It was the end of the month and the president of the Sland & Moffit Manufacturing Co., Potter Moffit, was going over matter of business when he came across an account that hadn’t been paid on for several months. The next day Ruck Jones, the owner of Hotshot Shoes was sitting in his office when his cell phone rang. His heart skipped a beat when he saw it was a call from Sland & Moffit where he purchased his shoestrings for all the shoes his company manufactured. He didn’t answer it.

Two days later Ruck was eating lunch at his favorite restaurant with a couple of his managers and he glanced up to see Potter Moffit walk in the door. Ruck knew he owed Sland & Moffit lots of money, and shoe shipments were down drastically over the last 2 quarters, but he was an optimist and knew they would bounce back. But he was rather uneasy at the sight of Potter. Potter’s company was huge compared to his and Ruck didn’t think Potter even knew who he was.

That afternoon he got another call from Sland & Moffit which he didn’t answer. Everyday for a week Ruck just ignored the calls from Sland & Moffit. He was having some Accounts Receivable issues himself and most of his days were spent tracking down shoe stores who owed him money.

One day his secretary paged him saying a Mr. Moffit was waiting to see him in the lobby. He decided to face the cold hard facts. He knew if Potter Moffit would sue him for the money his shoe company would go bankrupt. He planned his speech….

Potter Moffit was ushered into Ruck’s office and the door closed behind him. Moffit, after looking around at the nice carved paneling and the most advanced technology at Ruck’s fingertips, he cut to the chase. “I’m afraid you owe me more money than you can pay Ruck.” And at this Ruck burst into tears. He blabbered something about his wife and kids, and how his employees needed this company for their own families. …. And Potter stood there rather amused at this response. But he was also taken by the compassion Ruck seemed to have for the people who worked for him. So Potter responded by saying, “Listen. Let me go back to my accountants and maybe we can make some arrangements for some kind of payment plan.”

In the mean time, Ruck, who knew he could never pay back all his company owed to Sland & Moffit, called George Kalinsky, the owner of Kalinsky Shoes. George had done business with Hotshot Shoes for over 15 years and was one of the first shoestores to sell the whole line of Hotshots. But business was slow for him too, and although he paid a good part of his inventory evry month, he was behind by $5800.

Ruck informed George that his attorney had just filed lawsuits against him and his sons and Kalinshy Shoes for the complete balance plus court and attorney fees. George was devastated. He pled with Ruck, but to no avail. Ruck said he would personally take over Kalinsky Shoes and he would not keep any of the employees and George and his sons would have to go.

The next day Potter Moffit called Ruck Jones and Ruck ignored the call. But when he listened to the voicemail 2 minutes later, he couldn’t believe his ears. Sland & Moffit had just decided to take the loss and write off the debt.

This is the way the world should  be?

2010 © Dayvid Graybill