My Business Partner Locked Me Out And Smirked, “Sue Me—You Can’t Afford A Lawyer.” I Didn’t Sue. I Made One Quiet Call About The Unlicensed Enterprise Software Keeping Our Whole Operation Running… And 48 Hours Later, An Audit Notice Hit His Inbox And The Company Started Unraveling Fast.

Jordan’s job was easier. Close deals, maintain relationships, handle the client-facing charm offensive, show up for presentations, take executives to nice dinners, play golf with procurement managers. The glamorous side of consulting.

And for three solid years, it worked. We were making money, building a reputation, growing. I didn’t mind putting in the extra hours because Jordan was holding up his end, or at least I thought he was.

The cracks started showing around month 42, early 2022. Jordan began taking longer lunches, two hours, sometimes three. He’d say he was meeting potential clients.

Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. I didn’t have time to check because I was too busy fixing a pharmaceutical manufacturer’s contamination control system that was costing them $50,000 weekly in rejected batches. Then he started showing up late to internal meetings.

Ten minutes, twenty, eventually just skipping them entirely. We had a weekly Monday morning operations review supposed to sync on active projects, upcoming deadlines, consultant workloads. Jordan stopped attending in March 2022.

Just sent texts. “Sl slammed with client calls, catch me up later.”

Fine. I picked up the slack, ran the meeting solo, updated him via email.

That’s what partners do, right? You carry when someone’s having an off period. Except the off period never ended.

By summer 2022, Jordan was basically a ghost. He’d show up for the important stuff—contract signings, quarterly reviews with major clients, the presentation where we’d close a six-figure deal—but the actual work, the follow-ups, the project management, the client emergency calls at 10 p.m. when production lines crashed, that was all me.

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