Lessons from The Great Recession 2008..... Mistrust Dishonesty & Justice Dismissed A Bursting Integrity Bubble

This memoir is a 15-year history of a popular and profitable small business in Greenwich, Ct. In the aftermath of the bursting housing bubble and the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, behavioral patterns changed and relationships frayed. It is also a year-by-year history of the Transformation of Workspace beginning with "executive office suites" and evolving into shared offices, co-working, collaboration, and flex-space formats in response to demographic changes, new technologies, and the "sharing economy". It also covers a vexatious, defamatory and expensive arbitration with all claims dismissed. Then, a painful and defamatory police assault with misdemeanor charges filed and announced to the public. The charges were totally dismissed, but serious health and reputational consequences remained. These experiences were occurring as the popular and profitable co-working/flex-space business confronted the shocking aftermath of the Great Recession: incompetence, contract breaches, deception, and numerous violations of Connecticut's Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA). Adversaries were often emboldened by "boilerplate" clauses buried deep in agreements that seemingly allowed unscrupulous or secretive behavior without any consequence. In the end the "Merger Clause" prevailed. The lower civil court would not process assertions of contract breaches, dishonesty, or the numerous other CUTPA violations that produced significant financial damage. To seek financial restitution an appeal would be necessary to a higher court jurisdiction. The process would be long and expensive. It was a decade of mistrust, dishonesty and, in the end, no justice. I am writing this true story with the hope that it prevents others from getting caught in this type of consequential business environment where integrity seems to be absent. Please read the book's Introduction for more.