In every walk of life we are given advice. From getting married to the colour of your next car, everyone has their own opinion. The truth is, we should listen to all advice we are given but the ultimate choice should come from within you as a person, not because of gentle persuasion from a friend. A true friend would guide you with what they know about the subject but should always shy away from pushing you directly into a situation. Many good friendships have broken up simply because of poor advice or misunderstandings.
In my life as you can imagine there have been many such instances of misunderstandings damaging a good friendship, the very fact i am in business leaves me vulnerable to such problems far more often than would otherwise be the case.
Here is a short story of one such case and to this day the situation remains unresolved.
Last April my mobile rang and it was a Policeman, he informed me that my business partner with the bike shop had been badly hurt on his way to work at a level crossing and his motorbike had hit a car. As would be the normal thing to do in this scenario i jumped into action to get everything organised including the recovery of his motorcycle and contacting the people that needed to know, it's exactly what anyone else would do. I rang a local recovery company and they were alerted to collect the very badly damaged bike and deliver it back to our own yard, something they didn't do, instead they recovered it past our yard to their own compound despite the Police saying to us that it was all clear to be dropped off.
A crashed bike or vehicle is kept in a secure compound if it is needed as part of the investigation into an accident where someone is badly hurt or killed, it is standard practise but as we are a garage and we knew the Police had cleared it and they had to drive right past our door to get to theirs we expected common sense to prevail.
It didn't and 2 weeks of phone calls followed to try and get the bike returned to no avail, in the end i rang a great friend of mine who worked at the garage and pleaded with him in the strongest terms to organise the return of said bike.
What happened next you couldn't write, my good friend lost his cool with the recovery truck driver and they almost had to be seperated, this all blew up several miles from where i was and i was never a party to it. But, because of that argument my good friend refused to speak with me again. Why you ask? well i guess he thought i was having a go at him personally and then his spat with the other guy was blamed on me and suddenly i am the enemy.
This situation only came to light when i next visited the garage he worked at and I was not spoken to, quite hurtful considering i am Godfather to his wonderful daughter and have also employed him part time when his funds were low.. but, as we all know to our cost sometimes life and friendships are very fickle and true friends very hard to find. You may say to yourselves "surely this guy will recognise himself" and yes he may well, but I have a clear conscience and have no axe to grind in any way shape or form, my writing ability grants me such opportunity to dispel any untruths and cut to the chase.
The upshot of all of this is if you work with your best friends then be prepared to have the odd fall out, but try not to let it get as bad as with my mate and myself, there are no winners in such situations and it leads to a very awkward working relationship, to the point where we no longer use the garage for anything at all, quite a sad outcome from two adults who should know better.
I would however, still do the same thing again as I am still trying to save everyone in the world, my naivety knows no bounds and I torture myself with some of the answers i give to people who are in need as the answer is almost always yes even if it brings me hardship, it's in my DNA i am not a super hero i am a fool of the most extraordinary kind, but it also has it's advantages in that i see life from a perspective that few would ever dream of or even cope with, in short it's who I am and that is very very difficult to change.
Look after your true friends like you guard your life, for without them we are surely the poorer and most certainly more vulnerable.
In my life as you can imagine there have been many such instances of misunderstandings damaging a good friendship, the very fact i am in business leaves me vulnerable to such problems far more often than would otherwise be the case.
Here is a short story of one such case and to this day the situation remains unresolved.
Last April my mobile rang and it was a Policeman, he informed me that my business partner with the bike shop had been badly hurt on his way to work at a level crossing and his motorbike had hit a car. As would be the normal thing to do in this scenario i jumped into action to get everything organised including the recovery of his motorcycle and contacting the people that needed to know, it's exactly what anyone else would do. I rang a local recovery company and they were alerted to collect the very badly damaged bike and deliver it back to our own yard, something they didn't do, instead they recovered it past our yard to their own compound despite the Police saying to us that it was all clear to be dropped off.
A crashed bike or vehicle is kept in a secure compound if it is needed as part of the investigation into an accident where someone is badly hurt or killed, it is standard practise but as we are a garage and we knew the Police had cleared it and they had to drive right past our door to get to theirs we expected common sense to prevail.
It didn't and 2 weeks of phone calls followed to try and get the bike returned to no avail, in the end i rang a great friend of mine who worked at the garage and pleaded with him in the strongest terms to organise the return of said bike.
What happened next you couldn't write, my good friend lost his cool with the recovery truck driver and they almost had to be seperated, this all blew up several miles from where i was and i was never a party to it. But, because of that argument my good friend refused to speak with me again. Why you ask? well i guess he thought i was having a go at him personally and then his spat with the other guy was blamed on me and suddenly i am the enemy.
This situation only came to light when i next visited the garage he worked at and I was not spoken to, quite hurtful considering i am Godfather to his wonderful daughter and have also employed him part time when his funds were low.. but, as we all know to our cost sometimes life and friendships are very fickle and true friends very hard to find. You may say to yourselves "surely this guy will recognise himself" and yes he may well, but I have a clear conscience and have no axe to grind in any way shape or form, my writing ability grants me such opportunity to dispel any untruths and cut to the chase.
The upshot of all of this is if you work with your best friends then be prepared to have the odd fall out, but try not to let it get as bad as with my mate and myself, there are no winners in such situations and it leads to a very awkward working relationship, to the point where we no longer use the garage for anything at all, quite a sad outcome from two adults who should know better.
I would however, still do the same thing again as I am still trying to save everyone in the world, my naivety knows no bounds and I torture myself with some of the answers i give to people who are in need as the answer is almost always yes even if it brings me hardship, it's in my DNA i am not a super hero i am a fool of the most extraordinary kind, but it also has it's advantages in that i see life from a perspective that few would ever dream of or even cope with, in short it's who I am and that is very very difficult to change.
Look after your true friends like you guard your life, for without them we are surely the poorer and most certainly more vulnerable.
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