A lot of times when a business is sold to a new owner there is a shakeup in employees. Some may leave because they don’t like the new boss. Some may be fired by a boss who doesn’t understand their value.

In today’s story, a new business owner fires an employee without understanding the consequences of that decision.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Not enough technical skills? ok

A little background: My father never properly learned to read and write. He came from a dysfunctional home, but that’s another story.

He was however very good at fixing cars. He worked at a junkyard since before I was born, I’ll call this junkyard A.

A lot of times he would offer advice or even fix the cars of the customers on his own time as a side hustle.

Everyone seemed to know his dad.

Another thing about my dad is he knew everybody.

Anywhere we went people would always stop him and speak to him (mostly asking about a problem they are having with their cars).

It didn’t matter where we went even on vacation across the country he ran into people he knew.

It sounds like his dad had a great place to work.

The junkyard he worked at was originally owned by two brothers. They were good bosses and he made a decent wage and had very good health insurance.

They made good business there and my father was the “Senior Sales Specialist”.

Business was so good they bought a new location and built a new building and moved there.

Then, things changed.

A few years later the business was sold to a guy named Dave.

Dave was alright although we lost the health insurance, he stayed there for I’d say 8 or 9 more years.

One day out of the blue Dave fires my dad and said it was because he didn’t have enough “technical skills”.

He had enough technical skills to do his job.

He couldn’t hardly read or write but he could use the computer one handed to search the system for parts while on the phone with a customer.

He and two or three other guys would be in the front to help customers and my dad’s line would have two or three people waiting especially for him and would refuse to be waited on by someone else.

So he came home and filed for unemployment.

Dave had no idea how loyal customers could be.

He stayed home for maybe three weeks and was offered a job at another junkyard that was located between the city we lived and the next city over.

Now comes the malicious compliance.

Since my father was so well liked and everyone knew he got a raw deal from junkyard A they also switched businesses. All his longtime customers and friends now frequented Junkyard B.

Many used card dealerships had “deals” with my father for the junk cars they sold for parts or parts they needed for fixing their used cars. All these businesses also switched junkyards and followed my dad to Junkyard B.

Dave lost his business.

This was a devastating hit to junkyard A’s business.

So bad in fact, they ended up selling the business to the owners of Junkyard B.

As soon as the sale was finished my dad was sent back to junkyard A where he worked for the rest of his life.

He actually died in the junkyard. Massive heart attack.

His funeral proved how well loved he was.

The funeral was so full of people there was not enough room for everyone in the funeral home.

His funeral procession (the line of cars that drive uninterrupted from the funeral home to the cemetery) was over an hour long due to so many cars.

My mom went to buy the plot next to his a few days after the funeral and the lady working there said she had been working there for over forty years and it was one of the largest group gathered for a funeral she had ever seen.

He may not have been able to read or write very well, but he knew cars and he knew people. A lot of people.

This is a great story that shows just how important employees are to a business. Also, while I couldn’t do my job without being able to read or write, you don’t have to be able to read and write to do every job.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This is a good summary of the story and of Dave.

Books can’t teach you everything.

It really does sound like his dad was a great guy.

This person loved the story.

Another person shares an observation about people who can’t read.

Reading isn’t everything.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.