Nagging...

Looking forward, I really hope I can say goodbye to all the sadness & unhappiness that I had experienced.

The recent betrayal by a friend really made me unhappy. He was a good friend of mine. I treated him as if he is my own real brother. Earlier this year, he suggested a business plan to open a cafe concept restaurant. He had asked a few friends and myself to invest in the business. Discussions went on and on... In the end, 3 other friends who knew him for 10+ years and myself had came to an agreement to invest in the business.

The terms was to invest the money and we will all be sleeping partners. He(manager) will be the one to run the show. We will check through all the account books to make sure everything is running properly. It was back in June, we were so happy that everything was up and running. Although we were not the one who ran the show, but we did play our part in bringing this little baby of us to this world.

Operation ran well at the beginning... Everything started to get weird after a month. Business was pretty good. Coz, the chef was really good. The manager fired the chef and his helper for some reasons that I still unable to find out up til today. Then, the manager closed the cafe for renovations that took 3 weeks. All these happened without notifying all the other share holders.(disappointment = +2, let's make 10 the max point =,=")

After the renovations, cafe ran for business for 1 week+. Then, closed for the reason of he needs to go KL to collect some information to improve the business. (Finally, I was informed earlier...) He told me he will need 4 days to be in KL. Cafe will be opened on the day 5. I agreed, other share holders respected my decision and agreed on this too.

Day 5 was actually Hari Raya eve. I was informed by other share holders... He was back in town, but the cafe was still closed. I asked him why, he said business was bad, he was trying to safe costs on the operation & utilities. And he had asked me to go for a meeting to discuss about the business. (disappointment = +4)

It was on Raya 3, I finally had time to meet up with him and other share holders to discuss about our business. He brought up the issues on man power and how much effort he put in for the cafe. I had actually asked for 1 very simple request. I wanted to see the account books. The reason was simple, because he had requested help from us (more funding, permission to do extra changes on the renovations and other stuff). As business partners, we needed to know how was the business, how much funds we still have. Before we actually make any decision.

And yet, he was only able to provide us with 2 plastic bags of cash register machines printouts of daily sales summary. 2 big ring files & another plastic bags full with all the cash bills, invoices & receipts for all the expenses. (disappointment = +6)

The other share holders had asked me for another meeting on making decisions without his presence. During the meeting, they had feedback to me regarding all the operation & management issues they had observed during my absence (I am based else where). A lot of things went very wrong according to him. I had spoken to other friends who went to the cafe before. They had confirmed the statements from my other business partners... (disappointment = +8) I wanted to actually defend him, coz I had trusted him for so long... But, I couldn't...

The meeting brought out only 1 result. It's either he is out of the business or us. I became the communication man for the both parties. Coz, they couldn't talk to each other anymore... He made up his mind. And agreed on passing everything to me on the following day. I felt guilty... (disappointment = +6)

The next day, I met him up, picked up all the documents, petty cash, keys etc... We agreed that everything will be calculated and split his share out to return to him. I felt sad...

Few days later, calculations completed. Total income and expenses doesn't tally with our total invested amount. I was shocked... This only shows that he cheated on us. We were the friends who trusted him as much as a family member. (disappointment = +10)

Last weekend, I had requested him to give me an explanation(face to face, just the 2 of us), I was still hoping he had missed out some other expenses that were not included in the records. He didn't answer me, he was still saying a lot of things that I didn't want to hear. I requested him to meet with other partners. He wasn't able to give me a confirmed time or even date... In the end, I went for a few drinks... He went separate ways....

During my drinking sessions, he finally sms me that he would like to meet the others and have some discussions. I was tied up that time, so I told both parties to meet up first. I will be there asap. When I reached the meeting, I was informed that he had admitted that he had never took his part of money out. He cheated on us on the very first place.... (disappointment = 10 + 100!!!)

Stories went on and on... But, I don't wanna talk about it anymore... I was hurt... I am still feeling the pain, there were anger deep in my heart... But, in the end, the sorrow, the sadness took over my anger... I don't know how I am going to face this man anymore...