Unatoned by Brent LaPorte

Author:Brent LaPorte
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2021-01-06T00:00:00+00:00

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Dad, I committed the cardinal sin: I read my own press clippings. I had a lot of people both inside and outside the firm telling me that I should be president and that I was unappreciated. If a job offer came up, I should take it. Well, I began to believe these people and thought I was bigger than the company I’d worked for since I was nineteen. I was wrong—boy, was I wrong.

I can tell you the greatest regret that I have is leaving a secure job and putting my family’s welfare in jeopardy because of pride. I flew too close to the sun, and my wings melted and burned. Badly.

The choice I made had such an adverse effect on my wife and children that I’m not sure any of us will ever fully recover. I guess this is the difference between you and me. You never seemed bothered by the results of your decisions. I am. I am reminded of my choices every day as I have to look across the street at a house I used to live in. I had to sell that house because the firm I went to could not afford to pay me what they owed me. I did everything they asked me to do, tripled the business in a year and, at the end of the day, the CEO told me if they paid me what they owed me they would go bankrupt. I did not want to be responsible for other people losing their jobs.

I tried to hold on for a bit, started my own company with the buyout they gave me, but that lasted just over a year before I made the most humbling decision I’ve ever made in my life. I crawled back to the company I originally left.

The walk to the front door of the office that I used to work at was probably one hundred feet from where I parked. I felt every one of those steps. I had abandoned these people. They were, and thankfully still are, family.

Our building is located in a mixed industrial and residential section of the city. It was designed to look less like an office and more like a home. The brick facade has large floor-to-ceiling windows facing the street and the walkway up to the front door. The owner has a modest corner office that looks out on both the parking lot and the walkway. I had to walk past his window to meet with him to ask for a job. Not my old job, because that was gone—for any job. I was ready to sweep floors. Goddamn was that hard. With every step I took, I just pictured my wife and kids and was reminded of what I had done to them. What a fool I was, Dad. Really, there is no other way to describe it.

I walked in that front door, and Christine welcomed me like I’d never left. That took some of the pain away. Thank you, Christine—I’ll never forget that moment.

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