The current cast of characters:
Paul Howley: age 44
Mal Howley: my wife
Adam Howley: my son, age 19
Cassy Howley: my daughter, age 15
MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP-Part 140
My company was being run by an overall company manager while I was living over one hundred miles away in New Hampshire. Now that I no longer employed him, I was in trouble. I had to find someone I could trust to take over the day-to-day operations and take care of the finances and payroll. I had some very good employees at the time but none had been trained to handle all of these important and confidential tasks.
My long-time friend and employee, Pat, was currently managing the store that we opened in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, but the store wasn’t growing fast enough or generating the profit necessary to keep it open. I talked Pat into closing the Rhode Island store and coming to work at the Worcester location to manage things while I decided what would be the best for the company. I had known Pat for many years and I trusted him completely. In order to pay Pat the amount of money he needed to support his family we agreed that he would begin to list some of our huge inventory on eBay. The extra income that this Internet auction site would provide would help pay his new salary and his health insurance premiums. For this idea to work, Pat would need to list about twenty auction lots each day. This seemed like a good solution for both of us. I now had a trusted friend overseeing my business and Pat would be able to provide a decent income for his family that he had “uprooted” from their home in Pittsburgh to Massachusetts.
We informed our Rhode Island store landlord that we were moving out. Since the landlord was actually the same guy who was renting out half of my Worcester store building, he had no problem with it. He was a great guy to do business with. We packed up a huge moving truck and brought the entire inventory and all of the fixtures back to our Worcester store location. For the next several months Pat tried to sell this excess inventory on eBay. He sold quite a lot of inventory this way but it just wasn’t enough to justify the expenses of his salary plus the high eBay fees. Pat’s wife really wanted to be back in her hometown and her unhappiness in Massachusetts put so much pressure on Pat that he finally decided to quit and return his family to Pennsylvania. I knew I’d miss him because Pat was such a good friend, but he had to take care of his family and he wasn’t really very happy working at my store.
It was around this time that Ken, one of my part-time employees, told me he was willing to increase his hours at the store. It didn’t take him long to learn all of the necessary details to effectively run the two stores. I hoped that this time I had the right manager.
One day, our son Adam called to invite Mal and me down to Massachusetts to see him perform in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” at his college. We were eager to see him tackle such a fun role. We drove to the college and were surprised to see Adam in his colorful costume. He had also dyed his hair a strange green color for the role. Adam was upset when we arrived because this was a student-directed play and the college had now, a few hours before the play was to start, decided that they wouldn’t allow the performance to begin because the director hadn’t legally gotten the “rights” to put on the play. Students were frantically trying to get everything smoothed out but it became clear that this play wasn’t going to happen. The actors were angry with the college professor who was overseeing the project because he should have been aware of this potential problem. Apparently, according to several students, this professor was lazy and wasn’t very good at his job. We visited with Adam for a few hours and went back to New Hampshire disappointed, but we knew we’d see Adam perform some other time.
Next chapter: We get a horrible phone call about our friends in Colorado.
Showing posts with label Pat Donley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pat Donley. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
My Life With Comic Books: Part # 125
The current cast of characters:
Paul Howley: age 43
Mal Howley: my wife
Adam Howley: my son, age 18
Cassy Howley: my daughter, age 13
Pat Donley: A former employee and a friend
MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP-Part 125
In 1998, my tenant, Gary, who rented out part of my commercial building in Worcester, the owner of “The Halloween Outlet,” decided to buy a small retail plaza in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He bought it at a reasonable price but several of the stores were empty. The plaza wasn’t in a particularly good location and it was hard to see from the main roads that went through the neighborhood. He jokingly suggested that I open another comic book and collectible store in one of his available storefronts. I politely declined his offer.
At about the same time, I got a phone call from Pat Donley, a former employee and a friend. He had left “That’s Entertainment” many years ago and had opened a comic book and collectible store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pat wanted to get married and raise his family near where most of his relatives still lived. I certainly understood. But after running his store during the “lean years” of the comic book industry, Pat was interested in earning more money to support his wife and children. He contacted me and asked if I would be interested in finding an opening in our organization for him. After some thought, I called him back and asked if he’d be interested in opening and running a new store in Rhode Island. Pat quickly sold his store to an interested party and convinced his wife to uproot the family and come back to New England.
I went back to my tenant, Gary, and told him that I was reconsidering locating a new store in his Rhode Island plaza. He offered me a reasonable rent on the space and I made it clear that I’d rent it on a month-to-month basis and I was not interested in making any long-term commitment. Gary was very easy to deal with and we shook hands on our agreement. No written contracts were necessary because we trusted each other. It was a refreshing way of doing business.
Before Pat arrived in Massachusetts my employees sorted through our massive inventory of back issue comic books and made a decent stock for our upcoming new store. They also selected lots of toys, trading cards and movies from our overstock. We had extra display racks and shelves available so we wouldn’t have huge initial set-up costs. By the time Pat arrived he sorted through hundreds of expensive “display” comic books and chose an assortment that would cover one of the walls of the new store. He also had to concentrate on finding an apartment for his family to live in partway between Woonsocket, Rhode Island and Worcester, Massachusetts. Pat found a convenient location, close to a small “downtown” shopping area, and with all of these details taken care of; we opened our Rhode Island store in early 1998.
I trusted that Pat could handle all of the assorted details that come up when you run a store since he had successfully opened and managed his own store in Pennsylvania. I had enough stuff going on in my “personal” life, so I knew I couldn’t be much help to Pat. My son, Adam, was halfway through his senior year in high school and there were lots of details to complete before his graduation. One of the graduation requirements was that all seniors had to “intern” for two weeks somewhere in a field of interest to them, preferably in the type of job they wanted to go into after college.
Mal and I discussed the many possibilities with Adam and we all decided that it might be fun if Adam could intern for my good friend, Kevin Burns. Kevin used to be a college professor in the Boston area and he had moved to California to take a job at Twentieth Century Fox. Over a period of a few years, Kevin moved up the corporate ladder and he was now a Vice President at the studio. Adam’s strong interest in theatre and acting seemed to make this a wonderful opportunity. Adam wrote to Kevin, offering his services for the two-week period. Kevin called Adam and discussed the details and soon agreed to let Adam work directly for him. Adam was very excited about this trip to Hollywood. Adam couldn’t really go out there alone because he was too young to rent a hotel room or rent a car, so I decided to go along. I hadn’t seen Kevin in quite a while so I knew that part would be pleasant. I did, however, have my doubts about Adam and I getting along for two weeks in a hotel room together.
Next chapter: The California trip.
Paul Howley: age 43
Mal Howley: my wife
Adam Howley: my son, age 18
Cassy Howley: my daughter, age 13
Pat Donley: A former employee and a friend
MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP-Part 125
In 1998, my tenant, Gary, who rented out part of my commercial building in Worcester, the owner of “The Halloween Outlet,” decided to buy a small retail plaza in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He bought it at a reasonable price but several of the stores were empty. The plaza wasn’t in a particularly good location and it was hard to see from the main roads that went through the neighborhood. He jokingly suggested that I open another comic book and collectible store in one of his available storefronts. I politely declined his offer.
At about the same time, I got a phone call from Pat Donley, a former employee and a friend. He had left “That’s Entertainment” many years ago and had opened a comic book and collectible store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pat wanted to get married and raise his family near where most of his relatives still lived. I certainly understood. But after running his store during the “lean years” of the comic book industry, Pat was interested in earning more money to support his wife and children. He contacted me and asked if I would be interested in finding an opening in our organization for him. After some thought, I called him back and asked if he’d be interested in opening and running a new store in Rhode Island. Pat quickly sold his store to an interested party and convinced his wife to uproot the family and come back to New England.
I went back to my tenant, Gary, and told him that I was reconsidering locating a new store in his Rhode Island plaza. He offered me a reasonable rent on the space and I made it clear that I’d rent it on a month-to-month basis and I was not interested in making any long-term commitment. Gary was very easy to deal with and we shook hands on our agreement. No written contracts were necessary because we trusted each other. It was a refreshing way of doing business.
Before Pat arrived in Massachusetts my employees sorted through our massive inventory of back issue comic books and made a decent stock for our upcoming new store. They also selected lots of toys, trading cards and movies from our overstock. We had extra display racks and shelves available so we wouldn’t have huge initial set-up costs. By the time Pat arrived he sorted through hundreds of expensive “display” comic books and chose an assortment that would cover one of the walls of the new store. He also had to concentrate on finding an apartment for his family to live in partway between Woonsocket, Rhode Island and Worcester, Massachusetts. Pat found a convenient location, close to a small “downtown” shopping area, and with all of these details taken care of; we opened our Rhode Island store in early 1998.
I trusted that Pat could handle all of the assorted details that come up when you run a store since he had successfully opened and managed his own store in Pennsylvania. I had enough stuff going on in my “personal” life, so I knew I couldn’t be much help to Pat. My son, Adam, was halfway through his senior year in high school and there were lots of details to complete before his graduation. One of the graduation requirements was that all seniors had to “intern” for two weeks somewhere in a field of interest to them, preferably in the type of job they wanted to go into after college.
Mal and I discussed the many possibilities with Adam and we all decided that it might be fun if Adam could intern for my good friend, Kevin Burns. Kevin used to be a college professor in the Boston area and he had moved to California to take a job at Twentieth Century Fox. Over a period of a few years, Kevin moved up the corporate ladder and he was now a Vice President at the studio. Adam’s strong interest in theatre and acting seemed to make this a wonderful opportunity. Adam wrote to Kevin, offering his services for the two-week period. Kevin called Adam and discussed the details and soon agreed to let Adam work directly for him. Adam was very excited about this trip to Hollywood. Adam couldn’t really go out there alone because he was too young to rent a hotel room or rent a car, so I decided to go along. I hadn’t seen Kevin in quite a while so I knew that part would be pleasant. I did, however, have my doubts about Adam and I getting along for two weeks in a hotel room together.
Next chapter: The California trip.
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