My cautionary tale begins in November 2013 when I interviewed with, and accepted an employment offer from Spiration Incorporated in Redmond, WA.

I had spent the previous six months applying for select opportunities and interviewing with select companies, I was looking for a very specific opportunity, and would only accept an employment offer if my conditions were met. I made Spiration management aware of this fact from day one. They agreed to my conditions, and they also had their own. I accepted the employment offer and began working at Spiration in November 2013. This turned out to be the single worse decision of my career, and arguably, the worse decision of my life. It was a decision that effectively ended my 17+ year career, and nearly ended my life.

It turned out that Spiration management, specifically Greg Sessler (CEO) and Craig Eudy (Executive Director of Finance), colluded to deceive me from day one. They agreed to my employment conditions under false pretense. They never intended to honor their end of our employment agreement. I wish it was as simple as just this one deception, but the reality is much more nefarious and self-serving. They are ethically-challenged con men, modern-day snake oil purveyors, who should not be trusted under any circumstances.

Before diving too deep into my story you should know a bit more about my background. I'm a technology professional with over 17 years of varied, continually-progressive Information Technology industry experience. I won't bore you with the details, just know that I excel at my job, and I've built my reputation accomplishing the impossible, and succeeding where my peers have failed.

I was recruited by Spiration for very specific reasons: my expertise in information technology solutions, and my track record of successfully helping companies overcome their technology challenges.

While it does not excuse their actions, I do understand their motivations for this deception. Spiration's information technology infrastructure was in a very bad state in November 2013. Their current technology solution was barely functional, unreliable, at max capacity, and mostly end-of-life. These issues were hindering productivity and company growth. This issue was compounded by the fact that they were expecting sizeable company growth once their primary product received final FDA approval. The current technology solution could not even support the current employees, there was no chance that it could support the company's expansion. The existing IT leadership and staff had failed to remediate any of the issues, failed to meet the company and department goals, and were generally ineffective across the board. This resulted in the demotion of the employee that was previously in charge of IT leadership at the company, Derek Crean (IT Manager). After Derek was removed from his role as the company's IT Manager, they began recruiting for someone who could take over IT governance for the company, manage day-to-day IT operations, remediate the numerous technology issues, and establish a reliable technology solution that could scale with the company. This is what I excel at, and have a proven track record of success. I was the obvious choice for this role.

The problem was that they wanted someone to provide strategic direction, govern company-wide technology operations, manage the IT department, complete all systems & network engineering, and much more, while doing so with a lesser title of Systems & Network Engineer. This was not something I was interested in, I was looking specifically for a Director of Information Technology title. I wanted to elevate my career to the next level, and the only way to do this was to officially have a Director title for a minimum of 3-5 years at a smaller company before moving on to roles at larger companies. I informed them from day one that I had no interest in a Systems & Network Engineer title, and that I would only accept a director-level role. In fact, I had turned down numerous opportunities over the prior months because the companies could not meet this requirement.

Spiration could not give me the title I was seeking due to the fact that they had classified the open position as being a back-fil for the old Systems & Network Engineer who had resigned months earlier. You see, Spiration was owned by Olympus and had to report to them, and they could not change the title of a back-fil role outside of the standard review cycle, or so I was informed. There was also the issue that the recently demoted IT Manager was allowed to keep a manager level title, it was just changed to "Manager, Software Systems" to reflect the fact that the only thing he now managed was the legacy, in-house-developed applications (that he had developed). I should have walked away at this point. But, Spiration had a solution, they could make the director title official after one year. This period would also be considered a trial period to see if I could deliver on the department and company goals that my predecessor had failed to complete.

Being interested in advancing my career, and knowing that I could deliver on the goals, I accepted this employment agreement. The agreement was straight-forward, in a one year period, I would rectify all of the outstanding technology issues, and establish a scalable enterprise-class technology infrastructure that would support the company's current needs and expected growth for years to come. On their end, they would A). allow me to recruit/hire a full-time Help Desk support technician within the first 6-12 months, and B). make the Director of I.T. title official.

It is also worth mentioning that the role not only had a lesser tittle, but also the compensation to match. In fact, the pay was below industry average, and substantially less than I received in my prior role just months before. I accepted the lower rate of pay, this is just another sacrifice I made to accept the role at Spiration, with the ultimate goal of advancing my career.

When I accepted this employment agreement, I was unaware of how ethically-challenged and self-serving Spiration's senior management is. These are things you learn over time, and they became more apparent over time. Sadly, by then it was too late.

I won't bore you with the minutia of the work I performed for Spiration, just know that it was nothing short of astounding. Essentially, I was covering three distinct roles for Spiration. I provided IT governance & strategic direction for the company, managed company-wide IT operations, completed all Systems & Network engineering, implementation, and support for the company's technology infrastructure, and covered roughly 50% of the Help Desk activities. The first condition-of-employment they failed to deliver on was allowing me to recruit/hire a full-time Help Desk technician, so I ended up covering 50% of all Help Desk related activities in addition to my other tasks and responsibilities. In fact, due to the growth rate and the sad state of the systems when I took over, I was spending an average of 25-30 in-office hours every week just covering Help Desk related tasks. The rest of the week and most weekends were dedicated to Systems & Network Engineering related activities. The director-level items were completed in-between and mostly during my evenings. During my time with Spiration, I continually worked 100+ hour weeks to ensure I met all my milestones and completed all goals by the one-year deadline. It was another sacrifice I made to ensure everything was completed, and to advance my career. My health suffered greatly.

At the end of the one-year period, I had my review meeting with Craig Eudy regarding the accomplishments of the prior year. They were of course, pleased that I had met all milestones and completed all discussed goals for the year. They were pleased that I remediated the technology issues and established an enterprise-class infrastructure that could support the company for years to come. At this time, I was informed that I would be officially assigned the title at the next review cycle, in April, just shy of six months from now. The last part was an outright lie. But that was not the first, it turns out that I was lied to a lot during my time at Spiration.

In the new year, things took a much darker turn. Their lies became bigger and much more apparent. A lot of things just did not make sense any longer.

Sadly, by this time, and based on the confirmation that the Director title (and relevant level of pay) would be assigned during the April review cycle, I put my completely-renovated house in the South-end up for sale, even though the market had not yet recovered fully. This meant that I would not fully recover my investment in the house. I was ok with this because it would shorten my commute (currently a 1.5 hour drive, twice a day) and after all, I was planning to stay at Spiration for another 3-5 years. Besides, the higher rate of pay I would be receiving from April on would offset the loss on the house. At this point it is worth mentioning that Craig Eudy was fully aware of the fact that I was selling my home in a down market to be closer to work for the next 3-5 years and that I was expecting the loss to be offset by my higher rate of pay I would be receiving in April. The point being that he lied to me at the one-year review, and even after knowing that his lies were going to have a devastating financial effect on me, he continued his deception. Craig Eudy is a man who truly does not have a conscience, and only cares about himself. That fact will become even more evident as my story comes to a close.

The months leading up to April 2015 were some of the worse of my life. Their lies were pilling up, and were not really making much sense any more. Time schedules were compressed, projects that were planned for late 2015 were all of a sudden a top priority and had unreasonable/insane time frames, and none of the reasons made sense (at the time). In hind-sight, these were the first indications that they were not going to honor the second part of my employment agreement and were expecting me to resign once the truth of the situation was revealed.

The whole truth of the matter is much more nefarious. They never intended to honor our agreement, it was all a ruse designed to suit their own goals. They lied to me, deceived me from day one. They agreed to my employment conditions under false pretense, and in the end, they further colluded to obscure the truth from me for as long as possible in an attempt to get me to complete as much work as possible before my imminent resignation once the truth ultimately came to light. While there are many examples of this agenda, none demonstrate it more than the fact that I was denied the right to take a planned vacation in early April 2015. This would have been the first, and only vacation during my time with Spiration. One of the projects they moved up in importance, and wanted to complete in an insanely short amount of time was the complete replacement of the company's phone system. During the first few months of 2015 I engineered a completely new Cisco-based VOIP phone system to replace the aging PBX. Working with a Cisco hardware vendor for the installation, the installation date was tentatively set for late April 2015, or early May. My vacation would have been the second week of April, right after the scheduled review cycle. Well, I was denied the right to take a vacation based on the reasoning that if the contract was finally signed-off on, and the hardware vendor was available for the installation to take place that week, I had to be there to complete the phone system deployment. When I was informed of this, I stated that it was doubtful that the vendor could schedule it that soon, and really, I could just push out the installation a week or two until I returned, after all, our current phone system was functional, so there is no rush. This conversation was with Craig Eudy, and it was the first time I saw him loose his cool. He did not have a reasonable response to this, so I was just outright forbidden to take my vacation. Of course, the real reason was that they were screwing me over, and wanted me to finish this project (and others) before I learned the truth during the review. I knew at this point that they were probably screwing me over, but I waited for the review for confirmation.

April finally arrives, and it's time for reviews. But, the reviews do not happen, they are delayed. However, I do get more high-priority projects to complete ASAP. The phone system remains a super-high priority as well. The reviews are ultimately delayed for weeks, and my review gets delayed until the very end. In fact, my review will be the last in the company. But, it is finally scheduled, and review day arrives,... However, the only other member of the IT department, finds out that he has to make an emergency trip to Ireland to see his ailing mother and will be back in 10 days. right after he makes the senior management aware of this, my review gets pushed out 10 days "because Craig Eudy is just too busy to do my review today, and the next earliest possible time is in exactly 10 days". Sadly, these are the type of lies you can expect to get from the senior management at Spiration.

I'm not going to wait 10 more days. I confront Craig Eudy that morning. The jig is up, and he has to finally admit that Spiration is not honoring their end of the agreement.

I wrote my resignation that afternoon. I should have actually resigned that afternoon and never returned. I felt bad for Derek, who I feared would not be allowed to travel to Ireland to see his ailing mother if no one could cover, I did not want that on my conscience, so I stayed the 10 days until he returned. Worst 10 days of my life.

It is worth mentioning that after I resigned, due to them not honoring our agreement, I passed Greg Sessler (CEO) in the hall. He just chuckled about the whole thing. It was funny to him that they had deceived me, it was funny to him that I made all these sacrifices to work at Spiration and in the end, got less-than-nothing for my troubles. After all, they got what they needed. Their technology issues were resolved. They had a completely-new information technology infrastructure that would support the company's needs for years to come. And they got it all for a bargain price. He was quite pleased with himself.

Greg and Craig both knew that I made sacrifices to work at Spiration, with the purpose of advancing my career. They knew I accepted a lower salary, a salary that affected my financial stability. They knew I sold my house in a down market to move closer to Spiration, and that I expected my Director-level salary to compensate for the loss. They knew that I had to work extreme hours to meet the milestones and goals of my employment agreement. An agreement that I entered into on good-faith and their word. Despite knowing that their ruse was going to destroy my life, they continued their deception until the very end, and then laughed about it once the truth came out. These are men who are truly without conscience or a single moral fiber.

As I mentioned earlier, my extremely negative employment experience at Spiration nearly cost me my life. It turns out, if you continually work 100+ hour weeks, spend another 15-20 hours of commuting in highly-stressful traffic, only to learn that the past 18 months of your life have been wasted working for snake oil salesmen, and rather than be rewarded for your sacrifices and contributions, you are screwed over,... you end up with the recipe for a stress-induced heart-attack. Heart issues do not even run in my family. And I ended up having a heart attack as a direct result of my employment experience at Spiration.

Having a heart attack, and having my financial stability compromised is not the end of the negative repercussions of my employment with Spiration. It should come as no surprise that Greg and Craig have failed to admit my contributions to the company. Due to this issue, I cannot even use Spiration as a reference. All the amazing achievements at the company were for not. My career has been effectively ended, despite my amazing accomplishments and the fact that I met all milestones and completed all goals, as agreed upon. My guess as to why, is that are taking credit for my accomplishments as their own.

In closing, I will simply state that Greg Sessler (Spiration's ethically-challenged CEO) and Craig Eudy (Spiration's ethically-challenged Executive Director of Finance) should not be trusted under any circumstances. Their "word" is worth less-than-nothing. They will quite happily screw over anyone for their own personal gain. They will happily destroy people's lives if it suits their agenda. Then they will laugh about their successful deception. I learned this lesson the hard way; I hope you do not have to suffer my fate.