When you are young, you often look up to people in positions of authority, even if they really don’t deserve it.

That is what happened to the young woman in this story, who worked for a woman as a receptionist for her first job. After taking on many different roles at the company, she finally got a great job offer for a lot more money. Her boss (and mentor), however, discouraged her from taking it.

Not knowing better, the young lady turned down the job and kept working for her mentor until she was actually fired. The young woman had learned a lot in that time and put it to work building her own businesses, which eventually became very successful. Years later, she had the opportunity to hire (and then fire) her old mentor’s son, which was surprisingly satisfying.

You really never know what life will bring your way, so it is important to always treat people with respect. You never know what they will become.

Long Game Goal – Employ the Employer’s Son

In the 1990s, when I was 17 turning 18, I was a member of a church group that was very closed or exclusive.

They must have started having kids very young.

I was not the ideal candidate to be a part of the group, but I (now 50F) was married to a man who was a treasured member of the church.

We had two young children and I was working at a burger place because my husband had a hard time keeping jobs as a janitor at the time. He kept getting fired.

Working hard today to help succeed in the future.

Side note #1: Trust me closed church groups like that – not technically a cult but the technicality is the difference in pronouncing potato like potato. Turned me off of church for 30 years.

I had gotten a trade certificate in school (graduated early, despite having kids, and went to a cert program at the local community college). This allowed me to apply to other workplaces in a specific field.

Don’t turn down a job offer without really thinking it through.

Well, wouldn’t you know, the deacon (he wasnt the deacon but its close enough) of the church group had a business in that same field, that his wife ran.

He told me that I should work for her. I didn’t want to. I hated these people. They were not my friends. I was never good enough for them.

She didn’t really fit in, that’s ok.

They loved my husband who was sooo funny, and disliked me because I had a mouth on me and was a feminist who questioned everything.

Anyway, I was young and did what I was told and took the job. It was a receptionist type job, which was obnoxious because I did have a professional certificate to do more than reception type work.

Any job is better than no job.

But the church always knew what was best for me, a girl, and I was in my appropriate place at the bottom of the totem pole.

Many months into the job for the deacon’s wife, I realized how much she loved lording it over us (pun intended). She was not only the wife of the head of the church, she was also the employer of many of the wives of the men in the church group.

People like this are hard to get along with.

I wanted to like her – I wanted to think of her as a mother figure. But she was so holier-than-thou, it was very hard to do so.

After about a year, I became the sole breadwinner of the family due to my husband going on disability. In order to not be a food stamp family, I had to make more money.

It is time to move up in the world.

So I began applying elsewhere. I got an interview with a company and offered a sales position. The base salary was $4000 a month (I was currently making minimum wage, even though I had moved up the ranks and was doing much more than reception work by then).

I was so excited. This was a while ago, so that was good money. My family would have enough money to pay rent, buy groceries, and be able to buy new school clothes when my kids started school!

Any boss who wants to keep someone stuck in an entry-level job is a terrible leader.

I rushed back to the office to tell my boss, the deacon’s wife, the good news. I was thinking of her as my maternal church leader in that moment – not my boss. Big mistake. Remember, I was still a teenager.

As you can imagine, she was not happy that I was putting in my notice. She had no plan to replace me. She was paying me minimum wage to do multiple jobs – after a year, I ran that office. She didn’t have to come to work anymore.

You don’t always see these things when you are young.

From my perspective now, I realize, as a boss, she was mad and desperate.

But as her mentor/church follower at the time, I thought she had MY best interest at heart, as well as my children and disabled husband. So her response had me stunned.

Why is she so surprised?

She said: “YOU? They are going to pay YOU $4000 a month?”

I was like: YES ME.

She deserves the money and more.

I was like: I do your reception, billing, opening, closing, stocking, ordering, scheduling. I had basically learned to run her opertation – at least the front end of it, the day to day of it.

I was a smart kid. I wanted to be a business owner, not a “wife” of a church member (and that’s it).

When you are seen as a mentor, you have a responsibility to act in their best interests.

But I was a member of the church, and a young girl, and she was a matron after all.

Her opinion mattered more than my head filled with dreams. When she said, “YOU?”, I crumpled.

Oh no. What a mistake.

I said: “Me? Yeah. But now that you say that, they must have been trying to pull one over on me. I feel stupid thinking that was real.”

I called the employer and declined the position. I went back to work the next day, compliant and sweet, as expected by them.

It is hard to believe that there are people like this.

About a year later, they finally kicked me out of bible study and didnt allow me or my children to attend church anymore because I needed to learn obedience as a woman.

I quit the job. And shortly after I parted ways completely with these people.

She will be better off in the end.

Sidenote #2: Yes it was a cult. But luckily I got out with minimum scrapes and bruises. I was kicked out of the church for being to mouthy and independent at age 19 (turning 20).

I never forgot that right before I was kicked out, I started my own company. The company didn’t make money but it broke even in one month and paid for itself for a year.

I guess she got on-the-job training and really put it to work.

It was a replica of what the church deacon’s company did. A REPLICA. And it was better than his. The ridiculous part of it was that the wife who used to employ me, went around telling people it was her newcompany.

She was so embarrassed that there were two companies. She was more embarrased when it became publicly known that I was not in her employ, and the second company was ALL ME.

Wow, it’s really sad that she got a divorce as well.

Obviously, getting kicked out of church and mimicking the work of the deacon and his wife meant the end of my marriage as well, thank god!

Regardless, I did this stupid replica company as a side job feeding myself and my children until age 21, and then lost interest in these people completely, moving on as a single mom going to college.

Sometimes, just keeping your head above water is good enough.

I spent the turn the century partying like it was 1999. And then I went back to school.

I started two new companies doing marketing and writing as a single mom going through college. Neither made money, but neither were a loss.

If it was making money, why didn’t she just sell the company rather than shut it down?

My fourth company was a retail store that I created for my best friend in her 30s because she wanted to be “home” with her son, so we made a company where she could work with him as a baby. It made money. We only closed it down when we moved.

My fifth company I started with my current (and best) husband, a few years after getting my Masters degree, so that he could pursue one of his dreams of being a disrupter in his industry. It started making money 9 months in.

And it was fun!

Wow, that’s a very successful company.

I quit my good job at the time to dedicate myself full time because this seemed like a good bet.

We made enough profit in our second year to pay off our house.

It is funny how things play out.

In year 3, I was an invited speaker at the state regulating agency meetings, representing the industry. It has been a crazy fun ride ever since.

During the third year of business, we were hiring like crazy. I had an old “friend” working for us at the time, who recommended his friend as a candidate. Guess who? The son of my old employer, the deacon’s wife.

It must have been satisfying to hire him.

We needed people, and our friend swore he could do the job. My husband was hesitant (he knew the church people and hated them, same as me). But I really wanted this. I wanted to employ my old employer’s son.

Just to do it. Just to be the that girl (“You?” “Yes, me!”).

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Fancy meeting you here.

It lasted a couple of months because the kid was an idiot, challenging people to a fight, growing illegal substances as his “primary” job and needing months off each year for harvest time (according to him when he gave our HR his exit interview), etc.

A couple of months after terminating at will the employee, my husband and I went to a bbq at an old friend’s house. My ex-employer, the deacon’s now ex-wife, was there. It had been 25 years since I sawe her.

So much for thinking she is better than everyone else.

She had since divorced the church leader, left the church group herself over a similar ex-communication situation, and was dating a man who looked like he was just back from a 9-month expedition catching furs in the mountains in 1780.

She still thought of me as the 17-year-old new hire. She treated me as such.

Oh, what a perfect opportunity.

I was now a credentialed state leader in my field. It was crazy. Yet I struggled to be confident.

Our mutual friends asked my “new” husband and I about our successes and business and I could not help but express to the old church lady how grateful I was to god that I was there when her son needed a job.

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

“ME!” I said. “Can you imagine?”

Final side note: 25 years almost exaclty between when she said: “YOU? They offered YOU $4000?” to me saying to her, “ME! Can you imagine?”

Her success continues.

It has been 10 years since then. Our company is prepping to go public and hubby and I will retire soon.

Writing this makes me realize how petty it was for me to hold on to that and do that to her.

Sure, it was petty. But I’m sure it was fun too.

My husband never would have hired that boy except for my vidictive need to hire her son.

It’s over now. And I’m glad of it.

Sometimes the good guys win and get everything they dreamed of. This story seems a little too perfect to be true, but if even a small amount of it actually happened, it is a wonderful thing.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a customer complaint that led to them losing their VIP status.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about the story.

Yup, she did very well for herself.

Well, she was being a little petty.

I 100% agree with this commenter.

This person thinks the story was written with AI. I don’t know that I disagree.

Many churches are filled with wonderful people.

Everything worked out a little too perfectly for this story to be believable. Whether these specific things happened or not, everyone can recognize people like these in their lives.

The moral of the story is that if you are going to be a mentor to someone, you can’t be selfish. Sadly, some people (like the woman in this story) use their position as a mentor as a form of power.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a third-generation business owner who is thinking he might know the people in his community a bit too well.