Recently I told you about the beginning of how the bathroom wall poetry revolution got started, now it's time I told you how it all ended, at least how it entered a heatis. As times goes by I will fill in the gaps of the years and decades in between.
The year was 1997, by this time Uranus Paper Products was a long time success - maybe not a cash cow, but a success none the less. Over the previous 35 years I had made enough money to buy a house, restore my vintage Mustang, put two kids through college and to pay my alimony - errrr. As the years pasted on it felt more and more appropriate to star and think about closing up shop. I had seen business partners come and go and start successful business of their own, all the while Uranus toiletries survived. The company survived wars, high and lows in the economy, it even survived a rather large warehouse fire that incinerated more than 30% of our inventory.
Short of tee-peeing the civilized world with toilet paper, the company was a success - I was a success - and there was nothing left to prove. It was never a question of whether or not I was getting to old to caring on, I could have gone on for another 35 years - until my dying breathe. If anything, it was getting boring - it's hard to break new ground in the toilet paper world.
I had been to the brink and back and had survived to tell my tale.
I subtly mentioned to friends and college that I was looking to sell. Then one day I got a call - out of the blue - from a man that I knew, if only vaguely, as one of my larger competitors. He asked in a matter of fact tone if I was selling? Knowing who he was and that he was a competitor or mine and what he was referring too, I decided to play dumb.
"Toilet paper or other bathroom products?" I asked, trying to have a little fun.
"Don't play with me, are you selling or not?" He answered back angrily making it clear that he wasn't in the mood for games, probably never was.
"Yes, there are conditions-" I began to say only to be cut abruptly off.
"No conditions. I will give you a fare price, after that I'll shut down your plant and absorb you clientele-"
*Click*
It was then that I realized I was going about this all wrong. I didn't want to see Uranus Products completely disappear, it was my baby, I simply wanted to hand off the reins, it was that simple. My kids had shown no interest in taking over, not that I can blame them. It offered no challenge or excitement and being of the Toilet Bowl lineage those characteristics were built into the gene pool. I may be from the shallow end of the toilet bowl, but it's still the end that craves adventure. At the time that I started the company it was nothing and I had to build it into something successful was an adventure in itself.
What I needed was someone who had a stake in the business. The fact that my lively hood was on the line when I started was enough to make me want to make the business work. That is what was needed now; new blood and an injection of new life.
Before I could finish the thought I knew where that new blood could be found.
I had learned a long time ago that happiness cannot be bought with money - sorry for the Beatles quote, but it's true. It was then that I thought back to those early years and the hotel rooms that smelled of cigarette smoke, and the cold winters I spent far away from home trying to make a buck, and to the highway rest stops at which I stopped at more than one times then I can remember. I thought of how, after enough stops, I made sure that I always had a Sharpie on me whenever I was on the road just so that I could leave my mark on the world. It was a marker that cost me less than a dollar that made me happy and since I had given that up I had been. . .not miserable, but certainly not as happy as I could have been.
On a bright sunny day in early July of 1997 I called in a large part of the company staff - all employees who had been with the company for more than 10 years - and told them that I was retiring. What followed was pleadings for me to stay. Now, I always tried to be a good boss, but it was flattering if not somewhat embarrassing when your employees plead with you to stay not because they are concerned for their jobs but because they enjoyed their jobs. This scenario is very rare - VERY RARE - in today's world. The truth is that I was going to miss them allterribly, but this was something I had to do.
"I'm giving you the business - free and clear." I said over the rumbling voices and agitated discussion. "I have been looking to retire for sometime now, but haven't found the right person to take over things. Turns out that I was looking in all the wrong places, all I had to do was come out here and look out onto the factory floor to find what I was looking for."
I wanted to say that I loved the business like I loved my loyal Dog and that I would fight with every breathe to keep it alive, but if I said that I knew that I would be stating what they all ready knew to be true in their own hearts. To make a long story short I wasn't worried. And to this day they are still around and doing fine and whenever I drop by to say hello I am always met with happy faces, which is the way that I wanted it.
After that I took round trip after road trip, stopping to visit every restroom in every hotel and rest stop and gas station that I could and thus I was reborn.
The year was 1997, by this time Uranus Paper Products was a long time success - maybe not a cash cow, but a success none the less. Over the previous 35 years I had made enough money to buy a house, restore my vintage Mustang, put two kids through college and to pay my alimony - errrr. As the years pasted on it felt more and more appropriate to star and think about closing up shop. I had seen business partners come and go and start successful business of their own, all the while Uranus toiletries survived. The company survived wars, high and lows in the economy, it even survived a rather large warehouse fire that incinerated more than 30% of our inventory.
Short of tee-peeing the civilized world with toilet paper, the company was a success - I was a success - and there was nothing left to prove. It was never a question of whether or not I was getting to old to caring on, I could have gone on for another 35 years - until my dying breathe. If anything, it was getting boring - it's hard to break new ground in the toilet paper world.
I had been to the brink and back and had survived to tell my tale.
I subtly mentioned to friends and college that I was looking to sell. Then one day I got a call - out of the blue - from a man that I knew, if only vaguely, as one of my larger competitors. He asked in a matter of fact tone if I was selling? Knowing who he was and that he was a competitor or mine and what he was referring too, I decided to play dumb.
"Toilet paper or other bathroom products?" I asked, trying to have a little fun.
"Don't play with me, are you selling or not?" He answered back angrily making it clear that he wasn't in the mood for games, probably never was.
"Yes, there are conditions-" I began to say only to be cut abruptly off.
"No conditions. I will give you a fare price, after that I'll shut down your plant and absorb you clientele-"
*Click*
It was then that I realized I was going about this all wrong. I didn't want to see Uranus Products completely disappear, it was my baby, I simply wanted to hand off the reins, it was that simple. My kids had shown no interest in taking over, not that I can blame them. It offered no challenge or excitement and being of the Toilet Bowl lineage those characteristics were built into the gene pool. I may be from the shallow end of the toilet bowl, but it's still the end that craves adventure. At the time that I started the company it was nothing and I had to build it into something successful was an adventure in itself.
What I needed was someone who had a stake in the business. The fact that my lively hood was on the line when I started was enough to make me want to make the business work. That is what was needed now; new blood and an injection of new life.
Before I could finish the thought I knew where that new blood could be found.
I had learned a long time ago that happiness cannot be bought with money - sorry for the Beatles quote, but it's true. It was then that I thought back to those early years and the hotel rooms that smelled of cigarette smoke, and the cold winters I spent far away from home trying to make a buck, and to the highway rest stops at which I stopped at more than one times then I can remember. I thought of how, after enough stops, I made sure that I always had a Sharpie on me whenever I was on the road just so that I could leave my mark on the world. It was a marker that cost me less than a dollar that made me happy and since I had given that up I had been. . .not miserable, but certainly not as happy as I could have been.
On a bright sunny day in early July of 1997 I called in a large part of the company staff - all employees who had been with the company for more than 10 years - and told them that I was retiring. What followed was pleadings for me to stay. Now, I always tried to be a good boss, but it was flattering if not somewhat embarrassing when your employees plead with you to stay not because they are concerned for their jobs but because they enjoyed their jobs. This scenario is very rare - VERY RARE - in today's world. The truth is that I was going to miss them allterribly, but this was something I had to do.
"I'm giving you the business - free and clear." I said over the rumbling voices and agitated discussion. "I have been looking to retire for sometime now, but haven't found the right person to take over things. Turns out that I was looking in all the wrong places, all I had to do was come out here and look out onto the factory floor to find what I was looking for."
I wanted to say that I loved the business like I loved my loyal Dog and that I would fight with every breathe to keep it alive, but if I said that I knew that I would be stating what they all ready knew to be true in their own hearts. To make a long story short I wasn't worried. And to this day they are still around and doing fine and whenever I drop by to say hello I am always met with happy faces, which is the way that I wanted it.
After that I took round trip after road trip, stopping to visit every restroom in every hotel and rest stop and gas station that I could and thus I was reborn.
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