Business Break-up

I've tried to work with Sha business-wise ever since I arrived in Smalltown. He helps me, I help him, then we joke around. We make the best of friends. Business partners, unfortunately, we can no longer be.

In an earlier blog, I spoke of how one of Sha's soon-to-be evicted public assistance tenants came to property Chi to rent it Saturday. I told Sha about it and we had a good laugh. He had already won a court case to evict them, but gave them extra time to leave. (Once the judge rules in your favor, you can throw out a tenant at any time afterwards.) Yesterday, he was yelling at them for not leaving his property yet, and this is what he said:

"Ya'll really want to play that game?! I was nice to you mother fuckers and gave ya'll extra time and you still coming up with bullshit?! And did you really think that you were going to get an apartment that my friend, someone who associates with us, owns and runs?! Did you think he was going to save you? Ya'll must be on some shit!"

I looked at him and asked him what the hell is wrong with him, bringing my name up. What if they get pissed off at him and take rocks and throw it through the windows of property Chi? He said not to worry about it, and that they won't do that.

Of all the things that bother me about the way Sha does business, I can never understand why he likes to yell at and chastise tenants, especially those that are still in his property and will undoubtably mess it up even more. I thought he had learned his lesson when he was making fun of an evicted tenant a little over a year ago. She messed up the apartment so bad that it was unrentable for a year. I try to never bring feelings into business, whether good or bad. It's just never a good idea.

The incident may seem small but it's another example of how different Sha and I conduct business. Because of this, not to mention his crappy workers, I've decided to exclude Sha from any of my business. We were even thinking of buying a big place together and managing it, but our contrast in business philosophy would ruin that deal. As friends, we are near perfect. Whatever arguments we may have get solved in less than a minute with a few well-placed dick jokes. And who knows? Maybe in the future we'll be able to find common ground in the ways in which we do business. But right now I need to cut the variables out and stay focused on doing things my way.