Peter’s Story
Section One - “Illusion”
Episode One
Written in October-November 1998, mainly for myself,
for self-therapy purposes.
On reading through it now, with the benefit of an extra
four years of hindsight, I realise that I am now a very
different person than I was back then, when all these things
happened, and even from the person I was, in 1998, when these
words were written.....
However, I have resisted the temptation to make changes, apart from the
names of some of the characters, even
though if I was writing about these things today, I would say it
a lot differently.....
So, here it is, just as it was that rainy Saturday morning, 10th
October, 1998, when the first page rolled off my laser printer.....
“I suppose that, until I reached my forties, the story of my life was
typical of many thousands of New Zealand men born in the post
World-War 2 “baby boom”.....
Life in the suburbs of Christchurch, five years at high-school, university drop-out, married at 22. A mortgage, life insurance policies, two televisions, a video-recorder, microwave, a dishwasher and three sons by the time I was 30. And eventually settling down in Nelson with a well-paying, secure job and a contented lifestyle.
Yet through all those 22 years of “married with children, in the suburbs”, I was vaguely aware that there had to be more to life than this! The eight to four-thirty with half-hour lunch as a telecommunications technician at the Post Office, the Friday after work drinks at the pub with the boys, the union secretary, the Kiwi Bloke attending pre-school as parent-help with his sons, the president of the tennis club.
My life-long passion for organic vegetable gardening was not satisfying my longing for fulfillment. Neither was my hobby of electronics, nor the sports that I was playing, tennis and badminton. My active involvement in politics and unionism through the 80's was also part of my unsuccessful search for fulfillment.
Maybe it was this underlying restlessness that prompted me to, in the early 80's, between the age of 34 to 37, take two small steps that would eventually have a far-reaching effect.
The catalyst for both these steps was in the form of a new friend who appeared in my life in 1981. Jack (I will call him “Jack” in this story, which is not his real name), and his wife were holidaying in Nelson, and I met them at a trade show in Nelson where I was staffing a stall selling computers and video.
Jack had, and still has, many characteristics that set him apart from the typical Kiwi Bloke. Apart from being American, he is vegetarian, has never driven a car, and is madly passionate about PC computers. It was the computer interest that first sparked our friendship: he interested me in the Commodore brand of home computers, and I obtained a dealership which I operated part-time.
Jack is a very talented computer programmer. He would send me a copy of his latest “computer adventure game” and Jonathan, my oldest son, and I would have many hours of fun and frustration playing our way through the complexities of Jack's latest creation.
The little part-time business, that had begun as an excuse to buy a computer for myself, gradually grew: first expansion was to a tiny upstairs room in Trafalgar Street, the main street of Nelson where, eventually bursting at the seams, I would spend most of my non-Post Office work time doing all of the things typical of the proprietor of a small business (at this time my "real" job involved working an evening shift every second week).
Being the owner-operator of a small business was bringing me into contact with lots of people, and as I was very good at what I was doing a spin-off effect was a gradual (un-noticed at the time) increase in my communication skills, confidence, and self-esteem.
By mid to late 1985, the business had reached that awkward stage of not being quite big enough to support me and my family full-time, yet taking up more and more of my energy.
Something had to change, and it did: another new face appeared in town.....
Let's call this character in our story “Josh”. Josh was the owner of a computer sales business from another city, who had decided to relocate to Nelson. As he was a dealer for the same brand of computer as me, it was suggested that, rather than competing against each other, maybe we could get together.
A Kiwi Bloke Goes into Business
On 1 September 1985, we opened the doors of a new combined business, ready and willing to become a “dominant player” in the home, education and business PC market in Nelson. Initially I remained in my Post Office technician employment, until August 1986 when I resigned following 20 years of service in that job.
Well, did I have a lot to learn! During this period I threw my whole heart and soul into this business. I remember many times having vague but disturbing feelings of unease about my partner and the business in general, but I always resolved to work even harder to “make it work”. I would often work a full day at the telephone exchange (or after Aug '86 selling PCs in our shop), and then spend all evening doing hardware repair jobs on customers' computers.
I can recall, during this time at our computer shop in Vanguard Street, Nelson, often looking across at my partner sitting at his desk, and having this uncanny, disturbing feeling that something was just “not right”. What was happening just did not quite feel “right” somehow. But I always pushed these intuitive feelings aside, and resolved to work even harder to make it work! My wife Jeanette was more open with her misgivings. She would often tell me that she just did not trust this guy that we were in partnership with!
It did not last long. Pre-Christmas 1986 we had hugely successful sales in the mad pre-Christmas buying frenzy (the last Christmas before the October '87 market crash). But, in January when it was time to pay all the bills, there was nowhere near enough money to pay the creditors!
Crisis! Another small business in trouble! Panic! What do we do????
I will not go into all the extensive details of the saga. A brief summary will suffice.....
-
It blew up in our faces, and we separated from our partner in acrimonious fashion.
-
It turned out that a lot of the money belonging to our joint business had made its way into a separate business run by our partner. Quite legally, but in a complex web of transactions between the two companies that took a lot of work to unravel and sort out.
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During the crisis, negotiations, and separation, our former partner pulled every dirty trick in the book, and then some.
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We took a case to the High Court, and eventually settled for a small fraction of our claim.
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We naively looked to our main supplier for support, but received none.
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We narrowly escaped losing everything, even possibly our house.
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We luckily had as our lawyer someone whom I believe to be the best lawyer in Nelson, otherwise we probably would have lost everything.
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Jeanette and I continued to operate the business, struggling the whole time, until January 1991, when we closed the doors.
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I learnt the hard way, that ultimately the only real answer to any "problem" can only come from within myself, not by relying on anything outside of myself like the legal system.
All in all, an “interesting” experience. Jeanette and I emerged battle-weary, mentally, physically, financially and emotionally drained, but much the wiser as to the ways of the world. Over those years, 1987 to 1990, we would lay awake at nights, unable to sleep, going over and over the excruciating details of the latest trick that our ex-partner had pulled. Jeanette would often say to me, with deep feeling "When is that bastard going to get his just reward?"
Well, years later, he did “get his just reward”. He went bankrupt! But by the time this happened, when I heard the news, I was way past caring. I had made a new life for myself in Wellington. I had moved on. The events of my former life in Nelson seemed like a dream, a distant memory, a hazy memory of a past life. I had done my 12-step work, I had cried my tears, beat the cushion, and screamed my obscenities at him in the weekend workshops, I had released the demon from my shoulders. So, when I heard the news of his bankruptcy, the news that would have brought me unsurpassed joy a few short years earlier, I felt ........ nothing.
Looking back though, I realize that I gained much from the whole experience. I remember well the time when I cried out in anguish to our lawyer “How long will this drag on for? All I want is justice!!!”. John looked at me very coolly and said “If you want justice, you will not find it here, all you will get here is the law, and “the law” and “justice” are not the same thing.”
Years later I was to realize that the above brief conversation was a defining moment in my life: the moment when I realized that our “tribal system” that I had been relying on had totally failed me, and my only option was to stand on my own feet and find my own answers.
Another defining moment was on the Monday morning immediately following the separation of the two businesses. I visited my former partner, Josh, and handed over a few small items of his that we had inadvertently removed when we had moved out of the building. I requested that he hand over a few items of ours that we had mistakenly left behind.
He looked at me coldly, and said scornfully “Tough luck, they are mine now!” I froze where I stood. I had always assumed that everyone in the world was basically decent, honest, and helpful. I turned and walked the final long walk out of that shop, never to return. We never ever spoke to each other again, except through our lawyers.
Click here to continue on with Part Two of this (1998) version of the story.
