The moment I opened my eyes I wasn't sure if I was going to train or if I was going to be too productive today. My session today was a speed work session on the bike. Although I was really sore and could have done it, I've done them in the past when I've been this sore. The weather sucked, it was only 8 C out and I didn't want to ride indoors. All day I had an internal struggle with myself if I should do the session or move it to tomorrow.
I woke up late and got to work late. It killed my normal momentum, I like getting to work by 9:30 am, I didn't get to work until 10 am. Then when I got to work I realized I forgot my laptop power cord and when the power died an hour later I had to make the 45 minute round trip home to get it. That also threw off my routine.
I spent most of my day talking, work related and brother related. The first thing I heard in the morning was for sure the deal for another company to buy my brother Bob's company out of receivership is officially dead. My brother now says his plan is to take a run at purchasing two of the divisions within the company out of receivership with some partners.
The deal not going through is good for Al, as Bob won't try and go after his accounts, not that he even had a chance at getting them. If Bob doesn't get the divisions of GB and Dave's Quick Print, he's unemployed. I spoke to Garth Evans, Bob's best friend growing up, each were best man's at each others weddings. Garth is also a partner in Printcrafters and for years has been upset with Bob's management style. I was calling Garth on a different matter, we have the same lawyer in Winnipeg and I got an email that he's on indefinitely leave, I wanted to know if Garth knew what was up.
When I got a hold of Garth he too was concerned and no one was giving the answers. I think it's probably time I move my lawyering to Ontario and officially have all my business moved. It's unfortunate my Winnipeg lawyer is great to deal with and it sounds like he must have some sore of major, if not terminal illness or he's got a mental illness.
Garth mentioned he heard from a third party that Bob was in receivership, he said he got a letter from a division of the company that does his business cards. I spoke to my brother later in the day and he said Garth found out from my dad, Bob figured my dad was gloating about it. My dad has always criticized Bob about how he runs the business and although Bob did run the business poorly, he didn't take the fatherly loving approach. As with me, my dad wants to dominate and constantly criticizes his kids if he doesn't see perfection. I told Garth I no longer speak to my dad. Garth said that's sad, in a way that I think my dad may have said something. I told Garth if I never speak to my dad again it wouldn't bother me.
Garth was mad at Bob and is still suspect of the fraud that took place that was a key reason for the bankruptcy. According to my brother in a 3-month period he extended credit to a guy out of the states who used an alias and then disappeared leaving my brother with a $2.7 million dollar receivable. When my brother first told me about the situation he said it was $1.4 million and by the time it came to the attention of the shareholders and it was looked at closely the debt ballooned up to $2.4 million and then to $2.7 million. Bob didn't call the RCMP in or get the FBI involved and was forced to by the board of directors. He had all the files and happened to be taking them to Palm Springs for a board meeting and had a shoe shine and by chance left them at the shoe shine stand and when he called back they were gone. Now there was no paper transactions of the deal. Everyone started believing Bob was part of this and embezzled the money some how, who gives $2.7 million dollars credit to someone they DO or don't know.
Bob end up talking to the RCMP and told them the story, stood by it and the investigation was dropped to do lack of hard data, according to Bob. When the shareholders and employees heard about it, everyone was livid and blown away. All the employees and suppliers have been talking and there are some other theories of what happened out there and all are suspect and point to Bob's involvement.
Even with the fraud, Bob also blames the sales going down as one of the key drivers. He said he rectified the Fraud and had the sales not dropped the company would still be fine. He also acknowledges that he is the president and is ultimately responsible in the end. Frankly, for the past few years he's been asleep at the switch and two years ago when he came to my house for thanksgiving I kind of knew something was up.
The next night, Saturday, I went to bed or passed out earlier in the night and it was just Bob and Alice down in the Pig & Whistle and Bob started the same conversation that I should come work for him and I'm going out of business, he'd seen the financials, and that Alice needed to convince me to come work for him. He started screaming at her. It was so loud that my Parents who also travelled to visit us for Thanksgiving could hear it on the third floor at 2 pm. He ended up screaming at Alice so loud and pointing his big fat finger in her chest. Alice ended up diffusing the situation by distracting him with his girlfriend Darlene and put him to bed. The next morning Bob said nothing as if he didn't remember what happened last night. Which he probably didn't.
At that time I figured he might be in trouble and he intuitively knew it. He had gained a lot of weight, he hadn't hadn't his finger on the pulse of the business, he was believing his own press clippings from the industry magazines that had him on the covers and he hadn't spent much time at work. He also had an extremely bad back that kept him in the house and taking all sort of pain medications including Oxycontin.
It didn't matter, there was no way I'd work for Bob, his management style is the worst. There is a lot of yelling, bullying and even the production manager in the plant is similar and at times yells, berates and kicks garbage cans. I'm a shareholder of Printcrafters and about 8 years ago was on the board of advisers trying to help Bob bring more professionalism to his business, Al was also at that meeting. Bob started the business from scratch, on only a grade 10 education and grew it very successfully for the first 10 years. He called the group he put together a bunch of "lunch pails" and was proud of that term, like it was the guys everyone looks down on showing the world they ain't stupid and their rough and tumble unorthodox style works. It was something that drove everyone crazy, including Al. Al came from a large corporation and knew what a well run and professional organization looked like and what he say at Printcrafters disturbed him, as did it all.
At that time I put the hammer on Bob in the board room and he resented it. I will admit I went overboard and didn't treat him like a brother. I gave it to him with a baseball bat to the face. After that meeting our relationship soured and after a while I realized that if I want a brotherly relationship with Bob I need to consider my investment as non existent. The one thing my brother did do in the first 10 years was pay 10% interest on all the share holder loans and paid them all off, so in fact with the bankruptcy, none of the initial investors lost any money, unless they put more in after the initial investment. After I made that decision to be his brother, and I told him what I was doing, our relationship got back on track.
My dad, who was also a shareholder, never took my approach and continued to push for things like regular financial reports and was down on Bob with the major shareholder, an 80 year old successful Jewish Businessman who was said to have made over a billion dollars during his career before giving it away to his children. He was also a partner and still is a partner in Embassy, which I'm no longer, I sold my shares last year. It was the best move I ever did, getting away from the guys in Winnipeg. Winnipeg is a small City, more like a town, very gossipy and slow moving. There is a reason that Toronto is the hub of Canadian commerce and Winnipeg never changes. Al is originally from Winnipeg and is so looking forward to cutting all ties.
Between the phone conversations with Al and Garth and then discussing the situation with Johnny and then having a conference call with another group of guys that want me to start an online Yearbook Business with them, I didn't get the pricing proposal done that I wanted to for a potential client. I didn't feel like doing anything. It's also driving me crazy that I haven't heard back from Wayne about getting together to discuss my compensation. The unknown is a killer.
Instead I decided to bail. The weather, the soreness and the mind gave me the justification. I figured that I've done over 16 hours of training over 4 days and taking a rest wouldn't hurt. I also didn't want to do a garbage speed work session, I'd rather be stronger physically and mentally and give it the best I could.
Jamie emailed me and asked me if I wanted to go out for dinner and a movie. No I'm not gay. We went for dinner to the Tin Cup with his daughter Alex and then we went to the movie Your Highness, which would be a great movie if you were "High"ness. I almost bailed on the dinner, I was so tired. I was glad I went, after the movie I felt much more refreshed, movies have that effect on me.
When I got back I spoke to my brother. He is so delusional. He told me he put a bid in on the company and it's clean, no conditions, except he needs approval from the landlord and Xerox for credit. To me, that's a couple of conditions and not a clean deal. I also found out that all this time he was talking about putting a deal together to purchase the company from the bank at a reduced rate before the receiver came in. Essentially the bank would have to take a haircut on part of the debt. He said the bank wasn't responding and didn't know why at the time.
Last night I find out that the bank ask to see the money was in place based on his proposal and where it was coming from. My brother said he don't know where it's coming from but if you accept the proposal he'll go out and raise it. No wonder the bank was interested, they don't do business like that. If they are going to accept a proposal they want to know the deal will be closed and having the money shows that Bob is serious. With my brother you get constant half-truths.
There is so much more I'll probably write about my brother and this deal, I definitely want to remember it. He still thinks he's on top of the world and was giving me shit about something last night and it was money related. I told him that he should be so lucky to get half of what I'm going to negotiate for myself with AG. He laughed in agreement.
Bob is super mad at Al. With no cause. He thinks Al does nothing and has become rich off his back and didn't bring in the sales that ended up bankrupting the company. Again, delusion. He doesn't understand the relationships Al has with his customers and is grasping at straws. As a friend, Bob is prepared to eat his young and doesn't value any personal relationship. Al and Bob have been friends since they were 15 years old, Al was in his wedding party and they have worked side by side for 16 years. Al sold close to 7-million dollars at the peak. None of that matter to Bob. As I mentioned in the past, I don't believe Bob has any empathy or loyalty to anyone.
On the training front, my biggest workout today was putting on my compression tights, they are so damn hard to put on, I wore them all day and night. I was also happy to see this morning I weighed in at 186.0 lbs. I'm really hoping I will get down to 183 lbs or less before St. George.
Oh, one last thing about my brother, who contrary to all the comments I make about him, I love dearly. People are so mad at him at work, I was sent a picture of what they put on the upper right hand corner of the Lean Manufacturing board, which says "Bob Payne is Shit". The sad part is, when I ask him how the plant feels about everything, he says it's fine. I specifically asked him about one employee and partner, Colin, who Bob asked if he wanted to put in money and make a play for the company and then told Bob, "Why would I ever want to be a partner with you again!!!" He did it in front of other employees and afterwards walked away. When I asked him about Colin, Bob said, it's good, we went for a beer together not that long ago. He has no clue what's going on.
The saga continues....
Rest Day - Put on Zoot Compression Tights.
186.0 lbs.
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