True Crime Campfire - Patreon Upcycle: Red Flaggy Reddit - The Tale of the Director of Operations

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

As most of you probably know, this week is the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S., and Katie and I both have family stuff to do—people to see, pies to bake. So we took the week off from our regularly scheduled programming. But because we love you and we didn’t want you to miss out on a new episode, we decided to pick out one of our old Patreon-exclusive episodes from 2022. You’ll get a fun episode, and you’ll get a taste of the kind of red-hot content you’re missin’ out on if you’re not on our Patreon yet. These episodes tend to be less formal and more hilarious, and we’ve picked a gem for you—a true crime-adjacent Reddit saga that has to be heard to be believed. Hope you’ll enjoy it.Sources:RedditFollow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Hi, all. As most of you probably know, this week is the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S. And Katie and I both have family stuff to do. People to see, pies to bake. So we took the week off from our regularly scheduled programming. But because we love you and we didn't want you to miss out on a new episode,

we decided to pick out one of our old Patreon exclusive episodes from 2022. You'll get a fun episode and you'll get a taste of the kind of red-hot content you're missing out on if you're not on our Patreon yet. These episodes tend to be less formal and more hilarious and we've picked a gem for you, a true crime-adjacent Reddit saga that has to be heard to be believed. Hope you'll enjoy it. This is Red Flaggy Reddit, the tale of the director of operations. So, y'all, I'm going to need you to buckle up for this Reddit saga that we're about to read you because I'm not going to say it'll top Jean and Jorts because it's apples and oranges. really mean jean and jorts was all just about joy whereas this well you'll see so this gem comes to

us from reddit user director of operations which is going to get funnier and funnier to you the longer we read all i'm going to say before i start reading is be prepared for some chamelon twists along the way because our boy is going to make it seem like he didn't do anything that bad at first okay so if you're thinking god really just bear with us because there's there's a big room Vila coming. So Director of Operations on Reddit, and this was I think in the subreddit called Legal

Advice where they ask lawyers to weigh in on stuff. All right. He writes, I'm the director of operations at my company moments ago, which is why my username is Director of Operations. Moments ago, I was

told by my boss in confidence to prepare to be officially accused and made aware of a sexual harassment investigation on me. This is from an incident that occurred in June. I need to know what steps I need to take to protect myself. Here's what happened. In June, the company was attending a conference and bought hotel rooms for everyone. At the hotel pool, I chatted up with a female guest. I was getting pretty drunk, and she brought up her husband. I asked, oh, you're married? And she said yes, and that she has three kids. I told her that with a body like hers, I'm surprised she doesn't have 10, because I sure would

give her 10, and I laughed. She smiled, and sometime later, she got out of the pool and I said my oh my your husband is a lucky man and and mind you this is what he's saying this is his side of his account of what happened right all right I didn't see her again and I got the vibe that she felt uncomfortable hmm no shit man I was a little drunk and would not have said any of that while being sober Apparently, she found out the name of my company and complained to the hotel who then joined her in complaining to my company. We are also banned from the hotel for life. I would like to know how I can get out of this with no blood on my hands.

I make $125 a year and cannot afford to lose my job and career. It was everything for me to get this position. I also have a family. My wife cannot know about this. My boss, VP of operations, is a bit paranoid because I notified him two days after the incident and because I'm the best director he's ever had and I perform exceptionally well he decided to sweep this under the rug

and pretty much ignore it. I completely believe that, by the way. This is so disgusting, but I believe it. I would never throw him under the bus, so I will not mention that I told him. Okay, he's a real mensch, right? So far, all I know is that there's been a sexual harassment complaint on me and an investigation is opened up.

I will be speaking with the investigator, forgot his official title, and subsequently the HR manager and V. I'm nervous about it. He's a former law enforcement detective, and from what I've heard, he's a pretty tough guy. He has a very aggressive interviewing approach and does not play games. He will try to get me to crack. My boss told me he was advised that a suspension may be imminent and to possibly prepare to seek a replacement. This means I might get terminated. I would like to know what type of proof there may be against me. This incident happened three months ago. I get off work in three hours, and I cannot focus. This is devastating.

Please provide in vivid detail the steps I need to take starting right now. I love that. He's just like vivid detail right now. Go, go, go, lawyers have read it. Like everybody's just going to line up behind him and want to help him. So, okay, gross behavior from a drunk dipshit at a conference, and he's getting ready to get called up on the carpet for it and basically seems to be planning on lying about it as far as I can tell.

Like, what proof do they have? You don't ask that if you're not planning on lying, right? Correct, yeah. Okay. So up next, we have. for you a bit of advice that he got from somebody on the subreddit. So this is actually one of the moderators from the subreddit legal advice who wrote this to him. Let me illuminate to you the precarious situation in which you have placed yourself. The investigator sounds like the one

they call when things go wrong, and things have indeed gone wrong. Thus far, you have been adrift in the sheltered harbor of your employer's patience. The decision to terminate you has likely already been made. The interview tomorrow is likely to determine whether the company thinks they can withhold your severance package or not. The interview and investigation process is not a court of law, and if your employer is unwilling to continue employing you, they don't need proof. Even in civilized jurisdictions with functioning employment protections, adequate notice or pay in lieu can generally overcome them, and your unprofessional conduct directly harmed your employer's business by ending their relationship with the hotel.

You can approach this in a few ways. You can refuse to cooperate with the investigation process. You will likely be let go for insubordination and refuse any severance. Expect to get no reference or a bad reference in the future. You can lie. As I said, the decision to terminate you has probably already been made, so it won't change the outcome, and it'll ruin whatever credibility you have left. You will likely be let go and refuse severance.

Again, expect bad references. You can confront your behavior directly and ask your employer what they want to do about it. You might save your job, but expect to be watched like a hawk for the rest of your tenure and to be first up against the wall when downsizing comes, or if you put so much as one foot out of line in the future. More realistically, you'll still be fired, but you might come out with your professional reputation intact and with some of your severance. You can confront your behavior directly and bring your own plan to the table. If you show up with a plan to get into therapy and to repair the relationship with the hotel and a commitment to never embarrassing your employers like that in the future again,

you might come out with your job intact. Or you might not. As I said, the decision has likely already been made. However, being honest and prepared is probably your best shot at getting notice or severance and a leaving a good impression and thus getting a good reference in the future. You can resign preemptively and avoid the issue entirely. In the future, if you think a course of action might embarrass you in front of your wife, that is a very good sign that you should not do it.

While it's not a perfect fit, it's a surprisingly good starting point for thinking about sexual harassment as applied to professional situations. Now, this person really seems to me to be trying to help. Like, they're not sugar-coating it, you know, they're just kind of telling it like it is, so dipshit here can decide which course of action he wants to take. But Director of Operations does not seem to like what he's hearing. He says, what happens if and when I deny this? Let me get better advice.

The investigator is going to interview me in the morning. How do I handle that? I heard bad things about his interviews. What type of proof could they possibly have? And in response, somebody comments, quote, they don't need proof. This isn't a courtroom. We're not here to help you cover up for a screw up.

You don't have to answer their questions. all if you don't want to. And they don't have to keep employing you. The director of operations, I'll remind you, says, they need proof that the employee they complained about is me to begin with and proof that it occurred. Otherwise, I'm suing for wrongful termination. What if this was a false accusation? I'm certainly going to act like it is. I have too much to lose. Oh my God. It's almost getting hard to watch, but also it's getting more and more fun since this guy deserves everything he's got coming and worse what he's like I'm going to act like it's a false he just told us he's guilty right and he's like I'm suing for wrongful termination just digest the entitlement of that for a

second like he opened this thing by telling us he did it yeah and by the way like we're going to find out it's so much worse than he made it sound and it's bad enough it's bad enough exactly and he admitted he did it now he's talking about suing what an asshole yeah when I I first was reading this, I was like, fucking, I had to keep setting my phone down, because like with every single line and every single single smug little, like, aside of like, they need proof. They need proof that it was me or I'm suing. Yeah.

And by the way, he posted about this on the internet, right? And it's a very specific situation. And a lot of people use Reddit. And two, he doesn't strike me as the kind of guy to be good at covering his tracks. I mean, his username is Director of Operations. And I can guarantee you. That's what I'm saying. That's why it's so funny.

He was typing this. I can guarantee you because he was saying he was at work when he was typing this initially. He was typing it on the work. He was at work. He was either. Yeah, he was at work. And I know some IT guy is going to have a field day. Okay.

So that was the end of the first post. Okay. We all are furious rooting, rooting against this guy. So here's. Oh, it's going to get so much. here's update number one I've been completely numb the past couple of days

I got fired they fucking got surveillance of me the investigator refused to show me the video and I denied the allegations vehemently HR manager and VP said they interviewed several people and they suspended me indefinitely

my boss told me afterwards to prepare for the termination notice I told my wife I was laid off She can never know the truth. I don't know how long I'm going to spend jobless. I worked hard to move up in the world and finally got the job of a lifetime with a great salary. This is devastating. Well, plus his little old heart.

Yet somehow I still get the feeling he's not telling us everything. Okay, so on to update number two. Our Director of Operations decided to move over to a different subreddit called Advice, since he wasn't liking the advice he was getting in the first one. Here's his post from the new sub. He always starts. I was a director of operations. Hence my username, director of operations.

I was terminated for sexually harassing a non-employee at a hotel company function. I have applied for many positions as director and mid-level manager. I have six interviews set up. I know once I get to the reference check, they will contact my previous employer. I need to know what type of information they can legally provide. My now former boss has not returned a single call or text and neither has HR. I would like for them to say that they laid me off as opposed to termination. I cannot get unemployment and have money to cover the next six months of bills but would like to get back to working.

What can my former employer tell a new employer? If they're allowed to tell them I was terminated and why, how can I ever recover from this? I've never been so stressed in my life. I have a wife and children. Now, here are just a few scattered comments from users who, it seems to me, were genuinely trying to help this chode bag clean up the mess he got himself into. One says, your former employer can tell potential employers why you were terminated. A lot of companies have a policy of only verifying employment dates. Director of operations response, if they can state why I was terminated, then how do I ever recover from this?

And the commenter says, that isn't their problem. They have no vested interest in your future career. They owe you nothing. My advice is to assume your former employer will tell the entire story. It'll help you plan, and quite frankly, removing the uncertainty will help with your stress levels. you need to tell your wife. That way you can have someone who does have a vested interest in your future career to talk about plans, ideas, strategies, etc. Right now, you're spinning in the dark alone and you're making bad decisions. Yes, she may leave you, but it's in her best interest for you to be employed, married or not. It's good you're cutting down on drinking, but you can't really do this alone. Get professional counseling for the drinking. You have an opportunity here to make a dramatic change to your life, but you need to do it now while the consequences for your behavior when drunk are fresh at hand. good advice right so he's going to wise up and take it right yeah no instead he scoots over to yet another subreddit this time this man is all over the board this time he goes to the subreddit ask hr now for

our campers outside the u.s that stands for human resources here's his post from over there i was a director of operations every time i was terminated for sexually harassing a non employee at a hotel company function again with the non-employee well if it's a non-employee like really sex passed away you're you're fine HR is fine with that actually as long as it's just a random woman who cares right did you see her knockers HR you should have seen her knockers they were huge I would have given her 10 kids like you and by the way that's not a selling point okay as somebody who doesn't want one like you telling me you'd give me 10 kids it's like I want to get a cattle prod and just

Zzz Back, back, Satan, back. I have applied for many positions as director and mid-level manager. I have six interviews set up. I know once I get to the reference check, they will contact my previous employer. I need to know what type of information

they can legally provide. My now former boss has not returned to single caller text and neither has HR. He's probably just copy-pacing this. I would like for them to say that they laid me off as opposed to termination. I cannot get unemployment, have money to cover.

the next six months of bills, which, holy shit, hardly anybody has that in the world, right? But would like to get back to working. What can my former employer tell a new employer? It's the same thing before. How can I ever recover from this? I've never been so stressed in my life. I've never been so stressed in my life. I have a wife and children.

I never harassed an employee and never will. I also cut the drinking and will never screw up again. Please help. How's our heart rate, campers? You good? You feel, you feel it climbing? Okay. There's definitely a steady build.

Yep. Yep. Because now is where it gets really interesting. Starting, I mean, you saw a pattern already. This pattern, though, is damning. All right. A Reddit user named Cacti die discovered that before he got into all this sexual harassment trouble, our boy had asked for advice about a different work-related conflict.

And holy fucking shit. If this doesn't tell us everything we needed to know about this, man, I don't, I don't know what to do. It's bonkers, jaw on the floor. Like, you cannot make the shit up. Recruiter hit me up on LinkedIn. She said there is a position she believes I would be a good fit for. This is a corporate position. I work as the same position right now, Director of Operations.

I'm surprised he didn't say it. He didn't put that in. That was me. but would get much more pay, which was nice. I told her that I greatly appreciate the offer, but I do not work with recruiters. If someone, particularly a senior VP, who I would report to as I do now in my current role,

Director of Operations, believes I'd be a great fit. They can contact me and set up an interview. I don't know why he's turning into a server dude, but I kind of, I'm digging it. This is how it's going to stay for a while. Just lean into it. Yeah, yeah.

This apparently was the world's worst thing. in the world to say to her because she sort of went off on me. Oh, are you trying to say you're better than me? Who do you think you are? Blah, blah, blah. She carried on, but I didn't finish reading her message. I told her that I scanned her profile and saw that she just started this recruiting position in May of last year. Prior to that, she was a sales associate, aka cashier for a retail company. She's also very young, which with such little work history and zero history with my particular work industry, I don't find her qualified to make a decision as to whether I, a director, would do well in that role

with another company. She has no knowledge as to the vision, the leadership, and the skill set required to succeed in such an important role. I'm not going to waste my time. With no experience in the industry, what questions could she ask me? Can't questions she finds online? The logic simply isn't there. Ah, logic. The bastion of strength for every internet misogynist who's got his boxers in a wad because of some filthy woman. You know, dudes who were punching holes in the wall yesterday because they couldn't find the remote turn into Mr. fucking Spock all of a sudden. Anyway, please continue. I do have to, I do have to say that it's wild to me that he thinks like she doesn't have any resources going into an interview with him because like companies put a lot of effort into their recruiting and they have like a set. of like questions and they have to know each role and eat responsibilities for each

role. So it's wild to me that he just saw like. I would think so. Yeah. He seems to know zero about what she actually does, which I think is rather ironic. Well, he's the director of operations. What does he have to know about recruiting? I don't know. That's an operation, ain't it? That's one of the operations. Well, she's a woman, Whitney. Yes. Oh, we're going to get to that here in a second. If, so he's, this is him continuing. If she were a long time veteran in this industry, then I would certainly interview with her because in that case, she would have had the necessary experience to understand the position and know how to determine who would be a qualified candidate for the role. By the way, when you talk to a recruiter, it's mostly just to

figure out, make sure you're not like a drooling, like crazy person, like before you get to like the official interview. So it's wild to me that he just does not understand anything about the interview process. But we'll tell you why. Because however, she's not experienced and does not have the ability to make such an impactful decision. Impactful in all caps. Yeah, impactful. Impactful. Why a company would put such a power in the hands of inexperienced individuals is beyond me.

My company doesn't use recruiters. My boss, the senior VP, contacted me two and a half years ago, and we had great discussions on the vision we have and so forth. a discussion I could not have with a college chick. Huh. I wonder why 80% of the executives are men. Could it be that because like women candidates don't have the same vision as their male counterparts?

Like you know that women can only see motion, right? Like that's how our vision is different. Well, it's because we have periods. Some of us do. Yes. Yeah. Lady brain. Yeah, the hormones.

hormones my boobs get in the way sometimes boobs absolutely boobs thinking about Chris Hemsworth shopping women be shopping and that does not make a good executive the fumes from the the perfume samples in the Cosmo magazine yeah getting to our heads and like yeah we don't even need to get into the racial disparity vision my fucking ass god I think this is Patrick Baiton Honestly. It just hit me. It really is Patrick Bateman 100%. You might as well be comparing. This is American Psycho. He might as well be comparing business cards.

She was very bothered by me and eventually she said that she has thousands of connects and that I shouldn't talk to a recruiter like that. And she could make a couple of calls and ensure that I never get anywhere. Now, I'll admit I got a little bit. professional because I don't appreciate threats. I told her, who, okay, I told her

the only power she has is the vagina she used to get such a position. She ended the conversation by calling me a sexist asshole. I apologize for my comment and said, I don't appreciate her threatening to take food off my table, and she

should not have such an ego. Anyways, I to know how fucked I am. Admittedly, she has gotten into my head. I'll be damned if a 22-year-old college chick tries to ruin my career. I mean, I also have thousands of connects as well anyways. I'll contact the senior VP in the morning and see if we can set up an interview. I love how he's like, so I said she only got her job through a vagina and then her massive ego caused her to be bothered by that. What bitch? Do you hear yourself? This guy must be big fun at parties. Okay, so that was a little detour, but an important one, because it sets the stage for

what we're about to find out. When Director of Operations's wife pops up with her own Reddit post in the subreddit divorce, as unearthed by Reddit user, the Darb. Thank you so much, the Darb. Here's an excerpt. I don't believe him anymore, because about a year ago, he got fired from a decent job, 100K plus a year, D-Ops, meaning, again, director of operations. He's like, you can tell he's like drilled it into her head over the years. He told me it was because he disagreed with the COO about the company's direction, whatever the hell that meant. That wasn't great, but I wasn't going to be mad at him for sticking his ground and trying to do the right thing for the company, and it wasn't like we couldn't afford him to be out of work for a while.

I don't make as much as he did, but it's very decent money, and we had plenty of savings. Plus, we could save on child care and housekeeping if he stayed home with our son, right? Huh, our house had never been messier, I believe that. Uh-huh. Well, three months later, he found a job. Glory, hallelujah. He'd get up, go jogging, put on a shirt and tie, and he'd be out until after I got home. We adjusted child care hours, and I brought the housekeeper back, and I didn't think it was weird that he was putting so much time in, and it was a brand new job, and he just got fired. He had to prove himself. Two months ago, I was home with our son, who brought some kind of god-awful summer flu home from day camp,

and the washing machine started flooding our laundry room. We buy our water, so I had to shut off all the water to the house. I couldn't find his notes from our plumber, so I could make sure I had everything off, so I called him. He wasn't answering his phone, so I tried the main office number. The woman who was supposed to be his admin didn't even know his name. I was freaking out at this point, so she transferred me to the hiring manager, and after I freaked out some more, she told me the truth. My husband did great on the phone screen and interview, but he never passed the reference check. He didn't work there. He'd never worked there. They would never have hired him after what his last company said about him,

he'd been fired for sexually harassing a woman at a work conference. He lied about why he was fired. He lied about finding a job. He lied about where the money he's been using to pay for things has come from. He's been using our savings. He's been lying to me from the start.

He probably lied about the girl on the volleyball team, which I want to know that backstory. Like, how can you not tell us that story? Just throws that in there. I've been loving and supporting and enabling this monster for 16 years. I'm talking to a divorce lawyer's soon, but it's so shocking. I feel so stupid. How did I not know? And how am I going to explain

this to our son? This is going to rock his world, and I mean like an earthquake, not a concert. He's nine years old. What the hell do I tell him? Which that part is freaking heartbreaking. Okay. Now, who else besides me is thinking, this guy sounds like the type to turn into a family annihilator because he absolutely does. This is exactly the kind of guy that turns into a family annihilator like a Chris Watts. How many of those assholes have gotten fired and just pretended to still be going to work every day? Like the OG family annihilator John List, he did that. And I know he's not the only one. I just can't think of their names right now, but I know that that's that. Like Neil Entwessel, he's another one. Yep, Neil. But it gets worse, okay? Because in the comments of the wife's post,

she finally gives in to pressure and answers the people who've been asking for more details about the sexual harassment and holy canoli. Here's what she says. Okay, fine. You want to know what what he did? He got drunk at a company event, cornered a woman in the hotel pool, and while very obviously masturbating through his swimsuit, made some very, very inappropriate remarks to her. Yeah. And before you say it's he said, she said there's apparently video of his hand in his trunks. Then, when he was fired for that, he lied about it, and then lied about having gotten a new job instead of burning through our savings for the last six months. Does that sound like someone you want your kid around? Because he sure is hell not someone I want teaching my son to be a man.

So, wow. Yeah. So he neglected to tell us a little detail about the incident at the conference. So it wasn't just that he said a couple of off-color things to this woman. He had his hand in his pants at the time. And it's wild to me because, like, the whole time it never, like when he was first telling the story and begging for help, which is just wild. Don't beg Reditors for help. God love them.

I know. I talk to an attorney, dipshit. But Reditors are almost always like three, 12-year-olds in a television. trench coat, okay? Almost always. It's true. I do have beef with, I will get into this later, but I have a beef with the legal advice subreddit a little bit. That's a whole different story, though. Oh, it's probably a shit show. I don't think I've ever looked at that one, but I can imagine how I could go south in a curry. They're so mean. They deleted my comment because they said it was off topic. It was on topic. Oh, you got personal beef. I have personal beef. I don't like being told. I don't like being told

I'm wrong. So anyway, as somebody that has stayed in a lot of hotels, and actually I can tell a, I can tell a perfect story about this. So I've stayed in a lot of hotels. Everything is fucking on camera. I don't care if you don't see a camera. Everything's on camera. Oh, yeah.

Once my volleyball team was staying in a, I don't know, some shitty hotel. It was like a four-to-a-room situation. That's how we always traveled for volleyball. And literally, we piled in the vans after we checked out. got to the light outside the hotel, like the intersection outside the hotel. Coach gets a call. Some dipshit on my team stole one of the fuzzy blankets from the bed. What?

First of all, terrible choice, Lauren. Ew. Because Lauren, those are disgusting, Lauren. I'm saying her name. I don't do the fuck. Two, when she got, because my coach was like, did anyone say anything and my best friend who is a patron hi taylor uh said yeah it was Lauren from the back of the van anybody likes a rat Taylor uh Lauren was a huge dick I can tell

stories about her but my point is is that hotels aren't like this private getaway where like no no one watches anything you do they are fucking watching you like a hawk man they were on the ball with that shit that you didn't even get out of the parking lot practically before they were like, woo woo, woo, somebody stole one of our cum-soaked blankets, woo, woo, woo, who wants that first of all? No. Like those are nasty. Those are just like, whatever the weight of that is, it's 95% skin cells and bedbugs.

I promise you. And don't steal those. And sexual leavings. And she would later tell coach after she got caught that she was peer pressured into it by like two of the other players and I'm like what a bad peer pressure like not like oh do a kegstand

I know I was just going to say y'all are so wholesome that's what your peer pressure in each other into I have stories but we don't need we don't know we can do a whole episode on the shit show that was my college volleyball team

yeah I think we should Jesus I'll name names sound like a bunch of crazy bitches I'll name fucking names anyway my point is is that hotels aren't like mystical secret getaways like how many if you go to the reddit tales from the front desk you will have delightful story after story of people being like yeah and this person thought they could get away with it because like they bought the hotel room they couldn't oh this person took their mistress here

but they they were shocked when the charge showed up on their credit card blah blah blah like what do you think happens at hotels? Do you think they just don't watch you? Yeah. Yeah, that's... Holy shit. Anyway. But yeah, for sure, if you're standing by the pool with your hand in your pants, you're going to get nailed. Oh, my God. My oh my, I'd give you 10 kids. Shut the fuck up. Can you imagine how disgusting... And good for her. Oh, absolutely good for her. And good for the hotel, too. Yes. I was kind of pleasantly surprised by that. I'd like to know what hotel chain that was, because good for them, you know?

not only are we banning him we're banning his entire company because fuck that good for them the final update comes from the wife and it's sort of a happy ending kind of uh sort of yeah i mean she still has uh two kids with this jackass because she was oh that's the worst part he he got her pregnant while this was happening yeah oh yeah yeah uh i hate him so i hate that for her But here's what she says. She's a nurse, by the way, which is why she's talking about her hospital. She says, I don't want to go into too much detail and I'm tired all the time right now. I had our second son in December 2019.

Divorce was finalized in February 2020. X tried to fight me on the divorce and tried to fight me on child support and tried to fight me on custody. He fought everything until the court's closed because of lockdown. Divorce sucks. Divorce when your hospital is overrun with COVID and you have a three. month old and a 10-year-old, and the courts keep closing, sucks a lot. Oh, God. My best not-medical friend moved into our house and has helped with watching Sun and

Sun 2. Finally got a judgment in, like, December 2020, that X has to pay child support, L-O-L. Because of committing sex crime and lying about finances and threatening to take Sun and run. Oh, wow. Just Sun, though. I wonder why not Sun and Sun.

Yeah, not the one that's high maintenance. I wonder which one it was. It was the adult. Because men like him don't like touching babies. He was having supervised visitation until March 2021. He has spent the whole pandemic telling son that if I loved him, I would quit my job and then I'm going to get COVID and die. Refuses to let son get vaccinated even though he's eligible now, says son should only mask because long-term effects of vaccine not known. try not to roll my eyes out of my head every time I talk to him.

Loki dating, best friend, roommate, who is a woman, so that happened? Son doesn't know yet and not sure when to tell him. Not sure how permanent it is. Divorce is weird. COVID is weird. Yes. I love that she ended up with a woman. It's like, I'm off men.

Fuck it. I'm just, I'm done. I don't blame her. Good for them. Yeah. And like, here's the thing is like, what wouldn't he lie about? That's what's so scary about this. right is like she thought oh he's scary as hell she thought she knew this man for 15 years yeah yeah

and like and obviously had no idea who she was dealing with like i yeah because she seems absolutely disgusted like i don't see i don't see any situation in which he comes to her hat and hand with this maybe if he could have gotten to her before the investigation but like the repercussions were too much for him to continue to lie about which is what happens in so many cases we we see Yeah. I think he's legitimately dangerous. That's the thing that's troubling me so much about. I mean, it's funny because he's such a blowhard and it's like fun to laugh at him. But also like this is precisely the kind of guy that becomes a family annihilator because they have persecution complex, first of all, which he clearly has. And this idea of themselves as the golden boy, which he clearly has. I was the best director he ever had. And I perform outstanding work and, you know, blah, blah. blah, blah, blah, blah. And then somebody that will go to the extent of lying about having found a new job. Yeah. Like, just think what that takes to get up every morning, put on your work outfit, leave the house all day, go sit in a Starbucks somewhere all day long, and your

wife thinks that you're going to your new job and you're just lying about that. That is not normal. And you're making up a fantasy, right? Because he obviously told her who his assistant would be. He obviously told her about, like, the job. Yeah, she had real. numbers and names. Yeah. Yeah. And it's really disturbing. It's so scary. And I'm worried for her. I genuinely am. I'm worried for this woman. I hope she really careful. And I'm glad she's living with somebody. And it just for God's sake, just. But the thing is, this is why I was one of the reasons why I was always terrified to get pregnant. Because once you get, once you have a child with somebody, that's it, man. You're linked to that person for at least the next 18 years of that child's life. You can't take them and run. Even if

it's somebody that you have legitimate reason to be afraid of like what do you do in that situation you're just screwed like you can you can go through the court system and you can try but again like we just we're so limited in what we can do to help people in that situation and it's really really scary

somebody wants you dead bad enough the court system will not they will make a woman share custody with a man that has hurt her as long as I shouldn't I shouldn't make this gendered right they'll make a parent co-parent with somebody if they

were not hurt in front of the child. Oh, I've seen that go both ways. Absolutely. I've known some dudes in terrifyingly abusive relationships as well, like with women. I mean, it's somebody very close to me was in a horribly abusive relationship with a... And there's, I don't

think, a good solution, obviously. But I feel like that if somebody is violent and threatens to kidnap your child, they should not have access to the child. Yeah. Yeah, but then also it's terrifying because then look at that Josh Powell case, you know,

Susan Powell, where, you know, he was faced with losing custody of those kids and he blew himself up and them. Yep. Like, you just, he scares me as all I'm saying. And I just pray to God I'm wrong, but like every alarm bell in my head was ringing. The further I got into that story. And then especially once the wife started weighing in and talk about, you know, faking, having a job and stuff, I was like, oh, shit.

like if she's listening to this god just please be careful yeah there's a and there's a we wish you nothing but but safety and success there's a reddit post that goes the other way and it is the most heart wrenching i will i'll post it in the facebook group and on patreon it is the most heart wrenching heartbreaking all the trigger warnings reddit post about this guy who was trying to get out of a toxic marriage and it all it went south and he ended up oh shit i know which one you're talking about it. It's fucking awful. It is awful. It is like watching a car crash in slow motion. And there's nothing genuinely that this man could have done. And I can't even imagine. But it's stuff like that. And I think that's why at least you and I like Reddit posts. I

know there's a lot of podcasts that do these Reddit posts like as their full-time podcast. But I think it's really important to kind of maybe have like a practical application. Because it's easy to say, like, oh, well, yeah, that's what happened to, you know, with Matt Baker and Carrie Baker. But that would never happen to me. And it could. Stay frosty. Yep. These aren't fictional stories we cover on this show.

These are real people just like you and me and your neighbors. Yeah. So what do you think? You want to do this one last one that's going to scare the shit out everybody? I do. Okay, I'll read this one. So this is from the same subreddit as. director of operations legal advice, okay? And this is some scary shit. So this is from Indiana,

and the description is, I'm pregnant and being investigated by DCS, by a Reddit user named Baby Blues 17. So she says, hello, I'm 29 years old, happily married, my husband and I are college educated, have respectable, stable jobs, own a home in a nice neighborhood, we're basically as prepared as anyone can be to start a family. I'm almost nine months pregnant with our first child. The problem is that 11 years ago when my husband was a freshman in college, he was arrested for possession of marijuana. It was a large enough amount that he was charged with a class D felony. Our jurisdiction is very harsh regarding marijuana, but not intent to deal. He pled guilty and did his time and probation without a problem, passing every drug test

along the way. He hasn't touched marijuana or any other illegal substance since, and we rarely even drink and haven't at all in over a year. I have no criminal record and have never done drugs myself. It was a stupid mistake he made as the foolish 18-year-old and he's worked hard to put it behind him. Someone has apparently contacted child services in our area and informed them what we are drug users. This accusation is being taken very seriously because of my husband's record. We've been as cooperative as could be with our caseworker. We've been interviewed, our home has been examined, and she found nothing remotely suspicious or incriminating. We've both taken drug tests and passed. Our caseworker says that everything looks just fine so far.

Unfortunately, she also says that there's still the possibility that our child could be taken from us in the labor and delivery ward, and that we won't be allowed to take her home. I was devastated and horrified to hear that. When I asked why, she said it was not up to her, and we'll have to wait and see, which made absolutely no sense to me. What gives? I feel like there's something she isn't telling me, but I have no experience with DCS, and I'm not aware of anything we could possibly have done wrong. I know they'll have to test my daughter for drugs once she's born, but she hasn't been exposed to drugs. nothing more than prenatal vitamins, not even Tylenol. And I already proved that by passing a drug test.

I'm scared and confused. Do I need a lawyer? I'd anticipated spending our savings on our new daughter parental leave, but I will use that money for a lawyer if I have to. Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for your help. Okay, so terrifying situation to be in, right? Yeah. But it looks like a straightforward, like somebody is interfering in these people's lives.

Yeah, and you see that a lot in, like, bad, scary, mother-in-law situations? Exactly. That happens a lot. Yeah. That's what it seems like. Hang on. So here's the update. When I made my original post, I was advised to get a lawyer right away. I was also advised that Indiana's DCS doesn't investigate pregnant women who don't already have kids and that the woman claiming to be a social worker might be an imposter. I contacted and met with a lawyer and explained the situation to him. He seemed to agree that something was very fishy. To make a long story short, the woman handling our case has no affiliation with DCS. I'm still in complete shock.

We went straight to the police. They're taking this very seriously. I can't give a lot of details because it's an ongoing investigation, but she seems to have been a very skilled, well-researched liar. I never would have known anything was amiss without the advice of this subreddit and the intervention of my attorney. It feel like a complete idiot, but the instinct to cooperate unquestioningly when faced with an intimidation. Eliminating authority figure is strong. I haven't had the baby yet. We're staying at a trusted family member's home until the baby's born.

My OB and the hospital will be delivering it have already been informed of the situation and will be taking the appropriate security measures. I'm still freaking out, but we're taking every precaution for the safety of my child and hopefully everything will turn out okay. Thanks again, everybody, truly. Anybody else just covered in goosebumps right now besides me? Fucking hell is that scary. It's so scary. And it's going to be even scarier to you if you don't already know this when I tell you that there was a woman named Geraldine Jones who murdered a woman named Samantha Fleming who had recently had a baby. The baby was about three months old at the time. She did it using this exact same ploy. Exact ruse. Exact ruse. That she was from DCS and somehow she knew about the fact that this woman had like some kind of a drug history or something like that. And in that case it was the

mom that had the drug history and like showed up all dressed all professional and said i'll take you to court and you have a you know you have a court date today i'll take you ended up taking her to her house instead and killing her and taking the baby yep so scary and she got caught of course yeah and but this is exactly the same point i mean this is apparently a thing well okay a couple things one if you have a record that shit is public always two yeah lock down your social media. I don't know if that's how this woman, but like, oh, very possibly. This happens a lot where people have, you know, they forget to put private on their social media and suddenly people can see, oh, I'm pregnant. Congratulations. That's right. So just, just be careful. It's so, it's so fucking

scary. Like, when I read the first post, I could just feel my stomach dropping because something just didn't seem right, right? Like, it was scary. Yeah. And like the fact that she was being like, iffy on, you everything's fine because typically like DCF caseloads they're like okay this isn't this is fine I'm not saying that's a good thing but I'm saying that they are overworked and the the focus that this woman could pay to this this family is disturbing like a husband who had a drug conviction when he was 18 yeah like that's really weird that would be very strange thing for them to be crawling up your ass about so I completely agree so just really fucking maybe just call their supervisor. Try to get

that information. Yeah, absolutely. Cooperate because like, you know, you don't want to not cooperate with DCF, although I'm not an expert. Don't listen to me. I'm an idiot. Well, I would say, yeah, double check everything. I mean, what's the problem? And like, we always said in the gift of fear episode, like if the cop shows up at your door or something, like a good

cop is going to understand if you say, I'm going to call your precinct and make sure you're supposed to be here. You know what I mean? If they're, if they're a decent human being, they're going to be like, yeah, yeah, you do that. Because you can buy a cop uniform on Amazon. Yeah. You know what I mean? And what's funny is that, like, you know, Whitney and I are corporate, right?

We have day jobs. And when you have like- Well, I'm academia. I'm not corporate. I've actually never been in the corporate world. I don't understand it at all. So you get IT training and they're like, hey, if there is a sense of urgency being put on you when you get an email. And it's like, click now to update this because this is urgent and you do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stop. take a second don't do it and I know it's really hard in person because like this woman said in her earlier in her post is like the pressure of an authority figure

is significant yeah it's right back to Gavin DeBecker and the gift of fear where he talks about you know the furniture that people can put on to sort of lend themselves this air of trustworthiness and how what you always have to keep

in mind is the context of the situation which is that this is someone you don't know Correct. Period. Like, bottom line, that's what this is. This is a stranger asking something of you. Yeah. Be careful. You know. So, anywho, fucking terrifying. So we could go on all day, but we won't because we've got to save some for next time. But that's it. Lovelies, your March patrons only. I hope it was a fun one for you. And also maybe a little spine tingling too. You know, we'll have another one for you next month. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. We love you. Love you.