It sometimes amazes me why people don’t think ahead before doing anything. Questions like “How is this going to affect my future?” Should always be considered before making any decisions. A short term gain isn’t as good as a long term gain. It is important to always plant for the future while thinking of the now. What inspired this article was a situation that happened yesterday, and I’d like to share it.
We are currently developing infrastructure for a client on his farm land. We have built the fence and are currently working on building the house for the Goats, Cows and Rams. About a couple of months ago, the client foresaw that there might be shortage of cash flow for the project we are developing, and then opted to invest some amount of money in a leased farmland in a different state in other to raise money for the current project.
The man (let’s call him Joel) he put in charge of the farmland was like a relative to him. So it is expected that everything should go well and according to plan. But just as @HappyBoy said on his post, it is always better and safer to do business with strangers than relatives or acquaintances and I think I am also starting to reason this way also however sad it might seem, because we are supposed to help people we know most especially our relatives, but they just end up causing problems and disappointing us.
Now this is what Joel did. He practically ran away with the investment. Last week, a representative was supposed to go to the farm to supervise the harvesting of the first batch of tomatoes and also supervise the sales of the harvested tomatoes. The initial plan was to leave Joel to handle all the harvest and the sales, but he has been shady. so a representative was needed since his judgement can’t be trusted anymore. The representative (let’s call him David) called Joel and an arrangement was made for David to travel to the farm to meet Joel last Sunday, but as David was about leaving his state, Joel told him not to come again that he hasn’t gotten the baskets needed to harvest the tomatoes so harvest was postponed till Wednesday.
David, while preparing for his trip to the farm tried calling Joel on Tuesday, but Joel didn’t pick up his line throughout the whole day. He tried calling again on Wednesday but still nothing. David decided to go to the farm and upon getting to the farm, the tomatoes were nowhere to be found. Joel too was nowhere to be found. So apparently, Joel had already harvested the tomatoes, and probably sold them off and then ran away with the money. Other produce like the corns have been neglected. The corns have literally dried on their stems (this isn’t really a problem because they can still be sold off as dried corns). The farm generally wasn’t properly maintained. All the money sent to Joel for weeding out the unwanted plants was embezzled by him.
Since we haven’t been able to reach him, it is too early to conclude, at least we should wait and hear his side of the story, but I don’t think there’s anything he would say that will justify his behavior.
Now back to the subject topic. The client already hard big plans for Joel. He just wanted to use this initial investment as a test to see how Joel and the farm will perform before committing the full amount of money (hundreds of dollars) planned for the investment. Joel would have been set for life if he had behaved properly, but he chose to runaway with a very small about of money compared to what he would have earned in the long run.
He is probably thinking he is smart to have taken the shortcut to make quick money. Little did he know that he chose to go the wrong way.
and hey you are here!!!