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I got a peep into an 18 year old’s game!

The other day I was sitting in the car warming it up. This kid comes up to my window and knocks. I didn’t know what he wanted, but I opened the window. It was daytime and I was on my block. He asked for directions. Ok cool. He wanted to know how to get to the biggest major street in the neighborhood. Everyone knows where this street is —  I would think so. He was young though, so I just told him “walk straight, you are going to walk right into it. It is where the street ends.” He asked a few more questions to be “sure” where he was going. I repeated the information. I figured, I would give him the benefit of the doubt, right?

Then he goes “you are pretty.” I thanked him. Okay, cool. That was that. Then he goes “would you date an 18-year-old?” I said “no, I could never.” He looked in my backseat and saw 2 car seats, lol. That will run a mofo off quick! Nah, let me stop that never happened to me before. But an 18-year-old? Yea, he better run. I have grown up shit going on, lmao. He goes “Oh, you have kids?” I said “Yep, 2 of them.” He started backing away from the car.

I went to the store real quick and got a parking spot on my block again. That is like winning a small lotto prize guys! Why was this kid still out here? He came and knocked on my window again. Okay, now. I thought play time was over. He said “can you tell me how to get there again?” I looked at him and said “just keep walking.” He was about to say something else and I pressed the window-up-button.

This was like 2 weeks ago. This weekend I was in bed working on the computer and my daughter comes into my room. She likes to sit on my nightstand and look out the window. There isn’t much to see. There is a house directly behind my building and you can see their backyard clearly. You can see some other backyards partially. Sometimes people play basketball at the house directly behind my building. My daughter was watching them play. I heard them playing for a while, but I didn’t bother looking. I don’t remember what she said, but I decided to look out the window. Guess who was playing basketball by himself? Yep. He lives right behind me and was asking me for directions.

Now, I have the inside look on 18-year-old  game. LOL.

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Update On My Business Partnership Pt. 2

During the last week of April, with pretty much no money in our account, Ann said she found a store for us to rent. HUH? Store? We can’t even get everything right in her shop. There was literally $150 in our account because I had just placed an order with all the money we actually had left. I didn’t know we were opening a store!

Ann and Pam thought opening a store right NOW — was a good idea. I thought Ann was just mentioning the “deal” on a store front. I didn’t realize they were dead serious about actually paying the first month’s rent. Let us not forget we were still out $2200. How on earth could this be the right time to open a store? Sigh. I was working on the website and before even launching the site, they wanted to just open a store front?! Why would we opt to pay overhead so soon? I thought with a $150 in the bank — this was outlandish. I voiced my concern. Instead of making back some of the money we lost, taking time to find out what happened to the money, or launching the site, they wanted to put more money in for the store. I was SO not interested.

Ann was very passionate about this store. She felt we couldn’t beat the price and I couldn’t wait for the perfect time. Um..Okay. I voiced my concerns over and over. Finally, she said they were both in and it was 2 against one. Fine. I am in. I have no money, but sure, I will ride. I planned on riding without putting any more money in though. Which was unrealistic.

Details on the store.

Ann knew the guy with the store because he sold wholesale products. She bought his exclusive line of products for her shop.  He now had a store and told her they could split the rent. The rent was $1300 for a store in Brooklyn. That was good rent. Fine. In all reality, I was just watching the foolishness. The deal: he had already paid April’s rent, we would pay May and then start splitting the rent in June. She told me all of this during the last week of April. Who else would have paid April’s rent? It was his store! She also said we didn’t have to pay any security or deposit because he already had the store. A “deal like this would NEVER happen again.”  Fine. I still wasn’t feeling it. After she said they were moving on this, I went to see the store on April 30th. It was fine. Just needed to be painted, shelved and minor things. He had the store for a month and had done nothing to the spot. He was literally waiting for someone to come along and pay to fix it up and pay the first months’s rent — in exchange for no security. Under the right circumstances  that probably could have been a good deal, but for me…not today.

Ann asked us to write-up a contract to sublease the storefront. Why would we write the contract? He is subleasing to us! Fine. He who writes the contract is in the better position anyway. This was ridiculous. I asked the guy for the lease. The lease is in someone else’s name; a woman no one has met. Um, with whom would I be writing this contract? This guy wasn’t even on the lease. Apparently he knows the woman who owns the store and the store next door. She was letting go of one of the stores. He made some kind of deal to take over the other store and pay the rent. He wasn’t going to alter the lease, because according to him, he didn’t want the owner to raise the rent under a new deal. He was going to pretend to be the woman’s nephew to the owner. This whole thing sounded like a story to me. But, who knows?! He didn’t want to pay the rent alone, so it seemed he went on a hunt to find someone to share the space. The lease was raggedy. It seems like he was bringing that shit everywhere. I have never seen a lease that had “dog ears.” Something felt “scammish.” He had not paid anything on the place yet. He claimed he paid April’s rent and we would pay May. May was actually going to be the first payment — due on May 1st. I saw the place on April 30th and he needed the money that day. Seeing as how the lease was in the “woman’s” name, how could I possibly write a contract between him and us? I asked him about this and he said “just write it out to me.” I wouldn’t waste my keystrokes. I told Ann we needed to write a contract with the lease holder and have her sign it. She said, “just leave that part blank and he can bring it to her to sign.” Then I said by the way, “what is this guy’s name?” I mean, I would need to know his name, if I were to write this fake-ass contract. She said “they call him Red, I don’t know his name.” Um, so….Should I put “Red” on the contract? She said “just  leave that part blank, so he could write it in later.” Am I the only one that thought this was nuts? Imagine having to go to court with this “contract?” LOL. I could just imagine Judge Mathis ripping me a new one. I love him and his show.

“Red” needed the money THAT day. He said if we didn’t do the deal THAT day, we wouldn’t be doing it at all. Fine with me. I thought this was some bullshit anyway. Who rushes like this anyway? Who writes a contract with someone and you don’t know their name? Who subleases a place and never even meets the person who actually has their name on the lease? “Red” was waiting for the money. I didn’t have any, so I wasn’t really concerning myself. Ann had to tell him to come back later, so she could go to the bank. I suggested she do a transfer. You know, have record of this payment! He also said “we could talk about how much we need to sell in order to pay rent later.” Why would we be having that conversation? Why would we need to know how much HE needed to sell in order to pay rent? That concerned me a bit. We were supposed to split the space. Which means, he sells his thing and we sell ours. If we cross sell for each other, who ever owns the product would get the sale. I really don’t care what he did, as long as he came up with his rent.

Are you wondering how this turned out?

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Scrumptious

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Is this Crazy or Romantic?

Could this be a NYC love story? A guy named Joe met a girl named Eileen in a bar recently, but when she gave him her phone number he copied it down incorrectly.

He’s now searching for his mystery girl Eileen by posting signs all over the Upper West Side explaining his situation.

Read the sign below.

Is this creepy or cute? Maybe Eileen gave him the wrong phone number on purpose!

We will see how this plays out!

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How would you feel if you were Eileen? I would be scared, lol. Then again, maybe he was someone she really hoped to speak with again.

What do you think? Is this guy thirsty? Should he have jumped out the window with these signs? Do you think they will meet again? I get the feeling, this guy is just walking around looking around for Eileen on the streets of NYC.

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Update On My Business Partnership

Some of you remember how it started. I decided to move forward anyway.

Here is what has been going on:

We were selling product and we were doing okay. We decided early on that we would not take any money/profits out until we reached a certain point. This was my idea. I thought everyone wanted to do this though. We all agreed it was the best way to build. How else can you grow a business? Every time we make a dollar, are we going to take out 50 cents? My view was reinvest every dollar back into the business for more product and business expenses. We didn’t put enough money in to be able to now take money out and still be able to reinvest a meaningful amount. You know? It’s like starting a little business with $500 and then taking out $500 when you get to a $1000. What’s the point? I was in this for the long haul.

About 3 months in my friend wanted to pull out her share of the profits. Huh? Okay, so if she did that, then we all had to pull profits? What would we use to buy more product? I thought this was a terrible idea. She said, she would reinvest half of her take to buy more product and keep the other half. Again, if we all did this, there wouldn’t be much left. Let’s call my friend Ann. We will call my other partner Pam.

Ann said she had always sold the products in her shop and that was her side money. Now, since we were are doing it together and not taking any money out, she no longer had that as an income stream. She felt like she was getting nothing. HUH? I was lost. She knew all the money was going right back in. I did understand where she was coming from though. When you are used to bringing in a a certain about of money and it slows up — it isn’t cool. But we were building something bigger. This was about a brand and a company — not side bread. I was beginning to think she and I were on different pages.  I was thinking long-term and she was thinking right this second. It is okay to think differently, but that can be a big issue in a partnership.

I voiced my concern about taking any money out yet. She still said she needed something for motivation. I guess. But, isn’t having a successful business motivation? I said we shouldn’t all pull out profits at the same time. We can do it one at a time, so there is always money in the pot. She could go first, since it was her idea. She could take out $1000.00, once we sold the new inventory and/or once reached a certain number.  We would take our cut afterwards. All of this was depending on how well we did of course.

Let me get back to how this turned out.

I was the one doing inventory and the books. I would give them an updated inventory sheet every time we had new products. I was figuring out the best way to keep up with everything. It was hardish. They were buying things and not giving me the receipts. How can I keep track of what we are spending? Product was also being used and not accounted for too.

Let me get back to how this turned out too.

We used a mobile card reader for credit cards. There were so many issues with credit cards! The girl (Ann’s Front Desk Person) who we were paying to take the sales etc, wasn’t swiping them to our card reader for various reasons.  She was using the Square card reader on her phone. When she did that, it worked out great. The money would go to our account and there was a record of the sale. We didn’t want her to feel obligated to use her phone, even though her data plan was unlimited. Plus, when she was out, no one else would swipe it on their phone, they would swipe it on the main card machine in the shop. That meant, I was constantly trying to keep track of the money Ann had to give back, because it went into her account. We bought 3 different tablets and they weren’t working with Square. FYI, if you plan on using Square as a mobile card reader, make sure it’s compatible with your device. I also have the PayPal Card reader, but Paypal take like 3 days to deposit your money into your account, once you put in the request. I don’t like that about Paypal in general. With Square, your money is automatically deposited into your bank account daily.  I finally settled on the Samsung Galaxy and it worked well. I tested it before even bringing it to the shop. I assumed all tablets would work with Square, but they do not. Well, Ann tells me the Galaxy isn’t working either. Now, I know I tested this thing and I had zero issues. What this all means, is a lot of credit card sales were going to Ann’s account. Ann doesn’t keep track, so we have to tell her what she owes. It was a pain in the ass; I know this led to miscalculations. We have no access to that machine. I go to the shop and try to figure out what is wrong with the tablet. The problem? Ann didn’t know the password to her router or which router was hers from the list. She was signing on to a free wifi and that had a limit on the amount of devices. She was paying an internet bill, she should always have access. She shouldn’t be signing on to her free wifi. That is for when you are away from your home/business. I figure all of the tablets may have worked and they just couldn’t connect them to the router.

Let me get back to you on how this turned out as well.

I hadn’t done inventory since our last big order and I figured we had A LOT of product still on the shelf. Ann was telling me we should be ordering more product every 2 weeks consistently, so we would always be in stock. That sounds like a great idea. But, based on the initial inventory and the money in the bank, we should have more than enough in stock. I don’t want to overstock and get stuck with anything. When I did inventory — we were short $2200 in cash!  I guess that is why it looked like we needed to reorder to Ann; the shelves were probably starting to look empty. In addition to the $2200, there was $1000 that was swiped to Ann’s credit card machine, her employee had 4 items that she was paying for in payments (never mentioned to us) and 4 items were damaged. Okay, I knew NONE of this at all. I am pretty sure there were more too. We were short over $4000 in total.  The $2200 that was received in cash — we NEVER received it.

Ann said she was going to review her video cameras with her husband to see what happened to the money. The problem? Neither of them knew how to work their system. How long would that take? Even if they figure it out, what is going to happen next? I just wanted to know if we were going to take the “L” in this situation. An “L” is a loss. That’s all I really wanted to know. Personally I kind of felt Ann should have put the money up and dealt with her staff afterwards. We are putting the trust she has into her staff. Once she figured out what happened to the money, is she going to fire or arrest her staff? No. Are they going to repay it? She can recoup the money from their pay, but how long would that take? Is that money going to make it back to the pot? It was just too many variables for me. Ann said she felt it was OUR fault money was missing. Yes, you read that right. We were to blame because money was missing from her shop. We should have done inventory sooner. Yes, we should/could have done the inventory. Pam should have went to the shop more often to pick up the cash. She wasn’t doing it, which was her job, so I would stop buy and pick up cash to deposit. When Ann left the shop everyday, she would take all of the money out of the register and leave our money in the money bag. Yep, didn’t bother to take that with her too.

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The WHITE HOUSE responds to JAY-Z lyrics!

This is hilarious.

Do you see everyone laughing at that woman? Personally, I loved it!

I like Jay-Z; I LOVE his story.

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New Jay-Z

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