Tag: Pierre

Good Advice

Writing this blog has been difficult for me. It stirs up memories best forgotten. I feel so stupid believing and trusting people. Sometimes, it makes me cry. Some nights, I have bad dreams after blogging. What was supposed to be a $12,500 investment almost took everything I owned. But if I save even 1 person from losing money in a business venture or prevent a good human being from being exploited by Pierre, Todd, or Damon, it’s worth every tear.

Pierre kept telling me I needed to be nicer to Todd and the rink employees so we wouldn’t have any issues with them. I had already smiled and joked with those guys. I had given them free food almost every night for months. I had given them a discount on their purchases. I hadn’t done anything except ask them to stop when I found they were stealing from me. I hadn’t reacted when they called me names. In fact, I literally let them treat me like dirt as I smiled and gave them freebees. How do you be nicer than that? After months of this behavior, it became clear to me it wasn’t going to stop unless I stopped it. Pierre hadn’t been any help at all. I was watching my retirement fund disintegrate before my very eyes and I’m supposed to be nicer? So yes, I finally drew the line and put up security cameras and stopped rewarding their bad behavior with free pizza and cookies. These actions in no way make me the bad guy and yet everyone was treating me like I was.

One of the owners of The Great Outdoors Sub Shops remained my mentor the entire time I owned the restaurant. For that, I am eternally grateful. When I discussed these issues with her, she told me to get out as fast as I could. I wanted to, but I was in too deep to just walk away. I truly believed we could make this cafe lucrative with Pierre’s help. And I wanted to recoup some of my money. I had lost so much since Robbie dropped out and Pierre had never put in the cash he had promised from the beginning.

Besides The Great Outdoors, I also asked some questions on one of those free lawyer advice websites. The lawyer who responded didn’t really answer my questions, he just encouraged me to get out as fast as I could. While this advice wasn’t comforting, it told me I wasn’t the crazy person Pierre, Todd, and Damon made me out to be. But what do you do when you’re caught in a riptide of people bent on sucking you dry? Sink or swim?

Not a Friendship Membership

When we opened the cafe, Pierre went to Sam’s to buy a membership but they made him mad so he got a membership at Costco. It was handy and cheaper than Sysco for items like candy and water bottles. We got a business account that was enabled for tax exempt purchases since we were buying most things for resale. Pierre was good about making Costco runs for us when we were getting low on water, but he always bought sanitary wipes while he was there. I told him we didn’t need them because we already had sanitizer in squirt bottles for cleaning counters and equipment. He continued to waste our money buying the wipes, which tells me he didn’t watch the Food Handler videos or just didn’t care. Like I told you earlier, it wasn’t his money so I guess it was easy to waste.

I went to Costco and got my membership card. For the account we got, 2 people get membership cards and you have to pay extra if you want to add more people. Pierre wanted to add Nick to our account. I didn’t like the idea, because Nick wasn’t part of the cafe. Nick was a former student of Pierre and now a skating coach. I love Nick, but he’s not part of the business and really didn’t even support us much. He hardly ever bought anything from the cafe. Mainly though, Nick wasn’t qualified for tax exempt purchases and I didn’t want to be involved in any kind of sales tax fraud.

So one day, I went to Costco and when I got to the checkout they told me my membership was no good. Turns out, Pierre had put Nick on our membership even though I wasn’t in favor and when Nick was added Costco took me off. What the Heck! This is a business, not a friendship membership. I don’t know if Pierre and Nick are more than friends, but I sure don’t see any reason to have Nick on our account. It’s cheaper for him to have his own account anyway since personal accounts are cheaper. I had Nick taken off the account and got everything straightened out. I did find out later that Pierre paid the extra money for Nick to be put back on the account as a third member. I told Pierre he better make sure Nick was paying sales tax on his purchases.

This is the kind of crap you shouldn’t have to deal with when trying to build a business. I don’t know where Pierre’s brain was, but it wasn’t on building a restaurant. It’s a bad sign when your partner goes behind your back on business actions. I should have run away as fast as possible.