I have to admit that our hospitality was not up to our usual standard. We didn’t overtly insult them, although they insulted us — unwittingly, I’m sure.
They have developed closed minds and tin ears over the years. That’s what California will do to you. And a posh retirement financed by the California State Teacher’s Assn while your business runs on government grants. Somehow the risk of running your own business isn’t quite the same when you are risking a government grant vs risking your own money and you are supported by your wife’s fat retirement! I know how much she takes in because I managed my mother’s estate until a year ago and saw the checks that those “poor” teachers got each month.
The best part of the whole evening is that I’m usually the skeptic and my husband is able to overlook anything. This time, my husband picked up on all the little remarks.
Taking credit for my husband’s patent was the cherry on top of the sundae! Yes, this man was given credit for a small part of the invention (at my husband’s insistence), but my husband holds the patent on the whole machine and has defended it in court (and won). My husband signed off on every drawing, sold 15 of them (just a start to a multimillion $$$ sales effort) and installed the first 5 or 6 machines. This pretender was nowhere around when all that happened and doesn’t even really understand how this equipment works. We did haul out pictures of my husband running tests on the machine and his picture on the cover of the company’s annual report. Our guest said that he had some pictures, butt he “wasn’t in them”. Do you think there was a reason?
Before anybody thinks that my husband is Rockefeller, he got $100 for signing over the patent rights to his company (an employment requirement.) I think his collegue got $25 for his small contribution. The invention is still used on every deep water oil rig in the world and has earned millions for the company. This invention opened the North Sea to drilling and other people took home all of the profits.
Your husband is a smart man. My stepfather worked for a rubber company and invented small parts for Ford vehicles, but nothing as grand as that.