I have lived my life with very little empathy in most cases. Maybe I'm just hard hearted, but I've never been one who could look at various states of misfortune and think, "Oh, I'm lucky I'm not in those shoes..."
I mean, what are the odds that I would look at a drug-addict and think, "Wow, that could have been me!". The reality is that it couldn't have been me. I have too much respect for the rules. I have too little enthusiasm for tying one on. I don't even drink. Not that I never did, but these days, maybe once or twice a year, at best. I don't even finish all the pain meds the doctors give me. They do nothing for me. Even the ones that folks say are "the good stuff".
So, this plea has fallen flat on me for all my life. It means little to me. However, there is one exception. When I see a small businessperson fail, it tears me apart.
For some reason, seeing a business go under, and knowing the folks involved, is a hard emotional experience for me.
When I first bought my franchise, I became acutely aware of other small business owners. I struck up conversations with the guy who owned the local UPS store. I bought lunch at the local Roly Poly, not because the food was good (even though it was), but because I liked the owner who had told me a lot about his business and himself.
As I participated in various community organizations, I got to know folks who owned, say, the local car dealership.
I remember the time I talked with the guy who owned the Roly Poly and he said his store wasn't doing well. I could sense that he felt like there was a slow moving train bearing down on him. He just didn't know what to do about it. I ate there as often as I could, but it takes more than a $7 purchase to rescue a floundering restaurant. I doubt the total of the meals I bought there in a month amounted to more than 1% of his rent, alone.
I also remember the time I went there and the signs indicated that he was closed. Gone. I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to him.
I felt so awful for him. He wasn't that different than me. He had a severance from GM and bought the restaurant with it. Now, it was all gone. A once in a lifetime windfall, gone in the blink of an eye.
That could have been me.
Back when GM was going through its bailout request and they announced that they would be cutting their dealership network, I never, ever imagined that the local Chevy dealer would be on the block. He had a large, succesful dealership, or so it appeared.
In the days after the closures were announced, he would say he was selling more cars than ever! He was upbeat and happy. I presumed he was spared the ax.
I would scan his inventory of Cadillacs and Corvettes and say to myself, "someday, when I buy one of those, I'll buy it from Tom."
With the current incentives, I figured I'd go there and get a new pickup truck and maybe an HHR for my business tpo help with my '09 tax bill. Not quite a caddy or vette, but combined, they cost about the same.
As I walked around waiting to speak to his son, the internet sales manager (who had stepped out for a moment), it became blatantly obvious that they had no new cars on the lot. Just used ones.
So, I came right out and asked what happened. He said that they were in arbitration trying to get their dealership back from GM. I'm guessing that's not going to happen, and even if it does, if enough time elapses, they'd be building their dealership up from zero.
He had a perfectly profitable business that employed his whole family. Of all the Chevy dealers to close, his seemed an unusual fit since there weren't, as far as I knew, any other Chevy dealers in Monroe, MI. I have never met a nicer person in all my life. Out of nowhere, his business is gone.
Such are the frailties of hanging out a shingle and going into business, yourself.
Once I returned from the dealership, I was so depressed I had to leave my business and go home.
It doesn't help that I'm an hour out of Detroit. California may have comparable unemployment, but hey, it's California. It'll bounce back. I just can't think of any driving force that will bring back Ohio and Michigan.
There's a feeling here like we're being picked off one by one. Even my business is having some tough times. Not so much because of the economy, but because of some extended, unusually mild weather.
It's just not much fun being in business right now. I'm just hoping that a harsh Winter can save us.
Small businesspeople are not a sympathetic lot. Half the folks think we're rich and the other half aren't aware that we exist. When times are good, we benefit disproportionately, but when times are bad, we suffer disproportionately.
Small business has been an endeavor where I can make 5 figures in a single month... and lose 5 figures in a single month just as easily.
More often than not, we finance our businesses with our life savings and the equity in our homes. Most small business people I know, myself included, financed at least part of their business with a credit card at one point in time or another. We have no financial backstop. When we run out of money, it's game over.
When we run out of money, it isn't like a person with a job who runs out of money. We don't run out of money until after we crater. When we crater, it can take a lifetime to dig out.
So, when I see a shuttered business, I see a memorial of one of my fallen brothers or sisters.
I also take a moment to say that, at least so far, I'm glad it isn't me.
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