A leopard never loses its spots

Thieves from outside can be guarded against, but how to handle the ones inside?

During the days of our grandfathers, "loyalty" and "trust" are basis for everything especially business. Any good deed will never go unforgotten, unlike today. Moral fibre has eroded, or shall I say, non-existent?It had somehow vanished through a vortex of time.

At the moment, I'm doing freelance work for two of my friends who just started up their own IT/Engineering company. One of them shall be known as Kotek (best describes him) and the other one shall be known as B. Kotek is your typical fat, lazy, pathetic, irresponsible, unresourceful, playful, lying, desperate, childish, always looking for the easy way out, always looking for a way to make a fast buck kind of person. B on the other hand, is an accomplished E & E engineer (Graduated with a 2ND class upper honours), hardworking, resourceful, organised, practical, thrifty, honest, ethical and a person with integrity. Kotek and B were neighbours since young and that was how their friendship flourished. During their schooling days, Kotek was the typical outcast whilst B was one of the popular figures. Sympathising him, B took him around and introduced him to his friends (I was unfortunate to be one of them). Once he discovered that he made new friends that he never had before, he tried all kinds of things to impress them (i.e: Led a lavish lifestyle beyond his means, fabricate stories bout how big a player he is, how great a gambler he is, how good a car driver he is, how much sex he's getting, etc etc). When he realised that his pocket can no longer support that kind of lifestyle, he starting borrowing, cheating, stealing and even gambling. So much so that B and his family actually stepped it to save him a couple of times from bookies and loan sharks. When B decided to start this company, he actually threw Kotek a lifeline for his already future less and crumbled life. And guess what he did? Fucked B over by syphoning and embezzling money from of the company.

em·bez·zle (ěm-běz'əl)

tr.v. em·bez·zled,
em·bez·zling, em·bez·zles

To take (money,
for example) for one's own use in violation of a trust.

Well, one method he used is that he created false vendor accounts, and then supplied false bills to the company so that the cheques that are cut appeared completely legitimate. His bubble burst when his dirty scheme was uncovered by a routine audit. His method was relatively easy to detect but unfortunately most of his transactions were in cash, so it's quite far fledged to actually have him arrested and charged in court.

After all that's happened to him and all that we've done for him, we thought that he has changed for the better and became more matured and responsible. Boy were we wrong. What a bastard. Has he no conscience at all?!?! After all B and his family has done for him, this ungrateful trash still has the guts and balls to fuck them over. I just don't understand how he thinks he can get away with it. If he thinks that everyone around him are just plain gullible and naive, then he must be moron. Even after confronting him with hard evidence, he was still adamant on his stand that he was innocent. Not even a sign of remorse. What a prick. I wonder what is going through his mind right now. What actually triggered that man to act that way?I reckon there can only be three things:

1. Greed
2. Lust
3. Desperation

By nature, Kotek is a compulsive liar. I never really took what he says seriously. No matter what cock stories he told me before, I believe what drove him to act that way shouldn't deviate far from those mentioned above. Well based on his track record, I'm pretty sure it MUST be one of those.

We were all fooled badly. Once a con man, always a con man. Back stab and betrayed his best friend over a mere RM15 000. Well to B it's a small price to pay to learn how much a friendship that span over 28 years is worth. Well things could have been much worse right?

Moral of the story:

As bad as it may seem, never give someone the benefit of the doubt despite he/she showing any signs of remorse from previous crimes committed. They were capable of doing it, so what guarantees do we have that they won't do it again?A leopard never loses its spots and a Zebra never loses its strips.