[START RANT]
[START VENT]
I'm mad as hell. I just found out today that a (now ex) friend and an ex-employee have gotten together to start a business based on what they learned from me and my business. Dirty, rotten, no-good, low-life, back-stabbing, scum-bag slimy pukes. I could choke them both. Did I mention I'm pi$$ed off?

Oops, this is a family forum, isn't it?

[END RANT]

Oh well, I guess that's how life goes sometimes.

That's not the real problem, though. The real issue isn't what they have done, but how I choose to react to it.

I am going to calm down as soon as possible, and keep a good attitude towards the whole situation, and watch my own heart for signs of resentment, anger, suspicion or hatred.
[END VENT]

I think I'll start tomorrow.
For tonight I'm going to enjoy being mad. :D :p :p

Sorry to hear people are human in your neck of the woods too! Man sometimes it's pretty tough to swallow that bilge!

I'm confident that if they had to steal your ideas to make a go of it, then there likely isn't a shortage of ideas in your shop and they'll be playing catch up until they start being authentic with themselves.

I hear you Swamp.. mad is ok maybe for a bit but letting go is where the fun starts.
Take it easy bud.
Ian

Hey, I definitely understand your anger. It seems natural to be angry under these circumstances. What I'd try to focus on (tomorrow, when you start thinking rationally... hehe), is what can you learn from this? I find that when I actually take the time to calmly and rationally assess a situation, I can generally learn something useful, no matter what's gone wrong.

Yeah...

I can totally understand why you're ****ed. I've been backstabbed...then I got assertiveness therapy. You don't seem to have too much of a problem with being assertive, (hate to assume, but it's a guess), but you still got taken advantage of.

I find that if I do something really harsh out of anger in the evening, and go to bed, I'll wake up in the morning and go "What the &$*! was I thinking!?!?" Even if the person I verbally assaulted (or whatever) deserved it, sometimes, I just have handled it in a way that could have been handled better.

So even when I'm mad, I try really hard to go to sleep and decide exactly how or if I want to retaliate in some fashion when I get up the next day, and have had some time to let the crappiness settle into my psyche.

Is that hokey? Too "Mr. Rogers?" Dunno. Maybe. Thought I'd give it a shot.

Chrys

****but just think about the brillance of it all****

to know that someone believes that your ideas are so terrific that they would actually steal them from you. maybe you should go into the consulting business and get $$$$ for your innovative concepts.

(not to devalue your feelings, though) just to highlight your talents...

hope that you are feeing better today or at least you have put your feelings into a better place...not easy, i'm sure.

Dear Swamp-

"Letting Go" is a HUGE challenge for me...be it anger, resentment, negativity, depression, fear-whatever.

It's like my thoughts carve a groove in my brain-and the needle gets stuck in the deep part of the bad stuff-

When it involves a relationship where I feel I have been wronged, I've tried all sorts of things, with varying degrees of success...

1. I'll over analyze
2. Think up great comebacks after the fact
3. Wish others less than a wonderful life
4. Eat myself into a coma
5. Distract myself w/exercise/reading/TV/computer surfing/shopping
6. Cry and feel sorry for myself
7. Sleep (naps-great temporary escape)

Then, when I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, the one fact that usually gets me back on track is this:

Whoever ****ed me off/did me wrong/gossiped about me/rocked my world/hurt someone intentionally/cheated/lied/stole/got somewhere/something/someone without working for it

Not only got away with it-NOW THEY ARE MAKING ME PAY TWICE-because they are "living rent free" in my mind-

They are off on their merry way-enjoying themselves-and would only be too happy to know that I am tormented and obsessed about what they have done.

That's when I use my energy to save myself, and what's left of my brain-but it is only because I don't want the scum of the earth to benifit one iota more from my discomfort and unhappiness, by keeping me under their heel.

So I tell myself that there is karma-and as long as I do everything in my power to keep mine as positive as I can, that they will get theirs-and that my higher power must have had a lesson for me to learn to have put scumbags in my path. :(

It comes down to this, at least for me-I just can't let them have power over me by allowing myself to get caught in the tailspin-so I chalk it up to another day, another .02 cents-and I get on with something that makes me feel good about myself.

Sorry to go on and on, ad nauseum-but I feel for ya, Swamp-and I don't want those *&^%$ taking anything else from you, that you aren't willing to give.

*****Swamp comes storming in the door stamping his feet and pouting, and then sits down in the corner and sulks, trying really hard to make himself miserable by feeling sorry for himself********

*****Swamp comes storming in the door stamping his feet and pouting, and then sits down in the corner and sulks, trying really hard to make himself miserable by feeling sorry for himself********
Swamp, what they did to you really stinks. But I relate to what Deeperblue said. How talented you must be!!!

You feel betrayed because you were. I'm really sorry this happened to you, but soon you're going to come out of that corner and hopefully go on with life.....don't have much choice, do you, huh? ;)

Talented Swamp, don't be sad for too long, but know we all care. :)

*****Swamp comes storming in the door stamping his feet and pouting, and then sits down in the corner and sulks, trying really hard to make himself miserable by feeling sorry for himself********

enough! now get on with it: start creating some more good ideas. and anyway....
***you might even be amazed to discover that the thief-in-the-night is really a new love coming to steal your heart*** and that is priceless.

(or something like that---or maybe another good profit generating concept :cool: ...)

Well, they (You know who they are) posted their prices on their web site, LOL.
They are about 25% lower than ours, and we're barely making a profit so I know they'll go broke before long, hee hee.
They probably did some "figuring" based on what they "knew" we were making, and set their prices accordingly, rather than calculating their costs first and then setting prices.
My partner and I figure they won't last more than 4 months at the most. The guy who used to work with us is very, very immature so sooner or later they will have a falling out. :p
However, between now and then, we're expecting to see a drop in sales, but its hard to tell how much it wil be.
In the mean time, I've had a list of 12-15 products to develop on a dry erase board in the shop for 5 months and I haven't even started on the first one--of course, if I have time to do that, it means I probably won't have any money to do it. Darn!

There's the man we've come to know and love! heheh Fight!
Cheers! Ian.

Oh wow, Swampy that's aweful! but people like that have morals that will drive them out of business, even if they look good at first. I've seen this over and over again.
Don't let them make you bitter, we like you sweet ;)

Jonathan,
Man my emotions have been all over the place reading this thread!
I was mad right alongside you, felt consoled with all the posts and am learning positive how-to's for the next time something I cannot control really gets to me!

Business wise though I'm wondering if now might be a good time for you to do a mass clearance of stuff that doesn't move real well---if that even applies to your business (overstock?).

As far as your erase board projects I'm wondering how much info/training will you want to share with employees in the future?

This very example, I bet is why so many companies keep so many people in grunt type jobs instead of letting them learn and control alot more of the business operations.

Human nature sucks big time alot of the time, anyway! If what you figure happens 4-6 mos down the road you might just be purchasing some tooling &/or machinery at a good price.

So how are ya doing now? Is it just you and one partner or do you have other employees also.

Charlie,

I'm back to normal now. We have virtually no inventory; everything custom is built to order.
Right now, its myself, my partner and 2 part-time employees who are students at the Nashville Auto & Diesel College. They come in after classes around 2pm and work until 8pm or so 3-5 days a week. The bookkeeper comes in once a week for 4-5 hours.

My partner and I had discussed having employees sign a Non-disclosure or Covenant not to compete....we may do this now, may not.
Most of our sales depend on us being able to provide very technical information to customers, and only my partner and I have the knowledge to do that--there is now way anyone could learn the "answers" in less than 2 years--so, we take the phone calls and have employees do a lot of the actual work. We each spend 3-4 hours a day on the phone with customers.

Part of the problem here is we're in a very specialized business with a very, very small market base--high-performance diesel fuel injectors, and close to 97% of our business happens to come from one single diesel pickup truck enthusiast's forum/website, and they (you know who they are) are also trying to make that their source of customers.
We've never really advertised; just the local yellow pages, and that's only netted 3-4 sales in the last year; the rest was simply word-of-mouth on the formentioned web site. So, I think its time to start and ad campaign on the web site first, and mabye run a special or two, and possibly advertise in some national automotive magazines, but I also afraid of getting too much business, and that could hurt worse in the long run than not enough due to uncontrolled growth and no capital to finance expansion.

I have no ambition to grow to that extent but there are lots that do. There are people that specialise in helping companies avoid some of the classic mistakes that are made. Maybe it's time to look seriously at a business plan.
Just a thought.
There's nothing I'd like to see more than for you to squish that guy like a bug.
Cheers! Ian.