I think GET UP..  is the first thing that you keep having to tell yourself…GET UP?…”GET UP”? I AM UP..

I actually had my attorney’s (plural times about 5), my CPA (and all his gang), my bookkeeper (the lone wolf), my family, friends and even numerous owners and operators of companies whom I owed money too, all telling me to file for bankruptcy.  BUT HOLD THE PHONE…  There just was no way I was going to do that.  I am the perennial optimist, I knew that if I just kept driving forward, just kept paddling, just kept holding the wolf (not my bookkeeper) away from the door, just kept looking for additional opportunities that although I realistically did not know if I could save the company in a way to still be a builder, I could still achieve my goal which I knew was possible, to just keep things going long enough to pay off all the companies and people that our company owed.

In the beginning it looked like it could happen in anywhere from a few months to a year, then more financial downturn in the market and it all of a sudden looked like it was going to take a few years, after all we still had quite a few buyers under contract, homes under construction and new property in the works to develop, then lenders stopped lending, and not just on new projects, on the very projects that we had under construction, talk about kicking you when you are down, and buyers dropped like flies and new buyers were ignoring most every builder in the country like we all of a sudden came down with the plague.  But being the perennial optimist that I was, this was no where near the end, so it was going to take a little longer, so it might take 3 to 5 years, after all, I thought, if I was owed money and the choices were never seeing a dime or having to get paid over 3 to 5 years, I think I would choose the latter, something is better than nothing, and if I could get it all over time, that would be fantastic.

The housing market may have gone bust, but there were still opportunities to be had, opportunities to generate cash flow which would provide funds for repayment and save the day, save my company (in what form I did not know and really did not care as long as I could pay the debt), save my commitment to those I owed money to etc. etc. etc.

The commercial market was still flourishing, the multi-family market was rising at quite a nice pace, especially since the single family housing market collapsed and the lending all but dried up, the rental market was growing leaps and bounds. I still had lots of options and a background in the commercial industry and in developing multi-family projects which could propel me forward.  I located numerous potential projects, funding was still tight, I was spending so much time talking and pleading, and explaining and listening and reading and meeting with my attorneys, with subcontractors, with accountants, which home buyers, with title agents, with real estate agents and all just to keep the collection efforts to a minimum long enough to survive and thrive, and with all that time spent putting my fingers, toes, nose, knees and every other body part into the proverbial dike, I was running low on time to complete what was necessary to garner new projects and save the company.

BUT…..

I was still moving forward, I still had numerous projects in various locations which were in the hopper. I know there is a hopper, people talk about the hopper, they say you need to keep it filled, I was keeping it filled (at least I felt I was) but I had actually never seen the hopper, it existed, or at least everyone talked about it, so it must exist.  Anyway, I was making sure that I was working on enough potential projects that even if 99% dropped, I would still survive and meet my goal of paying all the debt off and living to fight another day.

In the end though some of the most understanding subcontractors ended up yanking the rug out from under us, by providing the final straw that broke the proverbial Camel’s back by filing bankruptcy for us.  Is that nice or what? What a time saver, what a relief to not have to do all that paperwork myself, how great was it for them to volunteer to do it all for me and I did not even have to ask them, or say a word or provide them with anything, they just did it, how cool was that…..WAIT.. FILE??? Bankruptcy?? I never wanted to file bankruptcy!  Hey HOLD THE PHONE…….

Now I found myself trying to inform a “new” group of attorney’s representing the subcontractors who graciously filed an “involuntary” bankruptcy on my behalf, nice nice., that this was a big waste of their time and money because there was no cash to be had, no assets left to garner, no size 36 Levi 501 button fly designer jeans to rip from my body as I stood wide eyed and wide mouthed as all that I was trying to hold together, and feeling I was doing such a wonderful job of it, having kept things somewhat at bay for nearly a year, was being torn right from my hands by a few of the very people whom I was trying so hard to repay.

In the end…it was the end.  Once they filed and they and their attorney’s chose to not believe us that this would yield nothing, but would hurt all subs who have continued to be patient in hopes that someday they would see some funds, it was futile, it was over.  I could not keep it all together as it was taken out of my hands against my will standing there wondering what just happened and if I would every see my jeans again.

So what do you do?

You GET UP.. you keep going, you resolve to be resolved in your efforts to move on, to deal the hand that’s dealt you, to bend with the winds of change, to get up one more time then you fall, to examine my life, after all an unexamined life is not worth living, and since experience is the best teacher and of course the more things change the more they stay the same……wait wait wait.. enough of the CLICHE FEST….

You begin to plan, you take care of the paper work thrust upon you by your good intentioned benefactors of bankruptcy (sorry I could not help myself ) and you meet with people you never wanted to meet with, trustees, attorney’s, IRS agents all the lions and tigers and bears.. oh my.. (k I will stop, maybe).

An you take a loooooooonnnnnnnnnggggggggg deeeeeeeeeepppppppppp brrrrrrreeaaaaaaattttthhhhhh, and sye a little as you exhale and then you start again. You take stock and you wonder what in the world can I do, what do I want to do, it is not like you were the starting pitcher and you were taken out of the big game just to come back tomorrow. I need to change careers, I need a new direction, the economy is taking companies down like there is no tomorrow, builders are failing all around me so construction I think is out. So then what??

I like history, maybe I could be a history teacher…ohhh wait, you have to have a degree and one of those pesky teaching certificates.

I have always liked shiny things like jewelry, maybe I could convert to Judaism, join the diamond trade, become an expert diamond cutter and add a few more holidays to my planned days off next year, all while providing a morsel here and there for my family who are standing waiting for me to explain who took the happy out of happy meal.  Ok so that is not an option.

I love baseball, I had a batting average of 800 my last year in little league, I wonder if their is a local team that needs a good 3rd baseman, in his 40’s, with thinning hair (to reduce the drag as I lumber towards 1st base), a bad knee and IBS (look it up, the medical version that my tums does not always cure)?  I doubt it, oh well.

Hey wait, I once sold hair products 20 years ago out of a van, I wonder if I could actually CUT hair, I mean really, some of those places charge like $5.00 for a cut. After cleaning your comb, paying for a new pair of socks because you cant get the fur-balls out of yours, I think I would net around a buck…. So if I could perform 100 hair cuts a day, 22 days a month I could just about afford to put my daughter through college, state college, perhaps in Iowa, or maybe the Philippines.  Oh yeah, that’s right, you need one of those pesky certificates again, after all they cant have just anybody who is good with a skilsaw cutting hair now-a-days, you have to have that reassuring help from the government as they monitor, manage, regulate, charge fees and do everything else in their power to bring back the eastern block countries or socialism in its truest form, come on now, land of the free?  not so..

Ok, I am still kicking the tires on a few career ideas, but you get the picture, just start, start planning, start thinking, start breathing, start sleeping, start trying, start….start…..start…..!

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL….

I do finally see a light, the meetings are still ongoing and will be for a few more months, but they will end, the papers will all be filed (away), the case will be closed, the new career will have been chosen, my life will have been downsized from a medium to a small, but stress tends to cause weight loss so that’s ok, live and learn (sorry I needed one more cliche ).

As you may have noticed I use a little (or a lot) of humor to help ease the stress, help smooth the bumps and help make the days just a little easier to swallow as I move on.  It will, in the end all be behind me, time seems to somehow take care of all of todays problems tomorrow, kids will make friends, jobs will be found, dinner will be prepared (hamburger helper), and life will go on…

Just serously, GET UP… AND SHARE YOUR STORY

What is your story, and what can we all learn from you telling it to the world?

Signed:

Getting Up in Utah