One of the thing about running a newsagents is that we have a certain clientelle that require their money to be collected from them. These are invariably the elderly who can no longer sprint down to the shops and I have given the role of cash collector to my grey-haired mother, who is very good at dealing with that generation of people. Plus it certainly beats having a 6′ bloke knocking at your door asking for money, which might come across as a little intimidating.
Anyway, we have a book of customers who have their money collected on a fortnightly basis and one of these customers has been a little problematic. The first time my mother visited the person took the receipt ticket and said that they would come down to the shop and pay. OK. No problem there. However, when she’s returned they’ve claimed to have paid the bill because they have the receipt ticket (the one they nabbed on her first visit). We discussed the issue in the shop and it was obvioust that this customer was going to be difficult, so I asked my mother not to go back there again. She had other ideas though and wanted to know when the lady named on the receipt was actually going to be at home and would try to get the money direct from her. When she arrived at the address, the porch door was open so she stepped inside and rang the doorbell. The man of the house appeared and all seemed normal, him telling my mother that his wife would be home at 6pm. Then all hell broke loose with the guy accusing my mother of trespassing and him physically pushing her (with her a slight woman at 62-years-old and 5 foot nothing) out of the porch.
So when I heard about this I stopped their newspapers and vowed that they’d not get anymore. No one assaults my mother over an unpaid bill and gets away with it. On Saturday, I expected them to arrive and the woman (who was never at home) did and I didn’t like her tone one bit when she began complaining and running down my mother. Of course, I stood there and did my concerned shopkeeper bit. You know, you nod your head, you agree and you let the customer think they they are right even though you know that they are lying through their teeth. I said that we’d clear the bill as a mark of good faith and leave it at that. But that wasn’t enough, the woman was threatening to involve the police as my mother had trespassed on their property and then there was the usual sob story: her husband is disabled and has angina and what if he’d had a heart attack. They also crowed that if it had been a man and not a woman, the husband would have hit them. Nice people…I don’t think.
You can always tell a bullshitter because they will rely on any disability as an advantage to get the higher ground. So I stood there and listened and told them to involve the police because if the incident was that serious it should be investigated…yadda…yadda…yadda, because that’s what you do when you deal with bullshitters, you bullshit them back. And so I got them calmed down and to leave the shop. With me nearly £20 down on the business and mother facing police action for “tresspassing”.
Well it turns out that these people used to run up bills of over £90 with the previous owners and was put on the collection round because of their tardiness at paying. Well that’s one customer I won’t have to worry about anymore. Luckily, for us, for every customer that cancels their papers (and there have been a couple for various reasons, mainly moving house) we’ve had three more sign up: so I see it as good riddance to bad rubbish. The problem though, when dealing with the public, is that while 99% of folk are honest, genuine decent folk, there’s that one percent that will try and fuck you up. I’ve put this one down to experience.
Meanwhile, someone wrote me a big cheque and it bounced all the way home from the bank. When confronted with the unpaid cheque, those concerned where the opposite, unconcerned. I’m very wary of people who don’t know how to pay their own way. One chance has been used up, I shan’t let it happen again.
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Today, rising at 5am, bringing in the newspapers and magazines, sorting the newsrounds and opening the shop for 6am. I have been trying to shake off a cold for what seems like forever. Yesterday, late evening, a customer was telling my mother how running a newsagents will kill you, just as I wandered into earshot. “Thanks for that!” I replied in my cheery demeanour. The fellow had actually worked in our shop many years previously and had been involved in newsagency for a while. “The stress will kill you,” he said as he left. And again I thanked him.
So this morning I had my breakfast at about 6.30am, the shopwork covered by my two staff. Porridge was on the menu and as I felt the last drops of the oaky conglomeration sliding down my digestive track, I felt a familiar pain. It was the stomach cramps. Wowser, these were stronger and more painful than ever before. I quickly took some peppermint oil tablets and a couple of ibuprofen and retreated to back, curling myself in a foetal position to numb the waves of gripping pain. I managed to drift into a sleep and had a fever dream where someone came into the shop and told me that the consensus of the village was that they wanted us to leave town. I grabbed said dream man by the neck and ejected him without ceremony.
I am thinking that maybe these stomach cramps are linked to stress, perhaps? The worst period of them was when I had a proper full-time and was particularly miserable. Coincidence maybe? Well I am currently worrying about the THOUSANDS of POUNDS that are owed to me by the village. You see, around these parts it seems perfectly natural for people to receive their newspaper delivery but not pay for it.
“But I demand a reminder, because I need to know how much I owe you,” they bleat.
They got a reminder at the beginning of the week when I sent out bills to every customer who hadn’t paid since the 1 October. I included a nice letter explaining how they could pay and that if they didn’t settle up in a timely manner it might affect their newspaper delivery. What else could I do. Some folks owe over £50 on their newspaper bill… Some folk didn’t like this last sentence, this threat, if you will. But how else can you encourage someone to pay what they owe. If they haven’t paid in nearly eight weeks maybe I should just let them have the papers for free? Anyway, I watch as the cash comes in dribs and drabs. Next week, a big bill needs to be paid and the money I am owed will go someway to pay it.
And so I continue to worry and wonder if I have done the right thing by buying into this business. So maybe it wasn’t that big a surprise that I had bad stomach cramps this morning. Somehow I need to learn not to worry and love my debt.
As the guy in the shop said: “Stay in this business for too long and it will kill you…”
Made me laugh…
The other day I took delivery of a brand-spanking new Roland VG-99. I resisted as long as I could, but when I heard that Roland had started shipping the units in early October, my resolve crumbled like four-day-old shortcrust pastry. I’ve had a play around with my unit and the modelling are certainly better than the VG-88 and hark back to the days of the original VG-8. The VG-99 is a treat to myself for all the hard work I put in with the move and getting the shop up and running. I can’t afford it, but maybe I’ll sell my old VG-88 to fund it. Who knows?
All I have to do now is reconstruct my studio…
This entry is post-dated because I’ve been too busy with everything else to get around to posting anything meaningful. Looking back at the old photos of Brady Avenue have been a bit difficult and it is easy to get sentimental about what you’ve left behind. Now I am living in a larger place, which at the moment doesn’t particularly feel like my home. Well we quit Brady Avenue on 25 September and the move was as traumatic as expected. On 26th September, I rose at 5am to start my career as a professional shopkeeper, all the while keeping my hand in as a freelance writer. Life is harder now and the money is still just as tight, but at least I feel I have a purpose instead of leading the self-indulgent life I had before. Such is the life of creatives – please yourself and no-one else, really. Oh the tales I could tell regarding running a shop, but this is a small village and people would soon get a whiff of my online bellyaching. Again, maybe I should go underground?
Anyway, this sums up the end of my old life. A before and after picture of Studio Lock (which at the moment surrounds me in about thirty different boxes – and every day I keep telling myself that this is the day I will get my gear back together. It has been nearly a month since I touch a guitar. Oh dear, I suddenly realise how miserable I am without all my toys surrounding me. How shallow is that, eh?). Tough shit, Darren. You made your own bed, now lie in it, sonny Jim.
Before…
After…
My firstborn daughter came into this world at approximately 3.30am on this day. Verity Grace Lock weighed in at 7lb 8oz after a difficult labour and was delivered via an emergency cesarean. I think you’ll agree she is beautiful and she made me realise exactly what was missing in my life. Even as I type this, the thought of her fillls me full of love and my eyes become moist with emotion. I love her so much and I love her mother even more for bringing her to me.
Today I nearly choked on my cornflakes for in the mail were two items of post that contained big bills. The first was the total sum to be paid to the estate agents: a whopping £8500. Wowser, I am in the wrong job. The second item was an application form from Menzines Distribution for me to fill in so that the newspaper delivery for our newsagents-to-be are transferred to me – the downside to this is that Menzies want a holding deposit of £3200. Ouch! So that’s about £12500 spent before I’d even finished my morning cup of tea.
Don’t fear. I have meticulously budgeted for this business and the house move and everything. Figures have been checked umpteen times and even though I shall have a hudge wodge of cash to spend on this stuff, at the moment I don’t have a brass farthing. Or as we’d say in the East End, I don’t even have a pot to piss in. Luckily, the agents fee will be paid on completion. I just wish the Menzies bill could be paid then too. It is fortunate that I had the foresight to clear my credit card bill last year so I have a credit buffer to pay these bills. You see, it was all a plan. Yup, I’ve been planning this for many, many years.
But this is just a little cash flow problem. Gee, I almost sound like a businessman already.