This guy showed up when I searched for “dork” on the stock photo site, not the actual guy in the story. The description is “Peeping tom, Staring man, Creepy man image.” Good enough.
H. Dennis Beaver, Esq. (great name btw), I don’t know who you are but I do know I’m glad you wrote this article for Kiplinger. Somewhere out there there’s a firm managing partner asking himself what he should do if he finds out a treasured but lonely manager is tangled up with a Tinder Swindler out to steal client data. This is that MP’s lucky day.
Mr. Beaver opens with this:
Why does someone stay in a romantic relationship with a con artist? We are talking about a responsible person who should be aware that their significant other is dishonest and capable of causing them and their employer significant harm.
Is there a way for their employer, family and friends to help them see the light and get out of the toxic relationship? And if the employee refuses all offers of help, could that be a basis for termination?
Apparently the story that Mr. Beaver, a lawyer, shares is a real one. It began with a phone call from the CEO of an accounting firm, he writes. “One of our CPAs is involved in a relationship with a woman who is an emotional con artist. I am hoping that you can help him see the quagmire that he is in and the danger it creates for our firm.” The CPA stopped by Beaver’s office the next day and outed himself as an easy mark within moments. “It was instantly clear that his extreme fear of being alone and obsessive need for companionship had exposed him to a peril he refused to see, or even accept that it was possibility,” wrote Beaver. Poor Chuck, the guy was already down bad why you gotta out him like that.
“I am dating a wonderful gal who is the emotional answer to my needs,” said the divorced Chuck. “My employer hates her because she goes by different names, exaggerates and has claimed to be an M.D., which I found not to be true. I’m not worried despite what everyone is telling me. I can’t survive without … being loved, having someone to love. It makes me so happy to see how appreciative she is when I give her presents; my ex never even said thank you! I would do anything she asks.” Chuck added, rationalizing, “I am keeping just close enough to the campfire to be kept warm, but not get burned.”
Chuck, are you sure she’s real? Have you met her in the flesh? Because this sounds like someone who plays long-distance girlfriend to lonely guys by day and HR professional/crypto expert/stranded military man needing $500,000 to get his belongings out of Afghanistan by night. Actually this whole story seems fake but whatever.
Just in case she does exist, attorney and business law professor David D. Schein was luckily available to explain the dangers of Chuck’s obsessive loneliness for the purposes of this article. “Just picture Chuck working from home, his computer having accessed client files, and he takes a nap,” he says. “This becomes an invitation for the girlfriend to search client files for her next mark.” OK, I’m picturing it. The girlfriend is wearing all black, doing that sneaky robber stock photo walk toward Chuck’s work laptop and making that “heh heh” sound cartoon robbers make when they’re about to jack something. You know:
Schein’s suggestion for the accounting firm CEO is to offer Chuck an ultimatum: “Either she agrees to a detailed background check, including fingerprints, photo scan and DNA analysis, or Chuck could be out of a job. It is that serious when you have a known con artist in such a close relationship to your employee, especially for a CPA firm. Even then, Chuck may be too great of a risk to the firm.”
SO. Who’s sticking around when leadership starts demanding background checks for every guy or gal you scoop up off Tinder? And why didn’t Chuck just get a dog?
LOL, I read this while taking a break from some ethics CPE. They should add cases like this into the materials, would make it more interesting.
Just watch how many firms become even more paranoid and start monitoring their employees’ personal lives even more. Just in case.
You’re creepy misogynistic boss who may or may not be a serial sexual harasser may just hire IT to full-fledged cyber stalk you and install hidden cameras in your home…just in case.
He’s just got to protect the firm. Especially from women he feels are shady. He just knows everything! He knows which of his employees deserve zero privacy because they just might embarrass the firm someday.
He’s doing a good thing! The highly predatory, invasive Orwellian behavior is okay – because it’s meant to protect the firm!
Meanwhile, the manager who leaves his passwords lying around and is the real cause for the data breech gets promoted. Because that is exactly how CPA firm culture works.