The picture was taken in front of my business called Bums. I had this retail store for nearly 30 years and eventually added a wholesale section and another retail store called Catalog Factory Outlet. It was a long hard , hard, road working in your own business and I would never do it again ever. Especially now that the government is going to be taking most of what small business makes. This is not the time for venture or adventure. Thos of you who are working for a large company, the city, county or state or govt. be sure and keep what you got because the job market sucks now. That business I had went through some really rough times and some good times. It gave jobs to high school seniors in their first try at working, college kids needing their 200 hours to graduate, single moms with kids, and retired people who needed to work to keep going. We treated them with respect and taught them everything we could from cleaning, straingtening, putting up clothes and pricing and closing and opening and balancing out the register. Some were great, most were good , some were awful and stole from us. But they knew if they had a sick kid, we understood, if they needed time off, they could have it , and whatever else we could do for them from giving discounty to them and their family and even loaning a buck or two. We bought lunches, had birthday parties, Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas hams, we gave gifts and bonusus at Christmas and tried to accomodate the football schedule.
We worked 7 days a week, sometimes from 7 am to 9 pm and sat and sun. WE never asked anything of an employee that we would not do ourselves. We hired people based on what we saw in them and not what was in their past and we were rewarded in our trust. We worked hard and in the years we did especially well, our employees benefited also. In the years that really sucked, I went many months withous pay to pay them and the rent and the bills. Many , many times I covered bills and payroll out of my own pocket and it shows in the amount of soc sec i get now. Though it was hard, so hard, it was also great fun and happiness. They were family and on big saturdays, we took everyone out to eat for a reward. I would not be able to do that again in this economy and now it is taking a great toll on me. For years, I saved a little bit now and then and tried my best to help my family when i could. Now, the stock market has managed to crash and take almost all i have saved in my IRA and retirements funds. i don't know what the future will hold or if I will be able to make a house payment and a car payment or have to choose between ...the housing market sucks so much, its not a good time to sell, and the move again would kill me...i will be 69 next year and i am tired. i have been for quite a while, just tired of trying to make ends meet and it would be nice to be cared for but i have been caring and looked after so many for so long, I just have only one way to go, put my trust in The Lord and pray.
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