Playing Office

Right after college, I had a business that I didn’t really want. I’ve never been particularly business-minded, but my father didn’t encourage employment. He wanted us to be our own bosses and was willing to lend us the capital. It might have been a great idea, but I suppose there should have been training in business to precede the carrying out of this ideal. What we had a lot of training of instead was being children. We were les enfants terrible way past our teenage years. My mother did own a preschool and she was a great teacher, but she ran the thing like a charity program. She didn’t really care to make it profitable as she saw it more of a ministry. I later taught in that preschool as well, but I never involved myself in administration matters. Anyway, since my grandparents had plenty of commercial properties in this city (the majority sold in the last year of their lives - sickness, impractical business practices, spoiled children, a drug addict son, etc.), I didn’t have to worry about rent in my overhead. I furnished this space to be my office - an office that barely saw me - with a desk, a file cabinet, cheap office chairs, etc. It was really just like a bigger version of my daughter’s toy office. I played at having a business. I didn’t do any active marketing or research or anything else you’re supposed to do in business. I got bored and disillusioned with the thing, got myself a job and paid my dad for the loan.