Here’s what happens when the Sun-Times gets rid of their photographers

[Tom Sefton]

So, the older guy who had been fired is now sat at home wondering what the hell to do. He’s just helped his daughter buy her first home, his 12 year old labrador needs surgery and he can’t afford to keep up his golf club membership and pay for his annual holiday with his wife. His son is at university and he needs to make sure he gets through his final year with minimal stress.

So he goes to the bank and asks for a little help setting up his photography business. He’s already got his 5D, a nice macbook pro and some software but it would be really helpful if he could take some office space, extend his credit to cover his first 6 months and buy a couple of lenses that will help him do some architectural work. So the bank says, “yes we can lend you money, but you need to put your house up for collateral because we can’t touch your sensible pension, unless you really want to cash it all in, and your savings are what we have for your daughters equity on the first home she bought”. So having the support of his wife, he does just that. Six months go past and he has a nice office space, a few good clients and has been keeping up with his payments.

BUT, he hasn’t played golf for ages so hasn’t been exercising. He’s also spent a lot of nights working late because he had to underbid for a few projects to get started. His wife is getting pretty pissed off at not seeing him very often and they are arguing more often. His stress levels are up, his cholesterol is climbing and a 23 year old kid has just opened a stills and video business across the street with a government grant to help get young people running their own businesses. His clients are asking for work for free occasionally, and he isn’t in a position to tell them where to go. Younger businesses are cropping up that he wants to work for, but how confident is he that they will take on someone that isn’t under 35? He wants to impress his quality of work and standards to them and it would really help if he could purchase the next lens and camera that Canon have released – another $10k gone. He is visiting the Dr more often to combat his rising blood pressure, so this is costing him money, and they just keep telling him to exercise more and work less.

So he can’t decide what to do. Cash his pension in and sink everything into his business to make sure he has enough collateral to win some big money clients, or cut his losses and leave, take the job at Home Depot and tell his wife not to expect a holiday for the next few years. But if he leaves, he has to downsize his home, because after staking it for his business he is close to negative equity. The family home can’t go – his kids grew up there, they have holidays together there and his wife just said that her mother could move in while she is ill! So after many sleepless nights trying to decide what would be best, he…..

[Bob Zelin]

So after many sleepless nights trying to decide what would be best, he…..

REPLY –
takes a $70,000 a year job managing a WAWA gas station (see my post above). He just can’t take it anymore.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
maxavid@cfl.rr.com