A business about to collapse…

Many times when life would look so interesting and we feel like we are on the top of the world. But all of a sudden it would just have a turnaround with time and then we feel like life isn't so fair to us. Life has its way of approaching us. All we have to do is flow with the tide and make sure we have the best out of it.

It was around the beginning of the year 2022, I remember a time when I encountered serious turbulence from a so-called partnership in my bread business. The business was almost on the verge of collapsing due to this serious issue that came up between us. I didn’t even see that coming in anyway.

Toheeb was a tall and calm guy, just taking a good look at his appearance, you would feel like getting closer to him and getting to know more about his personality. But in the real sense, he might not be the calm person you think he is when you see him display his dramatic behavior right in front of you.

He is way forward and outspoken too. The aspect of him looking so pious might make you judge him as someone with a lovely soul. He would get to the mosques as early even before the time of prayers and this is where I get to have my fate entangled with his.

More about the business is that it's a business that has been passed down from our predecessors. Any corp member that is capable of handling the business would be introduced a few months before the senior corper in charge gets to pass out for service. This is to introduce the newly overtaking corper how to run the business successfully.

I was opportune to be the selected one to run the business. I didn't have any knowledge about the business before then. But deep down in my mind, I have always wanted to be a businessman. So since the opportunity surfaced I had to explore and give it my best.

How I met them running the business never got me so impressed, they ran the business a little poorly in a way that when I had to buy the bread from them for the first time it was not even fresh at all. The bread had a lot of crumbles in it and that was when I realized the bread might have been over 3 or four days without anyone to buy it.

I made my complaint and started making plans to work towards building the business again. Finally, it was handed over to me officially. Then it's time I started running it fully with my funds.

The way they ran the business was that they collected 40 loaves of bread from the supplier and then sold them over four or five days. So this is what made the bread have a poor taste to those who buy it in the last days.

When I came on board, the first thing I did was to change the pattern. I started collecting 20 loaves and then made sales over two days instead of five days. The remainder would be fresh as I used that as my marketing strategy.

Maintaining the freshness in the quality of the bread got me a lot of customers. The business was a boom! Rumors about me back then were that I shouldn’t hand over the business to someone else. But I just have to.

Toheeb was the next in line. I had an interview with him on his interest in running the business. I explained every detail to him and he accepted. That was no big deal. Not until a few weeks into the business. He changed his attitude. He won't come around to make sales anymore. And he would always demand his share of the profit. But why?

I asked him personally, but he started to snub me over that, and his reaction got worse like he was the boss in the business. I was frustrated to give up the business at some point, but I had to have patience. Then at the end of it when the business was about to collapse I told him to make a choice, it's either he continued the business on his own, or I left the business for him.

It was so hard for him to decide. All he wanted was a continuity of the toxic relationship between us. I had to quit then he also quit. After a few days, he wasn’t able to get a balance with the accounting so he stopped it finally. When you are good at what you do, people will always choose you over and over again. I had to take over one more time. I ran it successfully for months again before I handed it over to someone capable too.

The day I handed it over the supplier called and said to me “ You are the best we ever had” he hugged me and said “We will miss your presence so much” I was about to turn my back before he called me again and gave me two jumbo sizes of their fruit bread which was the costly one amongst their bread. I appreciated it with all my heart.