One of my close friends often reminds me of the Christmas Bauble episode which played out many years ago. It all started when my brother in law had a shipment of Christmas baubles arriving. The only problem is they were arriving loose in a container and needed to be packed into clear plastic tubes before being sent to the stores . I was asked if I knew anyone who would be able to do this job as it needed to be completed within 3 days.
At the time I was not aware that the business partner of my brother in law was so chaotic that whatever the problem was you multiplied it by 10. This guy who we will call John was so laid back that nothing was a problem and this was a mega problem yet when he discussed the job at hand it sounded as though it would be easy money to be made by whoever took on the task.
I contacted my close friend who happened to be in logistics and when I explained the job he did not hesitate and volunteered his services immediately. I think this job is a hard one to picture as there will be millions of these Christmas baubles in a variety of colors along with the packaging that these have to be packed into. These baubles will also have to be packed in sequence by color so not just randomly picked and packed.
Suppliers are all about cheapest price and some times to get the deal done you will accept whatever headaches it may cause even if it is purchasing an item unpackaged. I have no idea what the savings were buying the baubles this way or it was a timing issue with the factory which can happen. That same factory burned down 12 months later which was a good and bad thing as all the baubles that were not sold the first year were sold out due to a shortage of supply.
The story as I have been told many times started out with hiring a small warehouse facility for the weekend and he roped in his children and wife to help out. The container was opened and once they started moving the packaging boxes the baubles flooded out everywhere. he said it was so bad he was knee deep and his kids were waist deep in these Christmas decorations. John has no idea what hard work is as he is wealthy and has left many of us guessing and bemused how he ever made his money.
It was at this point he knew how bad this was going to be and he asked his business partner to come and help plus they spent the "easy" profit hiring extra hands which turned into a job of breaking even with no profit. The job took an entire 3 days with very little sleep and non stop packing. Warehouses are never clean places at the best of times especially those by the docks and they were covered in black dirt from head to toe. They had killed themselves to get the job done and there was zero profit when the job was completed.
He has never made me forget what I got him into and explained he could have said no, but he was money hungry and greed got the better of him. There was enough Christmas baubles to supply the country's needs for a good few years and I never asked how many baubles there were, but there must have been a few million of them.
Over the years there have been many other emergency situations created by John and each time he has asked my friend if he is interested in helping out and the answer has always been sorry he is too busy. That one "easy" job which happened to be not so easy killed John's credibility and we all knew to stay well clear of any favors he was asking for.
Next week my friend will be popping over and once he sees the Christmas tree it is guaranteed the bauble story will come up again and we will have a good laugh. No one likes putting their friends in trouble and he at least knows it was not intentional. He now has a successful business and has learned many lessons along the way.
