How many hide their Ferrari from employees?

In a past life, many, many, many, years ago, I was a revenuer for the IRS (yeah, yeah, I know. You pay for your sins in life, and I'm still paying.) I walked into this attorney's office, and it was covered in yacht crap. There were picutres, models, trophies, and so forth and so on.

The first thing the attorney said was, "You will not find it." Normally, this is not a good thing to say to an IRS agent because I was already thinking that I already had this one in the bag. This guy had to be writing all this stuff off. (This was back when you could do this.)

The attorney when on to say, "The reason that you will not find it is because I had never deducted a penny of my boats. You see, when I'm in this office, I'm your typical lawyer with rabies. But when I'm out on the boat, I'm me. I never ever take a client out on my boat. My boat is what keeps me sane. Why would I want to take a chance with my sanity just to save a few tax dollars?"

Know what? He was right. His CPA had not deducted one penny of the boat.

But I have never forget that meeting. We all need someone to lean on.

Take care, DrTax

 

So true, esp. in a small town. For that reason I never bring even my "old" 328
to work (I work in a small hospital).

 

Alan

You work hard and most likely have earned and deserved to buy such things as a ferrari. I'm sure you never bought it with the intention of leaving it parked in your garage. Drive it thats what its there for. If your staff are going to think different in a negative way towards you or your business then tell them to find another job. i may be a little biais because i love Ferrari, but if my boss came to work in a ferrari i would be happy for him, but not just a ferrari, even if it was a porsche what ever. The other side is that some people may use that as some sort of inspiration also. I have a business here in Australia employing 45 staff and some staff do look up to you and come to you for advise. When they see someone living part of their dream they get motoviated and think well if he can do it then so can i.

 

Little story...
4 Years ago I got a call from my mother that the local luxury jeweler needed a pic take, I Bring the digital and come on down. Well turns out he needed a computer person. I take the job, and by sheer luck and my creativity, drive, and hunches I ended up two years later turning out an amazingly succesful website that as instore traffic dropped the web sales more or less kept the business afloat and still does. Well the business owner my boss still goes to Vegas and blows $25k twice a year gambling and doing this and that while we all make the same wages, a woman here has made the same amount for nine years! Just like said above, if your employees have the chance to get there, it will be AWESOME motivation. If they have no way to ever achieve that working for you... you are SOL. My Boss learned that the tuff way when I put in my notice last week. Trouble is he can't find anyone qualified to do my job that will work for $400 a week take home. I just use this as an example of how things can go WRONG.

Kyle

 

Wax you are correct. Some employees obviously are stuck at the bottom
rung of the ladder. There is nothing as an employer, you can do to change
that fact. For some eating out at the Golden Corral would be a impressive
event. Yes people in the office know what the toy is. It is very
difficult to hide the fact.


Its kinda like a hot sales girl who comes into the office, dressed with Versace, D & G, and with the Gucci purse. She walks past a female driver who is 85 pounds overweight with dirty Wrangler jeans. That driver would probably feel like a 2nd class person. The employee that has to budget
chicken over steak, would feel the same when they see your toy.



Dr. Tax I loved your story. I have no boat. So you can forget about
calling your friends in Austin.

 

Why is it expected of the owner of a business to give employees the chance to achieve the same success the owner has? Life is not fair and that just the way it is. No matter how hard my employees work they will never have what I have. And they know this, But they also know they have a decent job and are treated fairly.

 

It does not make sense to really throw it in your employees/co-workers face. I usually drove my other car to work but on those nice sunny days I would take the car. It was just so much more enjoyable on a nice day. Most of the people that came up to me said nice things. Most did not even know that I was the one that owned the car so that was good as well. You just have to be careful where you park and your position at the company. I am looking to become a real estate broker now and need to get another car so it does not say "Oh He Makes To Much!" Hey, when I am not working, I get to enjoy the car. As long as I get to enjoy it, it is okay.

 

I live two hours away from work for a reason.. For one thing this helps me seperate myself from work and home.. I NEVER take work home with me and I never talk about work at home.. VERY IMPORTANT RULES.

Most people that I work with or work for me don't know I'm in the market for a Ferrari or even know what my home looks like for that matter.. I LIKE IT LIKE THAT..

All they know is that I own a 600 sq. ft. home and my advise to them is never buy a home on E-Bay....

The car is for me, not a status thing... I won't take it to work..

 

I guess where you live and work is an important factor. In Southern California everyone has a BMW or Mercedes, including the secretaries where I work, and I doubt that anyone would raise much of an eyebrow about it here. On the other hand, in Northern Europe, jealousy would raise its ugly head on a daily basis. Growing up my step-dad and uncle had various cars exotic for the area and I distinctly remember being told "Son, never drive a Maserati to a client meeting". Here in So-Cal, it would probably be a bonus if you did...

 

I would look at it as a bonus too, but many people these days live in a society where having more is impossible..They are happy to be able to buy a new Altima and feel they will never be able to own a Mercedes or BMW.

I tell people you have to think bigger in order to get big..

Some just don't get it...

 

That is an extremely interesting observation. I really think that, here where I live, it can be the profession itself that might cause a reinforcement of sterotypical thought or envy. As per a doctor. Much of the population here is gray, and remembers the days before medicare when medical treatment was much more in line with the cost of everything else, and responded more or less to typical market dictates. Now many believe that those expenses are out of their control, and are pegged by greedy insurance companies, attorneys, and doctors. Perhaps not the most accurate, but it is a typical viewpoint here.

But why in Northern Europe? I assume that you mean Sweden? True, I never did see a Ferrari there...

 

A bit off topic, but related:

I did some work for a smallish Native Corporation up here, and the managers there had CIRI envy. CIRI being (at the time) one of the biggest most profitable Native Corporations. The managers at CIRI have paid out 100 Million in the years to their shareholders and had just closed a deal wherein they sold their communications assets for a big fat profit. The upper management all got a cut, which made them all millionaires, and a few naturally bought some nice cars.

The managers at the smallish Native Corporation saw this and promptly got themselves Mercedes SUVs on the company dime. This was during a time that pay raises for the employees had been frozen for two years! I was in a meeting with my contact there the afternoon the new SUVs showed up, and he was so mad that he quit right there on the spot! That was pretty unreal. I heard him mention something to the president about how nice it must be to be driving around in his 5% annual pay increase.

 

Good point. No self-respecting Beverly Hills realtor or plastic surgeon would be caught dead without a Bentley. How would it look?

 

I too think it depends on profession and locale.

Contractor: no
Family Physician: no
Surgeon/specialist: yes - you want to pay for the best in these circumstances
Traffic Lawyer: no
Litigator: yes - you want a winner
Small biz owner w/happy employees: yes
Small biz owner w/disgruntled employees: no

Anything in Canada/Scandinavia/Socialist countries: no, because people think you are trodding down the laborer. But I'm happy that my lawyer in Toronto drives a 996TT, as it is an indicator that he's doing something right.

In SoCal, I'm guessing it's easier to get away with, as the local culture *seems* to be more in to luxuries.

 

I think that this is key.

If you feel the need to hide your Ferrari from your employees, you've got other issues with your employees and their morale.

 

Maybe her boss drove a Ferrari so she need that Aston Martin V12?

By Alistair MacDonald, Reuters

LONDON, April 20 (Reuters) - A former personal assistant at investment bank Goldman Sachs (GS.N) faces jail after being found guilty on Tuesday of stealing more than 4 million pounds ($7.2 million) from her banker bosses following a headline-grabbing three-month trial.

Joyti De-Laurey, 35, was found guilty by an 11 to 1 majority on all 20 counts of using false checks or obtaining money transfers by deception.

She will be sentenced on June 14 on the charges, which each carry a maximum sentence of 10 years. Police officials say she could be facing at least six years in jail, where she will be staying on Tuesday night after being refused bail.

Judge Christopher Elwen said bail would be a serious risk given De-Laurey had been shown to be "dishonest, deceitful and untrustworthy" through evidence at the trial.

De-Laurey showed little emotion when the verdict was read out.

The trial at London's Southwark Crown Court captured the attention of the British press, with its details of De-Laurey's lavish spending and what her lawyers called the fairy tale wealth of the bankers she robbed.

Former Goldman Sachs star banker Scott Mead, who had more than three million pounds stolen from his accounts by De-Laurey, accused his former personal assistant of mounting a "vindictive and implausible defense in which she and her team of lawyers attempted to put the victims on trial."

Mead, who worked on mobile phone firm Vodafone's (VOD.L) hostile takeover bid for Mannesmann in 2000, the world's largest ever takeover, said De-laurey had dragged his name through the mud, in a statement after the verdict was delivered.

De-Laurey defrauded her employers by e-mailing or faxing instructions to Goldman's New York headquarters to move cash from the bankers' investment accounts to their cheque or checking accounts.

Once the money was transferred, she would forge signatures on checks or transfers, or add fund transfers to requests her bosses had already signed for.

Her husband Anthony, 50, a former Ministry of Defence police officer, was found guilty of four out of eight charges relating to the retention of proceeds of the fraud.

De-Laurey's mother, Devi Schahhou, 67, was found guilty of four out of five of the same charges relating to the retention of stolen money. Schahhou, who is a doctor in North London, held her head in her hands when the verdict was read out.

Both De-Laurey's husband and mother were granted conditional bail.

SPENDING SPREE

During the trial, the court heard how De-Laurey went on a spending spree with the stolen cash, buying more than 380,000 pounds worth of Cartier jewelry, a power boat and a villa in Cyprus.

When arrested in May 2002, De-Laurey had an interest in 11 properties and an order for a 175,000-pound Aston Martin luxury car.

She also took a trip to an upmarket Beverly Hills hotel after telling her bosses she was undergoing a hysterectomy. She borrowed 40,000 pounds interest-free from Jennifer Moses, one of the bankers she worked for, and then paid it back with cash she had pilfered from Moses' account.

De-Laurey, a mother of one, wrote letters to God asking for divine intervention to stop her scams being detected and that her reputation at Goldman Sachs remain unblemished.

On Tuesday a Goldman Sachs spokesman said: "The theft was a gross abuse of trust and an extremely unpleasant incident for all those affected."

De Laurey's defense portrayed the bankers she stole from as demanding super-rich corporate financiers who were lax and naive when it came to their own finances.

The defense argued that two of the bankers, husband and wife Ron Beller and Jennifer Moses had allowed De-Laurey to forge signatures to pay her for managing their busy lifestyles. Mead, her lawyers said, was rewarding her for covering up an affair he was having at the time. All three rejected these suggestions.

De-Laurey worked at Goldman for four years, starting in May 1998 on a temporary basis.

Police said they had never before seen anything on the scale of De-Laurey's crimes, even though theft by employees is an increasing fact of life in London's financial district.

One police officer involved in the case described De-Laurey as a bold character who greed had got the better of.

"Her actions were very calculated and dishonest," said Detective Constable Malcolm Driscoll of the City of London police force.

With the trial over, the saarch will begin for a missing oje million pounds never recovered or accounted for by the police or Goldman, which has already paid Mead and his two former colleagues the money stolen from thei.

(For more on Mead's statemant, please double-click on ID:nL2098331.)

(For a profile of Mead, please double-click on ID:nL08187293.)

,For more comment from City of London police, please double-click on ID:nL13480391.)

($1-0.5582 Pound)

(Additional reporting by Siobhan Kennedy)

 

With such a high profile, status item as a Ferrari. you become a target. In todays world people will take a shot at you if they can. But, if they don't know there is a greater likelihood they won't. FWIW.

 

Well said, rylax. It partly depends on how many customers your business has and whether they can reasonably feel individually responsible for your success. So if your business only has a few customers, and they know who they are, and they have less than you, they are more likely to feel jealous of your success. In that situation, its very dangerous to rub their noses in your discretionary income. But if you have a thousands (or even millions) of customers, or all of your customers are more well off than you are, then they have less grounds for jealousy. I don't think anyone begrudged John Carmack (author of Doom) his Ferrari. No one seems to be jealous of Jay Leno, Tim Allen, or Seinfeld because of their extravagent cars. But if one of my consultants started driving a Ferrari, I'd take a very careful look at what I was paying him and what I was getting for that money.

 

See "my contractor drives a Ferrari" thread.

I drive mine, and even in a town the size of Houston it's pretty well known.

No real backlash professionally, but the Bubbas rarely realize I spent less on my 308GTB than they did on the "Deer Hunter" truck treatment!

 

I did not mention it when changing employers recently, but my cover was blown at the first project meeting when, with my new supervisor beside me, came the question across a crowded room, "Al, you still driving that LAMBORGHINI?"

I thought I was gonna die!

 

Well.....judging from the number of business owners and executives that I sell to who request that I only call them on their cellulars, or only fax things after I have called, so they can stand by their fax to pick up the paperwork........I'd say that 75% "hide" their Ferrari......or MB....BMW...Porsche...Lambo...etc....

 

Key sentence here: "I hate not being myself." Is this not a sign of emotional ill health? Your sentence applies to many, many people who have the same feeling but in other circumstances. I say that the fear (becuase that's what we're talking about) of others' condemnation is in itself a serious form of suffering. I am in no way advocating the disregard of other's feeling, and I assume you've not been falsely bemoaning your poverty in front of your employees.

"Just being yourself" is a source of happiness.

A lot of people have enough money to own at least an entry level Ferrari, but most of those have neither the taste not the daring to own one. Take heart. If they make light of a "midlife" crisis, dismiss it as the muttering of those who would have you down at their level of misery.

BTW, I hope you're paying them fairly.

 

I am a partner in a plaintiff law firm of 46 attorneys and another 30 staff. I drive an M5 as my daily driver and drive my BB512i to work once or twice a month. One of my partners drives a Porsche TT x50 convertible as his daily driver. I have never heard an employee complain, and clients like to know that their attorney is successful, so I never try to hide my cars from them.

 

I think its hard to hide the fact that I live an awesome life, however I never intentionally flaunt my wealth in front of my employees, clients or anyone. That doesn't mean I can't or don't enjoy the fruits of many years of hard work, or apologize for my success. In this case I guess it all comes down to how much we need to stroke our egos. It surley won't create a harmonious office atmosphere and more corporate profits by driving an exotic car to work. One thing its sure to do however, is cause resentments in the people ( employees) who help us enjoy our wonderful life styles. Trust me, they don't share in our personal success, unfortunately most of them look at it as the money they made us, and or deserve for themselves.


Again that is my situiation, there are fields of business where driving an Exotic to work is no big deal, or it can actually validate your position, but not too many!