before ranting, allow me to take this opportunity to say that i really enjoy being a major part of coastal wave. it is an incredible experience.
unfortunately, it’s not working. we have grown exponentially since opening our doors a few years ago. i’m at the point of making a moderately comfortable living. we don’t have to compromise as much as we used to due to budget constraints.
all good, right?? well, there is one major kink in the flow of things… my dad.
i love my dad, but he has been a poor choice for a business partner. the company is still entirely under his name as a sole proprietorship, despite my unofficial ownership. we have zero systems in place for accounting, inventory tracking, scheduling… our billing system is very intuitive, but dad has a pile of paperwork from completed installs that haven’t been billed. that pile dates back several months. i’d enter it all myself, but being that there is no standardized paperwork or pricing… well, let me re-phrase… since he won’t use the standardized pricing or install paperwork that i’ve created and asked nicely to be used… well, there’s not much i can do.
his system of “organization” is simple. he puts things wherever, and he knows where they are. if they get moved, he loses them indefinitely. if he were the only person who needed to know where things were, this would work. he’s not. our summer intern did manage to implement a lot of organization in the office. him and i had a pretty good work flow. he’s gone now, and it only took a few days for dad to destory any remnant of organization we had.
and the last thing i will vent about… he fears technology. how can the principal owner of a technology firm have such a fear of the very thing he sells? he won’t… or can’t… learn anything. he still has to call me whenever he needs to add a dial-up account or an e-mail address. he’ll insist that i’ve never told him how, or that i’ve changed the procedure too many times. the fact is that the procedure hasn’t changed in nearly two years. since then i’ve shown him several times. once he even took very detailed notes. think he still has the notes?
it’s been a fun ride. i’m out.
hate to be an ass, but you really should approach your dad and lay down “this is how it needs to be”. not as father/son, but as business partners.
have you thought about switching things around? everything under your name and your dad more or less “works” for you? he wouldnt have to do much of any paper work. the drawback is you have to devote much more time in administration while cutting back the cool stuff.
no you’re not an ass. believe me, i’ve tried –many– times to lay it out. this is the cause of my frustration — it always goes nowhere.
you just have to keep impressing it with him.
that or invite him to sit down infront of a good lawyer and talk to him about it. if you mean business, doing that will probably impress that upon him
I agree with Duke. I’d sit down with a lawyer and your father and talk this out. It’s not fair that you’ve done all this work and aren’t seeing anything for your efforts. If your father’s the one that’s the sucky co-worker, then maybe it’s time to discuss other options.
I’m probably just rehashing what Duke said, but yeah. Talk this out, preferably with a moderator.
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