The Greater Business Community

Tonight I was eating dinner in the Cougareat, when I overheard a couple of guys talking "business." From what I heard, it sounded like one guy wanted the other guy to buy into a franchise of a pest control business? Maybe?

But it frustrated me (as a lot of things do), because of what I heard. They were just talking business. They used business terminology. It was one "percentages," "payscales," "front end," "back end," "deliver," "franchise," "return," and "ownership" after another. The whole language is tainted with money. The one trying to persuade the other into "buying in" went on and on about how great it is to have ownership in a company, as if that's all that mattered. His father's one dream in life was ownership in a company, a dream that he worked towards his entire life. It was so great, to have "ownership."

And the other was just interested in "what's the cut?" And the one explained that the franchisee doesn't get a "cut of each purchase," it was that the franchisee gets a "percentage of the profits," and that the rest goes to "management." The other asked what percent the one got, to which he replied, "it's confidential."

This is all I hate about business, and businessmen. It's what I hate about startups, about quick projects, and new operations. It's all I hate about real estate and person-to-person business. It's all I hate about The Greater Business Community.

It seems like businessmen are only interested in making profit, in moving product, in having ownership in a company -- any company. They don't care what they do as long as they sell. And they hop back and forth between so many endeavors, they don't really know what they do. I don't really know what they will see when they look back on their lives . . .

You know, I would even rather be making hamburgers and serving them to people than worrying about nickels and pennies, costs, deliveries, numbers, and statistics. I want my life to be filled with people, not numbers.