Follow Your Dreams

In my junior year of high school, my high school counselor asked everyone in our classroom during a career session, “If you could have any career, what would you choose?” He had us write submit our answers with our names at the top of the paper. My answer was professional chess player. On any given day, I might have written professional basketball player or major league baseball player. Professional chess player just happened to come to mind that afternoon.


A few days later, our chess team advisor, my Latin teacher, called me over after class. He said, “Your guidance counselor told me you want to be a professional chess player. Do you think that is a good idea?”

I replied, “I never said I was planning on becoming a professional chess player.”

“Why does he think that is your plan?”

“He asked us what we would do if we could become anything we wanted. What would we do to follow our dreams?”

“So you don’t plan on becoming a professional chess player?”

“No, I don’t have anywhere near enough talent to be a professional chess player.” I was a pretty good chess player on a very good high school chess team, but I had no illusions that I was good enough to have a career in chess. I continued, “It doesn’t pay that much money anyway. He asked a stupid question, and I gave him a stupid answer.” Follow your dreams. Just don’t follow them off a cliff.

Joe opened an Italian restaurant called Forno’s. Joe was not a client. I was a customer. He specialized in gourmet pizza and pasta. He hired my stepdaughter, Brianna, to be one of his greeters. The restaurant was in a strip mall in a unit that had several failed incarnations of Italian restaurants. Nevertheless, he had a ready-made source of customers, since the neighborhood had gotten accustomed to having an Italian restaurant in that mall. Once Brianna was hired, our family dined a couple times a month in Joe’s restaurant. The pizza was quite good, but the pasta was mediocre at best. The very first Italian restaurant in the mall had outstanding fresh pasta. None of the successor restaurants ever met their standard.

Joe’s management style was unique. You have probably heard of management by objective (MBO) or management by exception (MBE). Joe practiced MBYE, management by yelling at everybody. Our dining experience was frequently enlivened by hearing him screaming at the wait staff in the back room or dressing down the chef. He yelled at Brianna pretty much every shift. Nothing was ever right in his eyes. Shortly after Brianna began her employment, we noticed that payday was never on the scheduled day. After a few weeks, Brianna was having to chase him down to get her paycheck. He was always too busy to see her and give her the check. She wasn’t the only employee having difficulty getting paid. All the employees were having the same problem.

Joe’s staff was unique. None of them were ideal employees, except for Brianna, of course. I write that with absolutely no bias. OK, you caught me. Each member of the staff had some major life problem. Most of them seemed to have drinking or drug problems. I believe Joe was hiring people, who couldn’t leave. Their job choices were limited. He could scream at them, and they had no choice but to accept the abuse.

As a CPA, I quickly recognized that Joe was in financial trouble. A company not paying its employees is on the fast track to bankruptcy. Finally, Brianna decided to leave. She gave her two weeks notice. He told her she could leave immediately. For two weeks, she showed up regularly at the restaurant hoping to get her final paycheck. He could never be bothered to give her a check or even meet her. She was turned away by the restaurant manager time after time. Finally Laura and I had enough and decided to intervene.

We went into the restaurant with Brianna on one evening about two weeks after she had left. We timed our entrance to coincide with the dinner service to make certain plenty of customers were around. You probably now know enough about me to have an idea of our plan. At first the manager told us Joe was far too busy to meet with us right away, and that we should come back tomorrow. We told the manager very loudly we would wait for Joe until he was less busy. The waiting area in the restaurant was very small, and we were taking up pretty much all of the space by the greeter. We were making certain that everyone, who came in, would hear what was happening and know that we were trying to get Brianna’s paycheck. After ten minutes, Joe came to the front.

He said, “These teenagers aren’t very responsible. She just lost her check. In a few days I will give her a replacement after I know the check has not cleared the bank.” He then produced a check stub that showed a paycheck for Brianna. If not for the fact that I am a CPA, we might have bought the idea that he would need a few days to replace her check. However, I recognized that an accounting program, called QuickBooks, had produced the check stub. He could immediately go to the back and reprint the check.

“I see that you use QuickBooks. I am pretty familiar with that program. Why can’t you just go to the back and print her a replacement?” I asked.

He knew he was had and that we weren’t going anywhere without a real answer. My guess was that any check he gave us would bounce.

“Have Brianna come back tomorrow and I will have a replacement check for her.”

“We will be coming back with Brianna tomorrow at this same time. The check had better be ready.”

When we came back the next evening, he took us to the greeter’s station and opened the drawer of the station. He told us, “See, the check was here all along. She just didn’t bother to look for it.”

Laura said, “Stop the drama and give us the check.”

He handed Brianna the check. Of course we all know the odds the check had really been there and how much sense it would make to leave checks in an unlocked drawer near the front of the restaurant. Fortunately, the check cleared and Joe was out of our lives.

In a few months, Joe’s restaurant inevitably failed. The restaurant business is ruthlessly difficult and is probably the toughest type of small business to manage. First of all, the restaurant business involves managing inventory. All inventory-based businesses are complex. The restaurant business is especially difficult since the inventory spoils. Buy the wrong food or too much, and you are out of business in a hurry. Further complicate the business by being a jerk and hiring flawed employees and you will fail as surely as I can burn a steak on grill. Just because you can eat, doesn’t mean you can run a restaurant.  If your dream is to own a restaurant, go back to sleep and dream sonething else.

I had a great idea for resurrecting Joe’s restaurant. If only he had been a bit nicer to Brianna, I would have helped him. My idea is pure genius. A mile or so from Joe’s old location is an Asian restaurant called The Opera House. The restaurant serves excellent Asian food with a twist. While you eat, you can watch and listen to either Japanese or Chinese opera provided by a projection television system. No, I don’t know the difference between Japanese and Chinese opera. Give me a break. The food is great in any event.

My idea for Joe was, instead of showing televised opera, that he could show X-rated movies. The restaurant would be called “Porno at Forno’s.” That way bad food wouldn’t matter. Don’t steal that idea. I am trade marking it. This could be my retirement business when I get tired of the CPA business.