In a summer of desperation, I hired on to do stucco. Back then, in the area at the time, the big contractors and developers were stiffing the smaller ones and people weren't getting paid. We all insisted, pretty much across the trades, to be paid in cash every week. I felt like they were all crooked. The guy I worked for had more work than he could handle, (allegedly) yet started firing people one by one for petty stuff, accusations of theft, etc. Bogus crap made up.
It got down to two of us for a few weeks. Then he fired us. Back then getting unemployment was hard: accusations made by an employer were taken seriously and your voice meant nothing if they fought it.
I decided I would seek other opportunities and never looked back. Besides, heaping mortar on walls in 90* + temps in the Florida sunshine for a slave driver wasn't my idea of a lifelong vocation.
