Royally P1ssed Off

 I know I shouldn't be but people are just well, stupid, dumb f***wits, ignorant etc.....

Let's take my online butcher.  I've had very few occasions to complain.  However when I do it is like pulling teeth.  Contact us on Facebook - I've done that and never had an answer back.  Use our Chat system online yep did that still nothing.  Use our chat on our App yes done that no response.  Email us, yes on both emails no response.  The only way you get hold of anyone is to phone them and maybe you'll get through.  Pathetic. Eventually I ring and get told my delivery would be delivered tomorrow - three days late.  No it doesn't arrive so I call again asking where it might be?  Oh yes sorry we had to deliver to restaurants - well matey it's three days late.  I eventually get the delivery only to find that some of it is missing so you've guessed it, you are meant to contact them as above. 

Well, I am cancelling my Christmas Order with them as I can't trust them and I'll happily tell them as I like writing reviews.  I'll go back to my other butcher!

So then my business partner accuses me of taking money from the business.  OK he's misunderstood what I said to him so I explain that our Agent who sells our stuff takes the money not me.  

I then get a letter where he's disposing of some of his shares to someone who has no input to the business, no skin in the game, in fact totally unrelated whereas everyone else has been "rewarded" well if we ever make any money as we haven't launched yet.   So he's giving 10% away and diluting his shares by 25%.  I've tried to call him as this erodes his shareholding sufficiently and to the point that I am now the majority shareholder but, for some reason he will not take my calls!  I need to make him aware of this as a duty of care.  So I've drawn up the shareholder stuff and posted it off so he can give a 10% interest in the business to his acquaintance but of course I am not really sure if he appreciates what he's done.  He's free to do whatever he likes with his shares of course, it's just he's gone from principal shareholder now.

Blow me down if I don't get another letter from this chap saying that I am taking him for a fool and not to do that?  I'm flabbergasted as I run the business and he really has no idea about it other than he is the inventor and designer.  He hasn't a clue about company law, accounting, insurance and agency agreements etc.  So here I am sitting writing this and wondering who really is the fool?

He's p1ssed me off and so where I've been working for sweat equity, I'm thinking why bother?  He's accused me of something that I've demonstrated is wholly incorrect (in fact there's no way I could do what he's suggesting) and he's given away his control of the business (in so far as a shareholder can - he's not a Director or an Officer) by diluting his shares.  

He's fulfilling the prediction I made maybe 8 years ago about the "self fulfilling prophecy" - another start up I was with had guys who had been burnt before and so they were forever telling us about this experience and how it had left them bitter.  You could tell there was something wrong and two of us were ringing alarm bells about these gusy but the rest of the company wouldn't listen.   They eventually just exploded and threw their toys out of the pram citing this problem they'd had in the past - it had nothing to do with our piece of business but they self immolated and left the business having not done anything except talked themselves into yet another failure.

So that's what's happening here, he's sat down and taken the business briefing I gave him as that of making him appear a fool.  I know I didn't do that but he's sat at home and brewing away with no one to check him and now he's blaming me for making him appear a fool?  

So be it, I need to decide where to take it.  As he's not answering my calls, there's not a lot I can do.  I've followed his instructions to transfer his shares, I've done due diligence on who they are going to and as I've been unable to discuss it, the transfer is now complete.  I wonder when he will wake up and realise how he has given away his interest in the business?  I wonder if he realises who the sole director of the business is and his position now he has less shares than I do?  

It's so silly, it's childish stuff really and the problem is that people don't "get" business, they don't understand what a limited company is and why it is there and they do not understand that I'm governed by company law etc.,  If he paid the very basics of attention when I showed him the books and if he could do a bit of mental arithmetic he'd realise that there is insufficient funds in the business to pay me anyway!  

So these two have p1ssed me right off in the last few days.  One will lose my business, the other has lost his business (or a great deal of it) and he's probably lost his business partner and director.  If he has to employ someone else to do my job it will come as a massive financial blow to him.  As for me. I'm actually happy to walk away, I really don't need the hassle of running a business at my age particularly with people who think I might be on the take or indeed doing anything other than working my butt of to make him (and the rest of us) richer.

It reminds me of another start up where the rewards were huge, lottery style money but the boos who was an oaf (some village somewhere was missing an idiot big time) was a greedy person and not a leader at all.  No one realised that to make lots and lots of money you actually had to work for it.  Another one who couldn't work out how to run a business and yet another company I had to resign from as they weren't trading properly.