Bye bye $5,000,000 it was nice knowing you

The first day of my college internship was rough. I had the flu. I showed up at 830am and my job was to phone 750 people and ask them to attend a special event featuring a popular Canadian celebrity. I was coughing, sneezing, and just generally didn’t even feel good. I did my job like a man though, I did a good job. I did a great job. Every day. It was tough because I was working full time and the internship took up 3 full days a week. I still don’t know how I pulled any of that off. But at the end of the internship I had several new job offers from impressed people.

I’m taking an art class in south Mississauga, in a community centre. I’m watching a great new show called Veronica Mars. When I come home from art class my routine includes broiling rainbow trout, with my secret ingredient (mayonnaise).

Today I feel like a big fat loser.

The consulting project I started in 2003, the one I busted my butt to make a big success, has been bringing in regular pay ever since early 2004. Nothing big, just enough to live off of and give generously and reduce my debts little by little. Around that same time in 2003 I met an up and coming player in the industry, and we struck up a written deal where I would receive a royalty for customer acquisition which is the most expensive kind of project. We wrote a solid contract and I signed it, and today I realized he didn’t sign his portion.

I amassed several thousand customers, contracts signed and delivered, and acquired tens of thousands more potential customers contact info and handed it all over to seal the deal. I worked like a madman for what, 2 years straight. I put everything I had into this. I would earn at least $5,000,000 over the course of 10 years, possibly more. I was going to use the first $400,000 to become completely debt free. Heck I even prepared 25 gift baskets for people in anticipation.

After I turned in my hard work, my associate had a change of mind and decided to keep my work, and all the money to himself. His newly formed company will do very well. Of course I didn’t find any of this out until I got a phone call from a large, international corporation telling me about this new direction.

I was in a meeting at Derry and Goreway with my head hung low, and the lady in charge
approached me and tried to encourage me to sue. She was more upset about the whole thing than I was. I don’t even know how she knew about the whole thing. Maybe I’ll get upset about this later on, it’s just that right now I don’t have the resources to fight it. How do you fight a big corporation. How much does that cost?

It’s not the first time I got played. Back when I was 18 a man in Burlington claimed to be a potential investor in a project I was leading, he requested a detailed business plan including a list of suppliers and partners, which I happily personally delivered to him. Turns out he was the father of one of my main competitors and the project fell apart immediately after.