Chapter 8

There is some art to business, in fact it is an artistic undertaking. But it is also a science, and there are a lot of theories, and quite a few things that qualify as laws. Laws as in the Law of Gravity. Proven, beyond a doubt concepts of what works and doesn't, and what to do and don't.

The first two laws of business can probably be cribbed from the Producers. "The two cardinal rules of producing. One, never put your own money in the show." And two? "NEVER PUT YOUR OWN MONEY IN THE SHOW!" It's true in business, too. Never put your own money in the business.

You borrow the first round from the three Fs (friends, fools, and family), and run everything else on credit. It's not really true for businesses requiring large capital expenditures, like restaurants. And it is absolutely true that you need a cash reserve for years of losing money- but hopefully that will be mostly for your living expenses.

It is the cardinal rule, but it is also the most frequently broken. I didn't break it, one of the reasons I was successful so long. I bought my first van with a loaned down payment from my father, and a loan from the dealer for the balance. I bought my first load of clothes on credit from an uncle who was in charge of blowing out extras for a company. So were the ways back then that two weeks later, I paid off my uncle's company, and bought a second load free and clear. And paid off the 2 year loan on the van the next month.

But I'm emotional over what happened, so I am beating around the bush.

Because one of the inviolable rules, laws, of business is never have the business depend on the operation of one person. That usually applies to the founder of small businesses, and is frequently broken. I side stepped that, initially, by hiring Sandy as a manager.

That was partially to give me more time with Yaz, but it was also to safeguard Yaz- and the company- if something happened to me. But because of the troubles Yaz and I had a while back, I had basically handed the reigns of the company over to Sandy. She gave me reports on the way things were going, and I did have a vague idea on what was going on in my little empire, but I was not aware of the day to day grind.

I was stunned.

Yaz had been over at the conference table, wrapping money for bank deposits.

"Josh," she gasped, "You look like a ghost."

"Sandy's dead," I muttered. I was shaking. I was cold, frightened, and my heart was in my stomach.

She came over and gave me a hug. She shuddered a little. But as she grew up in this crazy world, she had learned to hide her emotions. Especially when I was failing at it.

"I'm so sorry," she said, "But lets look at this as business people."

"I know," I sniffled, "Let me pull myself together. We need to talk to everybody at the meeting."

It was standard procedure for years that the individual managers of the stores would close down their store at 8PM on Sunday, get a bite to eat if they could, and arrive at our Reading store to have an end-of-week meeting at 10PM, carrying that weeks cash receipts with them. Mondays were always handled by the store's assistant manager.

It was a potentially flawed system, but we had flea market roots. I should start having the receipts transported by armored truck, now that a weeks sales was starting to be serious money.

But this was Black Friday, the grand opening of our flagship, and a corporate rebranding. We decided to have a meeting at 10 tonight. Yaz and I pulled ourselves together, and prepared what we were going to say.

The meetings hadn't included Yaz herself for a while now, because I wasn't letting on our relationship to other employees, and her job was to take the bags of cash, and count and wrap them as quickly as possible to allow me to discuss at the end of the meeting that weeks performance. We agreed to maintain that.

It apparently had been a busy night, as the first manager to arrive was Ben Stoltzfus, from our Hamburg store. Kyle Dietrich of Lebanon, James Miller of Pottstown, and Karl Weaver of Ephrata came in quickly. They all sat down after grabbing coffee. It took another fifteen minutes before Miriam Stoudt came in from Lancaster, looking exhausted.

Yaz left the room with the money cart without a word.

I sat down in my chair, and stared at everyone for a moment. I exchanged a few minutes worth of standard pleasantries, I tried to study the men and women I had working for me. I didn't know a few of them all that well, like Ben Stoltzfus. Sandy had mentioned we might have a problem with him- he had been promoted from Assistant Manager after our Hamburg manager was given a promotion to head of logistics. Less money, more ordinary hours and time with his family.

"Now that we're all here, I have some terrible news to report," I said, "Sandra Ramirez, our General Manager, and manager of our Reading store, died this evening in a car crash."

There was silence in the room.

"I know all of you thought very highly of her," I continued, "And I know that we have all depended on her impressive management skill. I know I have been less involved with the day to day operations here over the past year as I worked on both personal things and the opening of our new corporate headquarters and flagship store here."

"That's now over," I stated bluntly, "I don't know how the next few months will go, and a lot of it will depend on how the numbers pan out tonight. Your receipts are being counted even as we speak, but I want you all to know that I am going to be personally involved in managing day to day operations for the time being. Any questions?"

The men looked too stunned to talk.

"I have a few," Miriam replied decisively, "Like do you even know the details of what goes on in here anymore?"

"Miriam!" exclaimed Ben, "You can't talk to the boss that way! If one of my employ-"

"Ben, you are fired," I said softly.

The men all looked at us back and forth.

"What?" Ben exclaimed, "I was just putting her in her place-"

"Exactly," I replied, "You were quelling dissent."

"Of course," Ben replied.

"You speak like thats a good thing," I replied, "I am not always right. You are supposed to question my decisions, and you are certainly allowed to question my ability to lead under these circumstances. Miriam was making a pertinent observation."

Ben looked confused, and clearly disagreed with me.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I will do better in the future."

"I wish you success doing so," I said, "At your next job."

Ben turned red. I had made the correct decision. I was even more certain than before that Ben Stoltzfus quelled dissension within his own store. I abhorred chain of command arguments in front of customers, but in private meetings, I preferred everybody to dissent. It was one of the earliest things I had taught Sandy.

Slamming his fist onto the table so hard the coffee cups rattled, Ben bellowed, "You can't fire me for my style of management!"

"If we can't fire you for your style of management," Yaz responded as she approached the table, "We'll fire you because you're an idiot."

"Shut up, kid," Ben replied, "You have no authority."

Ben must not have been aware of who Yaz was, but others were, because they gave a gasp.

"Ok," I replied, "I'll fire you because you are an incompetent manager AND an idiot."

"I don't have to put up with this," Ben screeched.

"No, you don't," I replied, pointing "The door is that way!"

As Ben pushed back from his chair, Yaz came around and stood behind it, and forcibly pushed it back in.

"Actually," she said, "I think he does."

The rest of the group were watching, some with surprise, and others with interest.

"You can't hold me here!" Ben growled.

"I can't, but if you do try to leave I am going to call the police," Yaz replied.

Looking somewhat defeated, Ben slumped into his chair. Yaz went to a chair on the other end of the table, and put the folder she had been holding in front of her.

"I didn't hear why you were bawling him out, Josh," she started, "but when I counted the sales from the various stores, the numbers bothered me."

"What bothered you about them?" I asked.

"Well, first of all, today was a smashing success," Yaz beamed, "Five of our stores all had sales up a minimum of 35% this year, with this store more than doubling last years Black Friday numbers. Do you remember when I first started helping you, and you were ecstatic that we cleared a million bucks in sales that year?"

"I do," I replied, thinking back to all of the pleasant memories of those days, not all of them retail related. A lifetime ago.

"We cleared two million, today."

I was stunned. So were most of the others there. But then I picked up on something that I should have flagged earlier.

"You said five stores," I muttered.

"I did," she replied, "One of them had a 4% increase in credit sales this year, but a 23% decrease in sales."

"Hamburg."

Surprisingly, it was not I who said it, but Miriam.

"I haven't had a great year this yea-" Ben started nervously.

"My god, she's right," I stammered incredulously, "You really are an idiot."

"Why are you listening to that dumb Arab child?" he declared arrogantly, "Besides, if I am an idiot, and I wanted to steal from you, which I am not saying I have, I wouldn't have been able to do it without being caught, would I?"