Another Saturday, but much better in actuality. Let me tell you why;
Boss comes in my office Wednesday afternoon and says “I need to see you before you go home tonight, but I have to go downtown first (Hmmm, lunch or basketball?) how about say 5pm?
“Gee, you know I don’t take lunch and I’m out of here about 4pm”
“Ok, let’s make it 4:30,…ok?”
The time comes and I go to his office and sit down. He gets up and closes the door (not a real good omen)
“One of our three largest accounts, the “Richer than God Account”, they e-mailed me last night at 1am to tell me they were cancelling thier contract with us.”
“Why?”
“They said you weren’t paying enough attention to them, I tried to get them to reconsider but they said it’s done and over.”
“Well, not to be picky, but with absolutely no support staff, handling the three largest accounts we have and a couple more to boot I guess I’m not surprised, but I did meet with the President and we had a nice chat on a few things they need to address the day before yesterday.”
“Yeah, I know, and I talked with him last week and asked him how everything was going and he said great, so I don’t know why the hell they dumped us.”
“Boss, I’m telling you, just like I have been for the past six months I need at least one Admin to keep up with all this crap, and the ‘we can’t afford it’ isn’t buying it, look what happened!”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, but with them leaving I can’t afford to pay you anymore, and I’ll be taking over your other big account myself. We got to save some money here, and the other accounts we’ve lost since last fall are draining us.”
(Gee stupid, haven’t you listened to a thing I’ve been saying for the past six months? You have a bookeeper who is pathetic and makes more mistakes than a whole boxcar full of monkeys, no administrative support staff in the entire company, and between coming to work at 10:30 or 11:00am , heading for the two hour lunch at noon, and off to basketball with “the buds” at 4:00pm, don’t you think personal work ethic might just be a tad freakin’ twisted?)
“Listen, I don’t want to talk about the whole thing now, but I just wanted to tell you and we can get together when I get back next Monday and see where we can go and what we can do, but I just wanted you to know we are going to have to adjust payroll way down. I’m really upset by this, so I’m taking Thursday and Friday off and going up to another state for a long weekend just to clear my head, and next week is a short one because I’ve got to take Friday off to go to a wedding up north and won’t be back until the following monday afternoon.”
(“Gee am I really sorry and when crisis strikes it’s great to know you can take four days off to “clear your head” and leave the rest of us here to cope with the aftermath for you. Thank’s so much Boss, again that work ethic shines crystal clear.”)
“Oh and I’m really glad you understand this so well.”
“Ok Boss see you next week when you get back, have a good weekend”
And so it goes, oh, and by the way he sent me an e-mail from his Blackberry yesterday telling me how well I took the news and he would really work hard with me to try and find some good middle ground in this whole thing so we could continue to work together.
Boss can you say “implosion!”? Why do you suppose they are all bailing out? Do you think it’s coincidence that we’ve lost so many accouunts in six months and it continues? I told you of at least three more that are getting ready to leave in the next several months as well. How many times can I try and help and watch you just circle the wagons tighter and deny reality?
He did tell me I can take all the accounts I brought with me and take them and form my own company or pay him for the bookeeping services and handle them myself. (I wouldn’t let his bookeeper count her own fingers, she’d get it wrong!)
So I guess I’m back in business a few months earlier than I wanted to be, gonna have to hustle some more income the accounts I brought just won’t be enough to cover whay I need to make, and still be able to acquire an Admin and a bookeeper. So I’m relieved, happy, and back to doing what I like best, building another business, just wish I had a little more capital and a couple more accounts,….but I know what I gotta do.
I’ll keep you posted. Enjoy your weekend, I know I will. 🙂
-30-
The Emerald Rose 
That is fantastic news Alec, congratulations.
I’ve seen the impact this job has had on your happiness over the last few months and I’m glad this happened.
You will no doubt do a fantastic job my dear……
(Also take some bloody time off, drink some Guinness, spend time with the wife and take it easy for a while!)
By: Lucy on June 24, 2008
at 12:46 am
Thanks Lucy! You are the third response I’ve gotten saying basically the same thing. When friends fromAustralia, Malta, and Canada all feel the same I guess I should listen.
How’s the investment property search going?
Mr. Guinness
By: guinness222 on June 24, 2008
at 7:03 am
Property search is going really well, I think we’ve found something that’s small enough that we won’t need to live off gruel for the next 20 years but big enough that the return will be great. So we’ll need to lock everything in over the next week or two.
And yes, the impact of the job was definitely noticeable and not always in a good way. Do you feel relieved now that it’s over?
By: Lucy on June 25, 2008
at 12:30 am
Feeling much better about work stuff, but getting a little nervous about maintaining income streams, but enough of that.
I always stop for a pint in the aftrnoon after work and check by B’berry for news updates, sports scores, stock prices, etc. I have a little program on there called “pocketday” which pulls everything into one place, one of the things it has is “clocks”you can choose either digital or analog with the round face, numbers, and little hour and minute hands. (My one reminder of an age before digital) I have four clocks on the display, one for Chicago (time zone I’m in) one for Dublin, Ireland (need to know if it’s too early to get a new keg delivered :), one for Sydney (perverse pleasure knowing I can drink where I am while you still have eight hours of work ahead) and the fourth is on Athens Greece (my friend Sims hangs his hat in Malta, and I have to keep track of him as well.)
It’s sort of fun knowing the world is all at different times and it moves dispite us, not because of us. Humbling thought for 7am, guess I shoulds have more coffee. 🙂
By: guinness222 on June 25, 2008
at 6:00 am
Yep, I do the same thing but because we have global offices we have all of these clocks in our hlep Desk area. So, right now my mum’s in Canada and I know what time it is over there.
It’s nice.
By: Lucy on June 30, 2008
at 12:48 am