My family is known for boys. My dad comes from a whole litter of boys, as does his dad. I told my wife when I married her to get ready for boys, because we were incapable of siring girls. So imagine our wonderful surprise in September of 1998 to find ourselves the proud parents of a baby girl! She was, and is, a very beautiful, smart and funny girl with a great disposition. However, we have since this time worried every time I am out of work that we will get pregnant again. It was only twice, but still...
I like to call this time my interview time. I still didn't know that I was getting bad-mouthed all over town (found that out a few months later) and blamed for all sorts of things other people were doing. I had saved up some money form our stunningly low income and was collecting unemployment. The settlement from my former employer came at the right time and I was writing business plans for restaurants trying to get something going on my own. The problem with this was that the capital needed to open a restaurant was exceedingly high. So in early 1999, I changed gears. I decided to open a coffee house and with an initial investment from my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law, I began searching for a site for my new place. In March, I leased a former Taco Bell in Cypress CA and began changing it into a coffee house. I hired far too many opening employees and opened only the third drive-thru coffee house in Orange County on May 3rd 1999. I expected the drive thru to account for roughly 30% of my business, but it accounted for 85%. That was good news, but the inside was lonely and boring. The bad news was that I also estimated that more than 50% of our drinks would be specialty drinks, but more than 70% of our sales were coffee at less than $2.
On top of not particularly great sales, the county came down on me pretty hard for my theory that I wasn't serving food and so I didn't need a health permit. They hit me with huge fees in every area they could find. I ended up making it right with them by being up front and playing the village idiot. The truth is that I had worked too long in a club environment, around shady characters and I needed to get my ethics back. This is hard for me to write because I am so opposed to this theory now, but I was soul-less in my business prior to July 1998 and it took a short time to right the ship of my ethical stance. At the time, I thought ethics had nothing to do with business, I believed in practicality alone. I am very far on the other side now, I believe ethics is about the only thing that matters in business or life. But at the time, I had it backwards and sometimes I had to pay for that.
In June, I finally responded to Paul's letter. I think my response was about 5 pages, but I avoided being defensive and tried hard to admit my failure. I told him I understood that I had treated him poorly and that our friendship was broken and not worthy of repair, but if he wanted, we could build a new friendship based on mutual respect and dignity. I am pleased to tell you that he responded favorably, and though there were occasionally some hiccups, we have remained friends for the last 13 years. We are not as close as we once were, but I think that has more to do with distance and life than with anything else. He occasionally responds to these posts and has called me when I write something painful. I appreciate the friendship we have now and am still sorry for the horrible friend I was. That friendship that was broken and destroyed, taught me some things about myself and keeps me questioning how I interact with others still. It is very much a reminder that I am not perfect and often, in spite of myself, do the wrong thing to people. If I do the wrong thing, and I like me, how can I get too angry with others when they do the wrong thing with me.
Don't get me wrong, I still get angry....I just recognize my hypocrisy, and oddly, I am grateful for that.
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