I don't really have too much to put down but I figured I might as well write something. Yesterday was such a nice and relaxing day. All I basically did was laid on the couch with my dogs and watched Netflix. I kind of felt worthless for doing so, but it was a nice change of pace and I really didn't have much else to do anyways. I started watching "Orange Is the New Black" just to see why it was rated so high, and damn, it was great. I ended up watching until the wee hours of the morning and then finished up the first season today. I highly recommend it if anyone is generally as disgusted as I when it comes to Netflix options. It's a really good drama/comedy, I suppose you could call it.
I found out that I will be without internet again when I make my move. This time it will be for about two months until service is hooked up. I'm sure I will be super busy though it would be nice to mess around for a while when I get home, but I guess not. So, heads up; I will be missing once again beginning around the first of September. Wow, listen to me sounding like I'm all important. =)
I received some disappointing news from the bank today. I was approved for a loan for my new venture and was lining up a day for final signings and to close. When I called this morning, I was informed that the loan officer who took care of me no longer works there. Sweet Jesus. Sounds right on par for me. I inquire about said loan and was told I would be called back by a gentleman. He phoned and informed me that previous loan officer didn't finish what they were supposed to. So, now I have to wait an additional week for the money. It's kind of a big deal as it's quite a large sum and the deterrence puts me at a bit of a standstill. I now have to cover, out of pocket, the necessary funds to keep things rolling with my appointments and obligations already set for next week. Things will be really tight though I should be able to squeak by, barely. The news left me a bit bummed out today, but what can I do. No reason raising my blood pressure over it.
I suppose I could embark on a past tale in the meantime. It was years ago, of course, though still at the restaurant I just quit, and when it was privately owned by a respectable mentor of mine before he decided to lease the building, property, and equipment back to the franchise. This is a bit of a kicker. This restaurant was so sought after by the franchise, I mean corporate REALLY wanted to purchase this place because of location, location, location. With all of the same restaurants within the state, this city was the middle meeting ground. But because it wasn't a corporate owned establishment, policy dictated that franchise meetings, training, testing, etc. could not be held here. They eventually started renting out facilities within this city to group all state management members and their chosen drones to be part of the brainwashing.
He did eventually decide, as he aged, to lease the aforementioned to the corporation. He showed me the real commercial property agreement. It was for $90,000 PER MONTH, FOR 20 YEARS. I mean, yeah, this guy had 25 years into making this place as successful as it currently was, so no doubt he paid his dues. The thing is, is that he was able to pretty much retire at the age of 49. His smarts and investment paid off for him and his family and I was so happy for him. He deserved it, fully. If you work that hard to make something flourish, you deserve to reap the rewards, and this guy was no slouch.
He gave me an opportunity to learn from him and after he trusted me, gave me basically full reins with only him to answer to. He was so impressed by my, I honestly don't mean to brag here but, detail to specifics, that he offered me my own decided wage. Yeah, he let me pick what wage I thought would be fair to me?! All he wanted was for me to put in 50 hours per week. This broke my brain quite honestly because I'd never had anything like this happen before. I set my own wage and ran it by him. He disagreed with my outcome and granted me quite a bit more. I think he was testing me at the time just to see what I came up with. I was granted salary though anything over 40 hours per week was also compensated by the overtime standard.
On one product alone, after looking over past inventories and simply re-evaluating pricing guides with vendors and options with allowed outside vendors, I saved him over 5K per year, for that exact same one product.
In the restaurant business, you can get the very same thing as a competitor, you just have to know what and how to look for it. For example, if I wanted to, I could get the same truly identical products from another popular franchise, granted they use the same supplier. And that's what's really interesting. The supplier you sign contracts with is just a subsidiary of a larger one, which in turn, supplies many other popular restaurants. They just use different names. So say you go to Chile's and you love a menu item. Chances are that the very identical item is available for other restaurants, just not brand named as in the Chile's contract. The same parent provider still distributes the same product to their subsidiaries, though under a no-name or generic name. It's the same thing as being a television station. Where ever you are from, you get NBC but have local news station called something else though they are an affiliate of NBC. Same parent, different local distributors. It's the same concept.
Blah blah blah, I'm off the trail again. Forgive me as I'm guilty of consuming a few Budweisers tonight. He eventually sold every right he had within this franchise for $2.2 million dollars. If you do the math...ugh. Seems odd huh? Something for all of us to think about. There are always extenuating circumstances. Hell, if I was 49 years of age and dumped my 25 years into something I believed in and made substantial profit from each year, I would do the same if offered a buyout of similar denomination. And then here we are; Corporate Nazis ruining the place with only caring about the bottom line. Meh, I digress.
I hope you all enjoyed reading my drivel, yet again, in another day in the life of a line cook (forever in spirit).
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