In it's heyday, The Farm prospered and the fields were green and rich with promise. The people in charge cared and worked hard, paid attention and invested of themselves. They planned and followed through, bought good seed and saw that it was planted and harvested properly. They paid their bills on time and maintained a strong reputation, produced the best possible product and sold it at a fair price. What they didn't know about crop rotation, they took the time to learn. They kept up with the times and the market by being involved, by showing up, by sacrificing and spending profits wisely. They kept their expectations reasonable and their standards high. They were always on call and ready to get their hands dirty when called for.
When the eldest son died and the father followed soon after, The Farm fell into the hands of the younger son who had never actually worked a day in his sorry life and wasn't about to start. He embraced the business for it's reputation and because it carried his name and he thrived on ownership and prestige, becoming more and more arrogant and proud, recklessly spending his inheritance without a single thought for the welfare of The Farm, it's employees, the people it served, or the future. He adopted new business strategies - coming in late and leaving early, making his drinking a matter of public knowledge, traveling to white water canoe trips and elegant vacations when The Farm was shortstaffed, bragging about his material possessions and buying more, always more, as if they could fill an empty and useless life and take the place of real friends or family. Alcoholism was soon enhanced with drug use and as his vanity expanded, The Farm began to suffer from neglect. Crops began to fail and profits fell off due to competition, equipment broke down and was replaced with second hand, rebuilt machines that came cheap and performed the same. Better and cheaper vegetables were available and farming entered a new age of grow your own and save. The younger son saw this and shrugged his designer covered shoulders, dismissing it as having no importance, as if The Farm could never be brought down. He continued his lifestyle unemcumbered by reality, letting the bills slide while staggering from one drug to to the next, from one anonymous, paid sexual encounter to the next. He became a joke and a caricature, strutting about like a proud, impotent peacock, refusing to see that the sky was about to fall. He made no concessions until he ran out of The Farm's money and discovered that loans were not as readily available as he had thought.
Against the advice of everyone, he bought a second farm and began to grown exotic and imported vegetables for which there was no market. It was new and flashy and completely modernized but no one came. He began losing employees and firing others, more bills went unpaid, inventory was not replaced. He turned a deaf ear to all who cared about The Farm's survival and dove deeper into a dark world of drugs and denial, planning a koi pond for his inherited house while his remaining employees looked on in disbelief, derision and disgust, leisurely traveling to this and that seminar or workshop, spending valuable resources and limited income for his own self gratification.
Meanwhile, Rome caught fire and burned to ashes as the economy crashed and the fields dried up. The second farm was summarily closed and it's debts went unpaid - the glitzy space gathered dust. People began talking, shaking their heads, and staying away. The Farm became obsolete, a step behind each advancement, holding on by it's fingernails while the younger son stayed home except for his party appearances and shopping binges. There were complaints of liquor on his breath during working hours, a DUI offense, and one clear afternoon he struck a child riding a bicycle on a neighborhood street. He had blackouts which he laughed off and took to bar sitting on Friday afternoons, drinking himself into a loud, obnoxious and preening daze before staggering home. The people who tried to help were put off by his vacant eyes and blank expression, his dulled senses and indifference and they began to drift away. When they bothered to speak of him at all, it was with pity, shame, even anger. He became a stumbling, sickly figure in search of self destruction, clinging to his self importance and consumed by vanity. He was avoided and finally written off, not even worthy of ridicule. No one believed his lies anymore and without their cover he was exposed for what he was. There was no more damage to be done except for the final foreclosure of The Farm.
What would become of him, a very few onlookers wondered. Who would hire him, assuming he could find or pass a test or job interview which seemed an exceptionally slim possibility. He was without skills, without experience, without integrity, without a work ethic. His manicured nails and pastel socks were unfit for real work and his only accomplishment was the ruination of a small business that had served it's community for over a half century.
When last I saw him, he was in blue jeans and scuffed loafers, an un-ironed and un-tucked in polo shirt hanging loosely on this sagging shoulders. His ever present briefcase was gone, his hair was badly gelled and there was, at last, defeat in his steps and an unhealthy pastiness to his un-made up face.
It has many names - comeuppance, reaping what you sow, consequences, accountability, justice. But it all comes down to what goes around, comes around. In business and in life, you get out only what you put in and there's no such thing as a free ride.
1 comment:
Thank you.
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