It makes you wonder.

I have to wonder sometimes exactly how the universe is wired and what makes things happen the way they do. For those of you who know me you know that 16 months ago I quit my job because I need a break from working on aircraft. During this time my wife and I started a new company doing graphic design, web design, formulating budgets and more.

We contracted out our services for free to a new company with the promise of being highly paid for future work when the full investment capital came in. It turns out that the owner of the company we were working with is a terrible businessman with no integrity who doesn’t respect the people around him trying to make him successful. Long story short, for a year we busted our butts for him and he drove away every single potential investor during this time. He is now on the verge of bankruptcy and perhaps has committed securities fraud along the way. We cut our losses and left with nothing to show for a years work except a good example of what not to do with a start up company.

Now my wife is a very prolific and an extremely good graphic artist who also did some work for another start up company. In fact this other company would have nothing to sell without my wife’s graphic designs that are being used to launch an entire product line and therefore an entire company. She had an understanding in place and agreed upon compensation for all her work, and now this new business owner is trying to renege on all of her promises. The product line was supposed to launch last February, then March before the launch date was slipped to September. Well now it is slated for an October launch and she has yet to pay my wife for her extensive work, which consists of more than 130 finished graphics.

Most recently we have been involved with an established businesswoman who is working with an organization involved in education for a specific health condition. She has many ideas for a product line to be sold as a fund raising venture for the organization. This woman is more than happy to have us do work for her but she seems to be unwilling to discuss any compensation for the work done.

So here is what I am wondering about. Here we are busting our butts and giving our absolute best efforts as business people only to have other business people constantly try to screw us out of what we are due. Are all business owners so unscrupulous especially when it comes to compensating graphic designers or artists, or are we just unfortunate enough to be scraping along the bottom of the barrel in our dealings with other companies? My whole life I have believed that if you work hard, maintain your personal integrity, and do more than is expected that you will succeed in the business world. I’m not willing to sacrifice my integrity but I am beginning to wonder if success only comes to you if you are willing to be an unscrupulous prick when dealing with others? Is what we are seeing part of the “Do unto others before they can do unto you.” philosophy?

Anyway that's about all I have to say on this today.