The life of a small business owner is full of unexpected challenges. For example, very early on in my new life as a full-time entrepreneur, before I founded and became CEO of Patriot Software, my在线工资单and会计软件company, one of my employees tried to dry chemical-soaked rags in a commercial gas dryer and blew up a laundromat. Talk about small business lessons learned the hard way.
Caution: Flammable Materials
No, my first business wasn’t a print shop, but we did make thousands upon thousands of copies on a printing press that guzzled ink. To keep the press clean and running, we had to use potent chemical cocktails about as flammable as rocket fuel. In fact, it might have been rocket fuel! Those chemicals turned our cleaning rags into tinder, which meant cleaning them was an important and purposeful task.
For the record, I told this employee that we had to keep the rags as far away from flames as possible—after a previous dryer he used “inexplicably” caught fire, no less. I stressed that the rags had to be washed multiple times, then hung on a line to air dry. Heck, I even bought this co-worker a clothesline and pins!
But, to take the tedium out of what must have felt like a very menial job, instead of a clothesline, this employee made a bee-line … for the laundromat just down the street from my company. There, the rags went in the dryers, the fumes found the pilot lights, and, BOOM!
The Day of the Accident
繁荣的那一天，我接到电话，说我应该停止自己在做的事情，然后立即来洗衣店，因为我的一名员工炸毁了自助洗衣店。尽管我不确定自己是否正确听到了，但我什么也没机会，立即跳到我的车上，前往垫子，在那里我直接从动作电影中发现了一个场景。
黑烟将一座被樱桃红消防车包围的吸烟建筑上的天空印迹。大量的大火愤怒地猛烈地猛烈抨击了他们的水喷口。整个街上的消防软管，到处都是水，消防员奔跑，闪光灯，警报器，路障和警察重定向交通。
My employee did all this?Myemployee didallthis?
我看到了救援队的卡车。我跑到它上，戳我的头寻找我的员工。他的脸上有氧气面膜，当他取出氧气时，他没有面部头发。没有眉毛；没有曾经在那里的杂乱无章的模糊。而且他的发际线看起来好像要高半英寸。除此之外，他还好，感谢上帝。实际上，如果您想谈论奇迹，尽管动作电影残骸和闪烁的灯光，但没有人受伤。不是。一。 Person.
但是，一旦我意识到每个人都是安全的，情况的现实袭击了我。难的。因为我是干燥导致自助洗衣店爆炸的破布的个人的雇主，所以我对损害赔偿承担责任。
恐慌袭击
一连串的业务变量在我的脑海中闪过：手头现金，我们的shoestring小型企业预算，，，，the cost of the laundromat—it all added up to one thing—my small business was toast.
Or was it?
我给我的保险代理人,告诉他这个故事. He confirmed my thoughts and told me an employee playing laundromat demolitionist was a pretty grim turn of events. Regardless, he faxed me a copy of the insurance policy, which upon my reading was only full of bad, awful, and worse. But I wasn’t an attorney, so I passed the policy off to the company lawyer, who, unequivocally confirmed that we had no insurance coverage for this type of accident.
当OSHA检查我们时，他们以一些罚款和罚款签发了违规行为，但没有可怕的事情 - 以后会出现。
真理的时刻
My company made headlines in our local newspaper, and not the good kind. The fire marshal determined the cause of the accident to be our cleaning rags, and our company was pronounced guilty. Insurance adjusters estimated the cost to repair the laundromat to be $25,000. But we were running on such tight margins that, with just the lost productivity and current expenses, we were more than broke! We couldn’t have scrounged up $25, let alone $25,000!
同时，我们的保险经纪人正在为我们提供有关他与保险公司对话的定期更新。他告诉我们，这对我们来说并不好。然后有一天，大约在事故发生后3-4周，电话来了。保险公司决定将我们承担事故，并同意支付全部25,000美元。他们告诉我们，我们不必支付任何费用。无扣除，一无所有，纳达，拉链！我什至无法开始告诉您我们流下的喜悦的眼泪，或者我们给予的感谢。我们不必关闭我们的业务! Our company could carry on!
A Life-or-Death Situation
但是我们还没有走出树林。几天后，炸毁自助洗衣店的我的员工进入了我的办公室，直视我的眼睛，说：“我的妈妈和律师说我可以从你们那里赚钱。那么，你要付多少钱，不要起诉你？”
We couldn’t believe his boldness, but I also knew we didn’t have the resources to go into a full legal battle. I did the best I could, and told him my partner and I would think about it and get back to him quickly.
We viewed this as a life-or-death situation for the business. We knew we couldn’t deal with a lawsuit, so we needed to move quickly and sweep up every penny we could beg, borrow, or steal. We determined the maximum amount of money we could come up with in the entire world–which wasn’t very much at the time–and offered it in exchange for this employee signing a release form. When we presented the packet to him, he took it without any fuss. But, the most shocking part was, he happily went back to work, seeing nothing wrong with what he just did!
At this point, I felt safe in thinking that the madness was over. We’d corrected our errors and learned our lessons, the laundromat could rest in peace, and I could get back to running my business. No more surprises, right?
Wrong.
拖延导致痛苦的小企业课程
几个月后，我收到了俄亥俄州局的神秘声明Workers’ Compensation提及向我的公司收取的各种代码和少量金额。我不知道这些费用是什么，也不知道该怎么办，因此，像许多其他企业家一样，我将声明投入了文件夹中，并决定稍后再弄清楚。
A month later, I got another cryptic form with a different dollar amount. Then I got another one the next month, and the next, and the next. Over the next 6-8 months, I received more of these, with dollar amounts of $103 here, and $88 there, and $79 here, etc. It was time to chase down the problem.
I called the State of Ohio’s Bureau of Workers’ Compensation and discovered that my employee, the one who burnt down the laundromat and asked for cash to settle out of court—and was still working at my company—had been seeing a chiropractor who was charging everything to our workers’ comp code.
I asked my employee into my office. I asked him how his back was. “It’s great” was the response. I asked since things were great, why he was still going to the chiropractor? The answer was “The chiropractor told me that I have to come several times a week. I didn’t know that I could say ‘no’ and stop going. The doctor told me to keep coming, so I’ve been doing that. But my back has been fine for months.”
我打电话给俄亥俄州工人赔偿局。他们说，他们对访问无能为力，但他们确实提到我的员工的脊医访问总计超过10,000美元。$ 10.000！
说到医生，当我听到一张10,000美元的账单正在前进时，我觉得我需要一个。羞愧我没有立即处理神秘形式。另一个小型商业课程通过爆炸自助洗衣店学习。
一旦我解决d the workers’ compensation issues, the Laundromat Incident was officially closed. The laundromat was rebuilt. I purchased more insurance. The explosive employee was healthy and had found employment elsewhere. And a chiropractor got part of his Florida condo paid for with my workers’ comp number. … But it was finally over.
故事的小企业课程：
1) Make sure you have lots of insurance (Commercial General Liability Insurance, Commercial Property Insurance, Worker’s Comp Insurance, etc.), because you never know when a freak accident will happen.
2）“检查您的期望。”即使我们告诉我们的员工将抹布清洗和干燥抹布，但他也没有听。
3) Make sure that you convey just how important “menial” jobs are to your operation. Someone has to do the dirty jobs, but that’s not an excuse to do them poorly. If your employee feels valued and knows their role is important, they’ll put more effort into it.
4) Don’t throwIRS small business forms您不理解文件夹，借口您会再与他们打交道。他们真的可以加起来！
5) Make sure you’re following all the rules that apply to the type of work you’re doing! Be safe; be vigilant.
6），最后但并非最不重要的 - 从来没有将化学浸泡的破布放入燃气干燥器中！
