You hear all the time about angry ex-employees trashing a company’s computers or stealing their client files. Usually it is not just the employer that is harmed, but staff and customers as well. It’s sad to think that one disgruntled person could thoughtlessly hurt so many others in retaliation, but that’s just what happened this week at one local Las Vegas company.
For purposes of this article we will call our executive “Tom.” Tom was the president of the residential loan division of a local Las Vegas mortgage lender. Mortgage brokers typically have lines of credit that they use to fund their home loans prior to selling them to the end investor. A principal or officer of the brokerage is usually the designated beneficiary of the loan funds from the credit line before they are sent to escrow. Tom was the designated beneficiary of this particular company.
The owners of Tom’s company had come to the decision to let Tom go because his views and philosophies of the mortgage industry did not mesh with their own. Tom did not take the news well. A few days after he was fired, he not only insisted that the credit line be discontinued because his name was on it, he also leveled serious allegations of impropriety against his former company and threatened litigation.
Normally it would only take a few days to switch over a credit line into a new beneficiary’s name and business could go on. But because of Tom’s threats, the credit line was suspended pending further investigation. And because of the threatened litigation, the mortgage company didn't want to take on any more liability. In one fell swoop Tom effectively shut down the entire residential mortgage division of a good sized company and forced them to lay off all their loan officers, processors, underwriters and staff.
In addition, there was now no money for all the loans that were waiting to be funded on Las Vegas real estate. So Tom’s thoughtless actions also affected the lives of hundreds of buyers and sellers who were waiting to close escrow on their Las Vegas homes. Sellers had no money to move, and buyers were stuck with their belongings in moving vans.
It’s just too bad Tom didn’t take a moment to think of the impact he was having on the lives those around him instead of trying to “get back” at those who fired him. Many of his co-workers who lost their jobs were people he called friends. These are people who are out there scrambling to find new positions so they can pay their bills. Not to mention all the buyers and sellers who face uncertainty in the weeks ahead as they try to find new Las Vegas mortgage loans so they can go on with their lives as well. (It’s bad enough going through the loan approval process one time these days, now they have to jump through all those hoops twice!)
Oh, and by the way, Tom had already secured another job for himself before he threw everyone else under the bus.
