Stephen Thompson started working as an AA patrolman in April 1985. It was, he says, his perfect job. On several occasions he was named patrolman of the year in his region.
But 20 years to the day after joining, he left with a payout of just £18,000. His marriage has since broken up from the stress.
Thompson, now 46, has no doubt who to blame - the private equity owners of the AA who bought the business in 2004. "I'm very angry," he says. "All they are here for is for profit making. They ripped the guts out of the AA."
If critics are to be believed many more workers will share Mr Thompson's fate if the private equity juggernaut is not checked.
In the past few weeks, this burgeoning but secretive industry has been catapulted out of the shadows and into the political spotlight.
Private equity has become so powerful that a handful of firms own businesses that employ one in every five workers in the private sector in Britain.
The firms are largely secretive, rarely give interviews and do not disclose who invests in their funds.
The industry meanwhile has made a small number of people who manage the funds immensely rich.
Sir Ronald Cohen, the Labour donor and adviser to chancellor Gordon Brown who founded private equity firm Apax, is said to be worth £250m.
Damon Buffini, who grew up on a Leicester council estate and is now a managing partner at Permira, is estimated to be worth £100m.
Few people outside the business world would have heard of these companies just a short time ago.
But now they find themselves the latest flashpoint in a broader debate on social divisions as City financiers bank billions of pounds in bonuses while ordinary workers struggle.
Within months of buying the AA for £1.75bn, the private equity owners Permira and CVC Capital had cut 3,400 jobs.
Permira, the largest private equity group in Europe, last year bought Birds Eye from Unilever and pledged to keep workers' employment terms for at least three years. Within five months it had closed a plant in Hull at the cost of 600 jobs.
Unions have now forced the issue on to the agenda in the battle for the Labour leadership and on to the front pages.
Workers at NCP, the UK's biggest car-parking group, picketed the offices of private equity owners 3i this week complaining of a pressure-cooker environment and failure to recognise the union.
They were met by John McDonnell, a Labour MP and candidate for party leader.
He said it was a "national scandal that the casino capitalists from global private equity groups are allowed to treat British workers and some of our biggest companies as nothing more than pawns in a game of get-rich-quick".
Buffini broke cover yesterday and gave interviews to Radio 4 and the Financial Times in an effort to calm the growing political storm.
"People don't quite understand what we do and the benefits we do bring to the economy," he said. "There is a positive story about productivity and job creation. Those messages have not gotten through."
Private equity has been described by The Economist as a "superior model of capitalism".
It can generate huge rewards for its investors in a short period of time. One City dealer described it as akin to trading companies like secondhand cars.
There are two kinds of private equity deals.
The first, sometimes referred to as venture capital, involves investment in small start-up businesses.
The second is the more contentious; the aim is to target businesses that may be badly run, undervalued or in need of an overhaul.
Private equity firms buy the companies with money from rich individuals and financial institutions such as pension funds, alongside large debts.
Private equity has flourished in Britain because firms can claim tax relief on interest payments on the debt used to buy the businesses; a loophole unions want to close. The aim is to sell the business again or float it on the stock market, typically within three to five years, at a profit.
The amount spent buying public companies in Britain last year reached a record £26.3bn.
There have been so many buyouts that the combined value of companies on the stock market is shrinking. Other household names bought by private equity last year include United Biscuits, Matalan, Travelodge, John Laing, Associated British Ports and Phones 4U. The US private equity firm Apollo this week bid £1bn for Countrywide, the UK's biggest estate agency.
And they are getting more ambitious. It emerged this month that a consortium of four private equity firms is running the slide rule over the supermarket group Sainsbury's. If the £10bn takeover were to happen, it would enter the history books as the largest private equity deal ever done in Europe.
"It is about extracting as much as you can as quickly as you can," says Karel Williams at Manchester Business School. "It is part of a broader series of changes in capitalism. These intermediary groups, like private equity and hedge fund managers, are able to enrich themselves in ways thought unimaginable a few years ago.
"The ultimate question is whether this behaviour becomes normalised and accepted. This is a socio-cultural change. The culture of naked self-interest among private equity managers is characteristic of the elites in third world countries."
Senior managers are also getting a share of the spoils, raising questions about their decisions to sell out companies. "In the debate on private equity, it is important to recognise the potential conflict of interest for senior management," says Michael Gordon, chief investment officer at Fidelity, one of the biggest fund managers in the world. "They become highly incentivised to sell out to new owners."
Debenhams has become the text book case. CVC, Texas Pacific and Merrill Lynch Private Equity used £600m to buy the business in 2003.
They increased the retailer's debt from £100m to £1.9bn and paid themselves a dividend of £1.2bn. They sold the freehold of the stores for £500m and leased them back. They then floated the business and took another £600m.
In a little over two years, they made around three and a half times their investment.
Debenhams now faces huge interest payments and rent on stores it once owned.
On Friday its shares rose 10% on speculation that the private equity industry may try to buy it back again - in a clear illustration of the need by private houses to find homes for their cash.
Anger at NCP has been stoked by reports that 3i is preparing to sell the business to another private equity group after just 18 months for a profit of £245m.
Francis Fordjour is a parking attendant at NCP in Enfield, north London and has joined colleagues on strike. "Working conditions at NCP are horrible," he says. "All they are interested in is how many tickets you have issued."
Patrick Dunne, a 3i director, says the image of a ruthless owner wringing the business dry is far from the truth. "No one wants to buy a business that has been starved of investment or has a reputation for mistreating its workforce.
"The other social issue that isn't mentioned is that millions of people benefit from private equity because their pensions are invested in these funds.
There is, he says, no intention to "flip" NCP quickly, but adds that "we have a duty to our shareholders to consider any proposals". Permira is equally dismissive of the claims of unfair treatment by Thompson at the AA.
"He left voluntarily with a generous financial package which followed a performance review in March 2005 when all patrolmen were reviewed," an AA spokesman said.
There are signs that the private equity fad might be running out of steam. Company shareholders and directors have begun to fight harder and demand higher prices for their businesses.
Approaches for the likes of ITV, EMI and HMV failed. And the latest offer for Countrywide is a second attempt which may fail again.
Economists fear a downturn in the economy or higher interest rates could spell disaster.
Companies that private equity firms have loaded with debt and liabilities like rent are much more vulnerable. We have been here before.
Highly leveraged management buyouts became popular in the 1980s. They fell out of favour as the economy dived and a couple of high-profile companies defaulted on heavy debts.
The Financial Services Authority recently warned that the City should get ready for some "short sharp shocks". Former AA patrolman Thompson, might argue that the short, sharp shock has already been delivered.