Labor Day in the life of a Zee

Ever ask a zee how they feel about holidays?  Just what goes through the mind of an average person versus the franchisee owner when “holiday” is discussed?  Ever wonder how a zor spends their holiday? In the Americas, the word is “vacation”.  Every paid worker spends their year planning and imagining the relief those two or three weeks truly bring to the family and one’s own inner balance of family vs work vs quality of life.  In Europe, it’s holiday and it’s twice as long as the Americas because most Euro holiday packages are four to six weeks.  The European has come to expect holiday and due to the lack of opportunity, in some respects holiday is one’s privilege.

In the thinking of the blue collar or the white collar or the Euro or anyone else who has never truly owned and run a business, let alone a franchised business, there is no reference or association as to what a holiday brings to a zee.  Their impression is that a small business owner who owns a high-profile franchise operation must already be rich.  They do not know that the life savings and the mountain of debt needed to serve them their 15 second servings of fast food heart attack will never allow me to enjoy another holiday.  The reference of outlay at the onset of such purchase of franchises is referred to “sunk costs”.  Oh how bloody true is that depiction!

Here are just a few interesting problems of the zee during holiday:

• Workers are off, zee gets to stay and keep the doors open (bills don’t do holidays)
• Workers are off, doors have to stay open, otherwise the revenue of the holiday revelers will be lost
• If it’s a day in which stores are closed due to law, I’ll stay and catch up on books and admin as the workers aren’t in
• If it’s a party day where retail is open, I get to stay and help the skeleton shift (who bitch and moan that they have to work)
• Leading up to the holiday, everyone leaves early, meaning I get to stick around to make sure everything is set because I own this mess
• And finally, the schedules are all mine to own and fix and work with due to the fact that no one owns anything but me (the R word means nothing to the hourly worker)

And last but not least, I can visualize and imagine the wonderful times the zor is having attending special events as grand marshall (the honor and respect he purchased with my life savings and ongoing royalty abuses).  After all, his ad fund, his marketing fund, his kickbacks from vendors and his admin, his legal support are all coming from the money I gave, will give him and am generating while working over this glorious holiday!

Bloody

Jim Press – Gee, Great Name for a Zor Capo

Enter the infamous Mr. Nardelli to Chrysler Corporation.  You see, Bobby has never gotten over getting passed over for the much smarter and younger Mr. Immelt (even though Jack never knew Jeffrey would be so liberal in his ways).  He left GE in a huff and took out all of his aggressions on Home Depot.  After the board at HD finally figured out Bobby hadn’t a clue and Jack was right, Bobby weaseled his way into Chrysler declaring GE and HD were all wrong about him.

Once aboard at Chrysler, he steals Toyota’s hatchet man, Mr. Jim Press.  Now how do you think Mr. Press has figured out how to make the Toyota engine run so well?  With threats and manipulations of course!  After all, dealerships are nothing but a bunch of wussy malcontents and once you threaten them within an inch of their lives, they back off and sink themselves even further in debt.

A group of Chrylser (Jeep and Dodge) dealerships experienced Mr. Press’ wrath on a conference call in the spring when he shared openly that he knew the 30% who were holding out and where their kids went to school and where the dealership owners lived.  Yes, that’s right.  Mr. Press said those very words when 30% of the dealerships refused to sign for millions of dollars worth of inventory because they had lost faith in Chrysler, Chrysler financing and the economy.  Yet, Mr. Press is making money hand over fist, selling 15 million dollar condos in NYC and living the life of Reilly.

Don’t be fooled folks.  The elite have their ways and many of them cannot be discussed in the open.  Mr. Press was picked up by Fiat in a heartbeat due to his ability to threaten, coerce and otherwise bring in sales of inventory, force dealerships out of business (losing their livelihood set up by generations of hard work and labor) and make others buy those franchises thus sinking them into debt they will never see relief from in their lifetimes.

Recently, Mr. Press actually sent out a letter asking for the dealerships who weren’t forcefully closed to team up against those who were to throw them under the bus!  Shame on you Mr. Press.  The law should do a full court press on you and put you on the street or better yet in prison for destroying so many lives under the guise of  “it’s just business”.

I have one question for you Mr. Press.  Have you ever in your life had to lie awake at night not knowing where your next dollar or sale will come from because you were a legitimate business man living with the ups and downs of having to bear the long term responsibility for your actions?  NO!  You haven’t the intestinal fortitude to bear the consequences of your actions.  You’d rather take a huge salary and live like a playboy at the expense of hard working small business owners who pay your salary while you threaten them and their children.  Where I come from, that’s referred to as La Cosa Nostra or mafioso.  It’s not legitimate business and you, Mr. Press are a disgrace to this land, this marketplace and this nation.

Bloody

Getting the Zor’s attention

Visit BlueMauMau and you can read rants and arguments all day.  Sad to say, they are one of the few sites that encourage the criticism as opposed to so many others that spin franchising as an entrepreneurial venture (not!) and somehow are still able to sleep at night selling more and more displaced corporate or vets down the river with their silver tongues.  If you’re a franchisee who’s been destroyed, what else do you have to do?  You can bitch and moan and the lawyers will simply tell you you’re effed up because you signed the freakin’ document, idiot!  

Or maybe you’re a lawyer and you’ve finally come to the realization that you’re the one who is effed because by the time the franchisee figures out he needs help, he’s broke and you have no market!  And if you play both sides of the fence, then you have no say.  Pick a side or get the hell out of the way lawyers!  For you to continue taking even prospective franchisee money in exchange for due diligence on a single company is a travesty!  As I said in a post on BlueMauMau, what happens if the company is not worthy of investing in, do you then charge your prospective franchisee client another $5,000 to vet a second company to come to the same result?  

Maybe you’re a broker who is bottom surfing for that stupid bloke who is vulnerable and gullible and stupid enough to be so tight that he won’t pay a lawyer to do his due diligence for him and he believes you are dealing in “good faith”. Ha!  You’re all missing the boat and for those of you who are too stupid to figure out that there is no traditional recourse for the injustice, poor poor pitiful you!  If you’ve read this far and you’re not one of the three above, then there is still great hope.  The truth hurts like hell, but real people don’t let that stop them.  It doesn’t come without great sacrifice.  Put your passion to work in fighting the system the same way you fight to keep your business in spite of the wickidness of the franchisors we all have come to know so well.  See what Eric Schlosser says in the epilogue of Fast Food Nation:

page 268…When McDonald’s demanded ground beef free of lethal pathogens, the five companies that manufacture its hamburger patties increased their investment in new equipment and microbial testing.  If McDonald’s were to demand higher wages and safer working conditions for meatpacking workers, its suppliers would provide them.  

page 267…The right pressure applied to the fast food industry in the right way could produce change faster than any act of Congress. The United Students Against Sweatshops and other activist groups have brought widespread attenton to the child labor, low wages, and hazardous working conditions in Asian factories that make sneakers for Nike.

Are you getting it yet people?  No franchisor can abuse those who refuse to be abused when they show up in force and refuse in a position of unity and solidarity.  To continue trying to fight these things in the courts, class action lawsuits, contract negotiations or arbitration allows all the wrongdoers to hide in the shadows and continue their acts of evil against all franchisees.  If franchisees were to stop listening to those who point them at the court system or lawyers or other conventional stupidity, and start finding ways to expose the franchisors for what they are – con artists – and expose this to the press and the media with validity, there is traction!

Wake up America.  We didn’t earn our freedom trying to argue in the British courts, we took it by force and cunning.  Nothing short of this type of action will ever bring justice to a system that is corrupt, insolent, insulated and sheltered by politicians, lobbyists and government officials.   Reason doesn’t work for those who love their money.  The threat or the act of taking their money is the only option left in getting their attention!  

 

Bloody