Somebody stop me....

[catnapper]

before I strangle somebody!!!!

OMG... I don't think I've ever been this angry! Last week I vented about my "boss" who is using and abusing me. She is absolutely clueless about running a business, and its becoming increasingly obvious that she SHOULD NOT be running a business!

A little background first: I've been speaking to the installer who also works for my boss and he said she has not paid him for a big project yet, despite the fact its been installed for 30 days already, so there's no reason to not pay him. She (the boss lady from he**) REFUSES to pay him because SHE has not been paid by the client yet. I spoke to her today and said that its not the installer's fault that she hasn't been paid... and she reluctantly agreed.

The salesperson on the project just called me. The boss lady from He** told him that because HE was going to share HIS profits on that project with ME, SHE was going to take out a loan to pay the installer, and use MY money to pay the interest!

What profit money, and why am I so mad???? A few months ago when I started working on this project the salesperson said that when the job was over he'd like to split the profit from the design fee he charged the client. It ended up totaling nearly $2,000 clear profit in the project..... and I'd get HALF of it. OMG OMG OMG... and now she wants to take it ALL to pay a LOAN that SHE needs to obtain because SHE does not have the cash flow?

OMG --- if she even tries to talk to me right now, I won't even be able to pretend to be civil. So somebody, PLEASE help me calm down and formulate a plan to rid myself of her for good and build my business in another direction. This woman is poison and its getting worse. She sucks up my energy, my time, my talent.

God, I feel so trapped. She is my PRIMARY client right now. All other clients only amount to MAYBE $200 a month. I can't live on that. I wish I could so I could tell her to leave me out of her little drama.

[joycenalex]

...psst...could i deliever a cream pie to her? swok!!
she's a real piece of work that one, geez!

[Laura's Babies]

Lets wait and see if that is indeed what she sctually does... THEN if it is.. I would let her have it with everything I got in me! If that is YOUR money and due YOU, she dare not touch it or I would see her in COURT!

She sounds like a FLAKE, a very toxic person and I would get away from her as fast as I can..... and WHO would she steal the money from when backed in a corner by you so she could pay you?

She is doing this because people ALLOW her to do it! You will be replaced and so will everyone else with someone new to do this to. They always find a new patsy to pull this stuff on.

Get her OUT OF YOUR LIFE ASAP!

[Pawsitive Thinking]

Nah! Strangle her - I'll tell them you were with me

[Tubby & Peanut's Mom]

Have you got any kind of contract on the job or anything in writing or anything like that? If so, there is no way she can legally take your money to pay interest on her loan.

As electrical contractors, we run into this type of scenerio quite often. On our big jobs, our subcontractors know they will only be paid when we get paid. During the construction period this usually isn't a problem because we normally have regular payouts. But when it comes to the final payment - which, by the way, is retainage where the owner withholds 10% of every payment until the very end and then when everything meets with their approval they release the accumulated 10%, which sometimes can run into the 100's of thousands! But anyway, there are more details I could bore you with about this, but the point is this is all done under contract and everyone understands this is the way it's done from the very beginning so there is no question about it. Oh, and material suppliers are paid in full once a month so they are not held to the "when we get paid" process like subcontractors are.

So, if you have some sort of legally binding document, it will be extremely helpful. Also, how and why does she know the salesperson is/was going to share his profits with you? That sounds to me like it should have been confidential information between you two and she shouldn't have known about it in the first place.

Sounds to me like, unfortunately, you are learning about all this the hard way. Being a "contractor," you should always have some sort of written contract, even when dealing with friends. For smaller jobs, we submit proposals that, when signed, are considered contracts so even on small stuff we are legally protected. Probably the best thing you could do is sit down and discuss your feelings with her. Let her know that her business is important to you, but you are not going to put up with her crap. You are probably very important to her business also, so hopefully she will listen to waht you're saying and try to make some changes. In the meantime though, do whatever you can to expand your client base so if/when the day comes, you can just dump her like a hot potato and not look back!