Pay Up Or Give It Up

There are many hats that you wear when you work for a family business. Some of the jobs you do are simple and some are complex, but each job has to be completed so that you thrive and prosper.

We went to some of our customers homes and collected their payments on the weekend (Saturday) as well as early morning and evenings. Some customers worked during the day and we made it easier for them to pay by coming to them to collect their payments.

I enjoyed meeting the same customers every month and talking with them. You would hear some amazing stories as well as excuses as to why they didn't have their money.

This was easy compared to repossessing the merchandise when they would get behind several months on their payments.

One particular story is on my mind today;

It was a Monday and my cousin (Doug W.) and I went to this customers house to either get all of the back payments or the merchandise. The ladies car was in the yard near the back door and you could smell lunch cooking on the stove as we walked up to the front door. Doug knocked several times on the door and then hollered is any body home, there was no answer.

Doug looked over at me and said, "would your mother leave the house with the front door open and the screen door unlocked and food cooking on the stove." I laughed and said, "no, but then thought about my mother leaving things on the stove cooking when we went to Sunday service." Then he said, "but it's lunch time and I know someone is at home, so he opened the door and walked over to the sofa that was in the living room and pulled it out from the wall and there was the lady of the house hiding behind it." Then Doug said to her, "Are you just resting, or hiding." Then he turned to me and said, "grab the other end and we will put this on the truck and then get the stove and we can be on our way." I looked at him and said, but she has lunch cooking on the stove." He said, but we have orders to get the sofa and chair and the stove and refrigerator and unless they pay the back payments we will have to take it with us. The lady came up with two of the payments and promised to have the other payment on Friday of that week.

We took the two payments and let her know that we would be back Friday for the other payment or the merchandise, and when we knocked that she needed to answer the door.

I went back on Friday and she had the payment and  also the payment for the next month as well. I was glad that we didn't have to take back their merchandise.

P. Waters