with flowers for the wife and a kiss for the kids.
Booze is involved, so I'm sure there is a lot of graft and kickbacks and under the table deals. Illegal, immoral stuff that is conveniently ignored as they work tirelessly to take away from their employees as much as they can.
I went for a job interview that was positively thrilling. Three people surrounding me in a room firing questions at me. Spanish Inquisition. One of the hot shots was there, and this guy really cracks me up. He seriously resembles a character actor who always plays a thug. I don't know the actor's name but you would recognize him if you saw him. This liquor commission dude looks like him AND has the same non-smiling, cold, trying to intimidate stare.
Little boys playing a big boys game.
The people who have ultimate control of my fate as an employee, are crooks. No conscience, no sense of morality, no give and take. All take, no give.
Pretty much justifies my desperate attempts to find an alternative way to support myself independently, don't you think?
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