- #1
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I finally busted a guy who has been abusing our [professionsal] friendship for years. For a long time I was pretty sure that this was the case - that he was a user and abuser - but I could never catch him red-handed. What really threw me was a job that he brought me years ago. It turned out to be a good job - ~$10K - and so he was ranked rather high on my list of partners early on. Even then I suspected that he only brought the job to me because he didn't realize that it would be so large, and that had he known, he would have taken it to another person [an old friend], but without any good evidence to the contrary, I had to assume that he was being a good partner. So, since then I have provided a good many hours of free tech support for him and his customers.
But after eight years the question one has to ask is this: What have you done for me lately? So, with great reservation I have continued to support him, and recently I met with him and a customer on what was supposed to be a good job. Turned out to be a sham where he was trying to dump his job on me; probably because he doesn't know how to support his own product. When I asked who was going to pay the bill, no one ever called back. So I called his saleman who said they would handle this but more was coming later. Then I learned through the grapevine what else had happened: They never went or called the customer back, and they left me looking like a complete ass who simply never showed up. This is about the worst offense possible in my business - to not show up.
What he doesn't know is that I already have another partner on the inside with his customer - a person with a large incentive to make my old buddy look like an idiot. :rofl:
Life for me is 90% trying not to get screwed. It is dog eat dog out there.
But after eight years the question one has to ask is this: What have you done for me lately? So, with great reservation I have continued to support him, and recently I met with him and a customer on what was supposed to be a good job. Turned out to be a sham where he was trying to dump his job on me; probably because he doesn't know how to support his own product. When I asked who was going to pay the bill, no one ever called back. So I called his saleman who said they would handle this but more was coming later. Then I learned through the grapevine what else had happened: They never went or called the customer back, and they left me looking like a complete ass who simply never showed up. This is about the worst offense possible in my business - to not show up.
What he doesn't know is that I already have another partner on the inside with his customer - a person with a large incentive to make my old buddy look like an idiot. :rofl:
Life for me is 90% trying not to get screwed. It is dog eat dog out there.