Imagine that you work for Mr. Smith. He is a good and faithful employer. You enjoy working for him. You have even gained his trust. He gets a call one day. He is required to immediately leave to go to his homeland to look after some family matters. He calls you into his office. He asks you to take care of his business until he returns. You ask “for how long”. He answers that he doesn’t know. You will be unable to contact him because his homeland is in a remote part of the world where they have no power or cell phones. All he tells you is he will return some day.
Initially, you are very careful with his business. You follow his practices and instructions to a tee. You anticipate that he’ll be gone for 3 months. 6 months max. 3 months come and go, 4, 5, 6 months and no word. You begin to realize this might be longer than you anticipated. Another 6 months?
1 year goes by. Another year goes by. 3 years go by. The business has your stamp on it. You do things mostly your way now. You begin to think that he’s never coming back. You begin to make changes that you thought needed to be made a long time ago.
You let people go that you don’t like. You bring in people that are your friends. You begin enjoy the money the business makes and take more of it for yourself even though you were just one of the employees when the owner left. 5 years go by – 10 years.
