In the late 80’s I worked as a full charge bookkeeper for a small family owned commercial construction supply company. The owner, Daniel had taken over the company from his father after his father’s near fatal heart attack necessitated his retirement.
But it was soon pretty obvious that running the company his father had founded and built up was not Daniel’s first love. What he really loved was photography and by “photography” I mean “boudoir” to Playboy and Penthouse type photography. He ran a side business, one that seemed many days to take up more of his time than running the supply company; as a photographer and trying to start a “modeling” agency,; his dream as he told me many times was to do that full time or maybe go to work for Playboy or Penthouse or start his own “men’s” magazine. But as long as his father was still living he felt obligated to keep the supply company open. And he did, just barely – after I started working there it was obvious that it was in deep financial trouble.
Daniel was a rather odd guy. For one thing he was Jewish and his wife who worked a few hours a week making collection calls was rather religious – she kept Kosher, sent their children to a Hebrew school and was very devoted to him, but on my first day on the job, Daniel took me out to lunch, to a very nice upscale restaurant and recommended, insisted actually now that I think about it, that I order his favorite dish – bacon wrapped BBQ’d scallops which was what he ordered. No big deal - I’ve known a lot of non-Kosher/non-religious/secular Jewish people over the years, but it was he who made sort of big deal out of it, pointing out to me several times during lunch that he was Jewish but that he ate shellfish and bacon as if to say – “see I’m cool”. It was a rather strange conversation and also kind of weird that he ordered for me when what I really wanted was a light salad.
Daniel in some ways reminds me of the Trump described in the above article.
He was obsessed with women’s looks and constantly judging them on their physical attractiveness - which makes perfect sense for a photographer and aspiring modeling agent, but he applied it to all women, not just his “models” whom he even called “my bimbos”.
He said to me on several occasions things like - “you have such a beautiful face, an amazing completion, such big sexy green eyes and that red hair (and I’m sure the carpet matches the drapes, I can always tell) - if you would just lose about 15-20 pounds and get a boob job, because your boobs are a bit too small for your frame let me be honest about it - let your hair grow out longer, you’d look sexier and younger - I’d love to photograph you, even though you are a bit on the old side (I was 29) - you could still be a “model””- and he really meant these as a complement and seemed taken back when I didn’t exactly take it as one. He never complimented me on the job I was doing BTW, only on my appearance or on the outfit I was wearing, although he evidently said nice things about the job I did to others, just never to me.
And it was especially creepy since he knew my husband both professionally and personally before I got the job and in fact I got the job after my husband casually mentioned to Daniel that I had been laid off from my previous job, had been out of work for several weeks and Daniel called me for an interview, hiring me on the spot.
He could also be very cruel and disparaging about women’s looks when it had nothing to do with anything or when he was unhappy with them in some way. Like the time a sales rep for one of the products we carried made a sales call - a middle aged woman who I thought was attractive, a bit on the plump side perhaps a bit “frumpy” even, but she seemed professional and knowledgeable and she’d had the account for many, many years going back to when his father was running the business.
But he didn’t like the pricing she gave him on some items and she reminded him that she couldn’t give him their best “preferred” pricing or further extend our invoice payment terms which were already at 120 days until we settled our many way past overdue invoices and start paying on time. She wasn’t nasty about it - she was just telling him what the corporate office had told her and that her hands were tied.
He launched into an angry tirade, calling her “stupid”, “fat”, “ugly”, “a dried up shrivel c***” and a “lesbo b**ch”. He stormed around the office throwing things, kicking display cases. It was very scary. After she left and when he calmed down a bit, he called her boss, the national sales manager to complain that she had “insulted” him and that she wasn’t being “fair” to him, a long-time customer. But he told Daniel the very same thing she had said about our overdue invoices and then he also told him that they were cutting us off, that he’d already learned about what Daniel had said to and how he had treated the sales rep and that the company made the decision that they really didn’t want our business anymore. Daniel then decided, “F” them anyway, we were not going to carry their products anymore and brought in another vendor. But some customers complained that the quality wasn’t as good and that in fact it was also more expensive and after about six months the new vendor put us on a credit hold and on a COD basis because we were behind on payments.
He could also be a complete pig in the office. I’m not by any means a prude. I’d previous worked for two construction companies, sometimes being the only gal in the office, working with mostly men, and my dad was in construction too and as a teenager I used to help him on weekends and during summers, so I grew up with these types of blue collar guys and I am not offended by some rough language or off-color jokes (heck I’ve told a few myself), but Daniel’s idea of a joke most of the time was some pretty sick and twisted weird rather perverted sexual stuff or really gross potty humor, way over the line and come to think of it - rather juvenile.
He often had his “models”, some of whom were working as “exotic dancers” come into the office to meet with him and he’d bring them to my office to introduce them to me, showing me their nude and semi-nude photo portfolios, saying things like, “Isn’t she beautiful”, “Isn’t she f-able?” “If only I wasn’t a happily married man” as if he needed me to agree and validate it.
But the really sad and sick thing was he’d say this sort of things this when his wife was working in the office too. She claimed she was OK with it and that she trusted her husband, that he was faithful, that it was just his “business” and an act, but I could also see the pain in her eyes especially those times when he’d belittled and berated her, calling her “stupid” and “incompetent” in front of me and others in the office, saying on one occasion that the reason the company was failing and behind in paying their invoices was her fault because she wasn’t hard enough on collecting on our invoices. Never mind that Daniel was using company funds to supplement and float his photography and modeling agency business.
On the other hand, Daniel trusted me and gave me a lot of responsibility and paid me fairly well. And when my father fell ill and was in the ICU for several weeks, he was very understanding and accommodating on my absences and let me work a modified schedule and paid my salary in full without making me use my vacation time. He also said, “whatever I and Sandi (his wife) can do, just let us know.” and I’m sure he was very sincere.
Daniel hired a woman as an outside sales rep. Granted she was even IMO a stunningly beautiful woman, originally from the Dominican Republic and IIRC her father was originally from Germany and a doctor and her mother was half French and half Hispanic and a university professor and she herself was well educated, but he was always trying to convince her to allow him to photograph her which she always declined and he often made rather sexually suggestive comments toward her which she laughed off until she finally got tired of it and left, but while she was there, she did a very good job, she brought in a lot of sales and he appreciated it and paid her well and even promoted her, giving her a bigger territory. He even hired her husband who had no prior sales experience for an inside sales job when he lost his job, I guess as a way of helping them out.
There was an older black man Ben who worked in the warehouse. He’d been working there for over 40 years and had been hired by Daniel’s father. Daniel would never think of letting him go but he also teased Ben unmercifully. Daniel’s nickname for him was “Buckwheat”. When a delivery truck came in, Daniel would get on the intercom and announce for all to hear - “Buckwheat! Buckwheat! Get your ass to the loading dock before I send you back to the cotton fields.” Ben almost always took it all in good nature and laughed it off, but a few times it got so out of hand that I could tell Ben was upset but was too afraid for his job and probably out of respect for Daniel’s father to say anything. And it started wearing thin on me too. The ribbing only went one way and Daniel encouraged others, co-workers and even customers to call Ben “Buckwheat” too, even one time instructing me to cut his paycheck in that name as a “joke”. I told him “no” - that it was childish and stupid and possibly illegal. On the other hand, when Ben’s youngest son was killed in a shooting (an innocent bystander in a gang related drive by) Daniel paid for the funeral.
However, Daniel as kind and generous as he could be at times, he never let you forget what he’d done for you previously as if to hold that over your head and excuse his otherwise bad behaviors and you never knew which Daniel you were dealing with – the nice Daniel or the really slimy Daniel.
One day I had taken a dozens of angry calls from suppliers and collection agencies, more so than usual, a few who even cursed at me and or threatened to cut us off or put us on COD as we were seriously behind in paying invoices and I was feeling very stressed, especially since Daniel didn’t seem all that concerned, wouldn’t take their calls and told me to tell them we were cutting a check that day when I knew it was a lie. Not to mention we were dangerously close to not making payroll that week.
He came into my office and walked behind my chair and said, “You seem so stressed, let me help you” and he started massaging my neck and shoulders. But I didn’t at all appreciate it especially since he was also making moaning sounds and grinding against my back and leaned into to my ear saying “I know you like this - turns you on doesn’t it?”
I spun around in my chair and stood up, faced him straight in the eyes and told him in no uncertain terms that he was never to touch me or talk to me like that ever again and if he ever did, that I’d put my foot so far up his “junk”, that he’d need an ENT doctor to extract his balls out of his nasal cavity and I meant it. He was taken back and tried to apologize, saying he was only “joking” but I didn’t find it at all funny.
Upset, I left work early, told my husband what had happened and with his support and agreement, I never went back. Two weeks later I found a new, actually a better paying and more rewarding and less stressful job in a much more professional environment, one that gave me a lot of advancement opportunities and I wondered why I hadn’t left earlier.
Daniel’s occasional acts of kindness didn’t offset the overall sleaziness of the man or mean that I needed to put up with it any longer.
Not too long after I left, Daniel’s father passed away and then the company went out of business about six months later. Last I had heard, his wife Sandi divorced him not long after.
