I Need a Lawyer

How did this happen? How did I get here? My landlord organization, the employees of the local hockey team, is fraught with thieves and persecutors. The general manager of our facility and our contact at corporate act like I’ve lost my mind when I tell them stealing/sabotage is not acceptable behavior. The man who was supposed to be my partner and help me build this restaurant and bar into a viable business has thrown me to the wolves. He, too, acts like all this bad behavior is my fault. It’s clear from the intervention, no one is listening when I talk.

It’s time to talk to an attorney. And it’s got to be a high powered one. It’s time to take what little money I have left and seek out a downtown Dallas firm. If I have to go up against a hockey franchise, I’m going to need big guns. It’s expensive to ask legal questions and research options. At this point, I’m just trying to figure out where I stand and what’s going to happen in our ‘starting over’ phase. Time to smile, lay low, and turn on all the spidey senses.

Looking back now, I have so many questions about what was going on here. Were Pierre and Todd in cahoots? Did they plan to squeeze me out from the beginning? Did Pierre use me to front his new business with my retirement fund and all my hard work so he could swoop in after a couple years and just take over? Am I a victim of theft by deception? Is Pierre truly a con man, or just a bad partner? Has he done this to others? I have begun investigating some of Pierre’s other business dealings to see if there is a pattern to his actions. If I don’t look into it, no one will. Is the local hockey team so narcissistic and misogynistic that they don’t care about employees stealing from their company and their tenants and persecuting their female tenants? Will Todd have to look up these words to see what they mean? If you have any information on any of these people, please let me know. Thanks.

Secrets Are Not Good for Business

I don’t know when Pierre decided it was ok to start telling everyone he was a partner in the cafe. In the beginning he was concerned about conflict of interest, because he worked for corporate and was partnering with Robbie and me to open a business inside one of the corporate owned rinks. At some point, small children started telling me their coach owned our snack bar. So it became public knowledge. When people know you are part of a business, you have to conduct yourself appropriately.

Normally, I would think raising your children would not affect business. However in this kind of environment, people recognize or know you and your children. If people see something they don’t like, they may decide never to do business with you. So what you do at the rink reflects directly on your cash flow.

As an animal person, I know the importance of observation. We watch our animals all the time, to see how they feel and think. So I was surprised that Pierre didn’t seem to do that with his 3 adopted children. It’s important to assess where they are and guide them. Sadly, these kids came from a bad home and had to be seized and put up for adoption. They were truly lucky to be adopted by someone who could keep them together.

Pierre would show up at the rink with the kids (and sometimes with someone to watch them) and head off to coach his students – you know, the ones he said he was going to stop coaching so he could dedicate time to grow the cafe. If he brought someone to watch the kids, they would encourage the kids to do their homework and stuff like that, especially since they needed a lot of tutoring to catch up to their grade level. When Pierre didn’t bring a babysitter, the kids would run wild in the lobby. That wasn’t necessarily unusual, as many parents ignored their children at the rink and havoc would ensue. The problem was, Pierre’s kids had no idea how to act in public. They certainly hadn’t learned anything from their biological parents. Pierre’s kids would go to tables where the people had food, touch their food, and ask if it was for them. I’m sure that’s how they survived before they were taken from their biological parents, but it was certainly inappropriate at the rink. One day, Pierre’s daughter picked up someone’s baby and dropped it. These are all things Pierre should have been present for; he should have brought the kids to the rink when he wasn’t working so he could observe how they acted and teach them appropriate behavior, rather than be mad when he heard what happened and scold them.

My mistake here was not walking away the day Pierre told me he was adopting children. I should have realized his lack of discloser in the beginning was a sign there were more secrets, and secrets aren’t good for business.

Too Little Too Late

Todd came into the kitchen to talk to me after we called the police on Will for stealing. During our conversation, he told me he had fired Will and he indicated he had decided not to help himself to our food anymore. He didn’t say it in so many words, but we both knew what he was talking about. He followed his indication by saying he wanted to set an example for his people. I was appalled. We had to call in the police to get the general manager of the building to stop stealing from us. My feeling was he realized his job was on the line if we caught him on camera.

Todd never admitted he was stealing. He never apologized for stealing or helping himself, however you want to soft sell your bad behavior. Todd never offered to pay for what he had taken. He never apologized for setting a poor example for his people. Even after this, he never helped us put a stop to the stealing by fixing the security cameras or coming in late at night to check up on his people or hiring an adult to work late every night. He also never stopped his people from trash talking us to the customers as they vented their anger that we called the police on their friend.

The sad part is an apology wouldn’t fix it anyway. He was already leading by example. All his people saw him help himself and assumed it was ok to take whatever they wanted. The damage was done. People notice what you do. They rarely notice when you stop doing it.