Getting Back To Business

Sometime in February, I mentioned about a situation I was facing and promised to share more when I could. The time has come.

As you probably know, my father was a businessman and a teacher. He ran a private school here which he started from scratch in 1957, about 12 years before I was born. He started by renting a classroom from a Government school and with what little he had, bought one table, one chair and one typewriter. He taught typwriting to students, one at a time in two hour blocks. This went on daily from Monday to Saturday. Slowly, one typewriter became two and two became four. A few years later, he successfully ran a few schools where the student population reached thousands. His speciality? Commercial subjects.

He enjoyed his work as a teacher. Many students that came his way could not qualify or afford to further their education at the University. He taught them, class by class, and encouraged them to sit for examinations through prestigious examination bodies based in London. Many students did very well and this allowed them to apply for good jobs commanding high salaries. A few of these students who called me after hearing of my father's passing expressed their gratitude to him and the school he ran. I always knew that my father was a teacher but it is only after he died that I learnt how much of an impact he had made in his students' lives.

When my father passed away, I was a mess. The school was in no better shape than I was. This was because over the last 10 years, he didn't do much to upkeep or improve the school. Increased competition did not help, of course. The root cause was the loss of my mother, whom he originally taught at the school, fell in love with after, married and became his "business partner". Her death took quite a toll on him and this reflected in the poor performance of the business. A part of him died when my mother died. So did the school.

Before he died, my father expressed his desire for the school to continue to operate past his time. This was a tough call for me when he died. Having lost my father, saddled with a mountain of hospital bills and loans, my regular work as an Engineer and a baby on the way, the last thing I needed on my plate was a business that was hanging on a thread. So, I went in and fixed what I could to the best of my limited abilities and experience and handed it off to a distant relative of my father's, a young and enthusiastic fellow. While it pained me to give up something that was so dear and invaluable to my father, I was left with very little choice. Some nights in the darkness of my room, I'd just lay in bed thinking how I've severely disappointed my father.

In February this year, I was called in to help with this very relative's employment renewal and upon probing into the status of the school, I found that it was in trouble. This was contrary to what he was constantly portraying to me. Finances were a mess, the workflow I put in place was not adhered to and the school was slowly sinking into the red. When I handed the school to him, I hoped he would look after it like his own (considering he initially tearfully begged me for a job there) and get things off the ground. Sadly, nothing was done and he ran it like an employee without a boss. My father's years of sweat and blood was sinking deeper and deeper. To make matters worse, my wife, who was helping me tidy up the accounts recently, found that he had been borrowing business funds for his personal use when he found money was tight for him! I had enough!

As of 1 June, I have reprised my role as Managing Director of the school, just the way my father wanted it to be. I am slowly putting things back to order and am in the midst of revamping the business. It is a very long and tiring process where I am constantly banging my head against the proverbial brick wall. But I hope that my father, wherever he may be, will guide my hand in bringing his business back from the brink to what it was reminiscent of in the old days.

This year, the school celebrates its 50th anniversary. I wish my father were here to celebrate it with me. I know I can never have this wish granted so I now ask to be blessed with the strength and determination to keep it going successfully for 50 years more.

My apologies for the lengthy post. Wish me luck.