End of an Era

Kent quit his job today.  Well, he was actually fired.  It's been eighteen years since he, Dal, and Lee founded Convergent Concrete, and today, Kent walked away, following a fairly heated "discussion" with Dal.  Dal has been making his life miserable, yelling at him, sending him ridiculous emails, ignoring suggestions, blocking emails, telling customers that Kent doesn't represent the business anymore and that they won't honor anything he says.

Since the beginning of the year and even before, Dal has been actively working to drive Lee and Kent out, and it has worked.  Lee quit last month, and although Kent thought he might be able to put up with it, actions over the past ten days have made the situation untenable.  He hasn't been eating, he hasn't been sleeping, he's been cross with me and the children, because the stress has been so overwhelming.  It's been overwhelming for me, too, as I've thought about needing to go back to work and the stability of our financial future.  Fortunately, we are good with our money and are in great shape, we won't be calling upon others for help, but our funds won't last forever, we've still got young children at home, and we still need income.  But none of us can continue to live with the stress, and we are relieved to put the garbage behind us.

In fact, we went to dinner this evening to celebrate Kent's upstanding actions in the face of ridiculousness.  We feel that Dal has lost his integrity and has been dishonest in his business dealings, cooking the books and lining his pockets without acknowledging the contribution Kent and Lee have made to the growth of the company, and it's not worth it to us to be in business with him anymore.  We are sad about the way things have happened, sad they have come to an end, and see a bit of a battle ahead.  We need access to the financial records in order to determine how much our shares our worth, as we would like to sell them and be well and truly done with Convergent, but we are fairly confident that Dal won't be willing to yield access to us, so we're going to have a bit of a fight ahead.

Lee and Kent are already working on setting up shop on their own.  Lee can create a production line, Kent can order raw components, and they can certainly produce, we just need some customers we can sell product to.  We've already got two businesses who want Kent and Lee to be their production guys, and that's great.  We are encouraged and confident the Lord will bless our efforts as we are making efforts to be obedient to His commandments, be honest in our dealings with others, and work in faith to see good things happen.  The future is uncertain and we know it takes twice as long and costs twice as much as you hope to get a business off the ground, but we are moving forward.

We're also trying not to be angry and bitter and think bad thoughts about Dal and the whole situation.  Anger and bitterness serve no purpose, and we don't want to expend a lot of energy on negative thoughts and actions.  We do feel Dal has wronged us, but we would be wronging ourselves to allow our feelings of indignation and hurt to be the focus of our time.