Hahahahahhahahahahaa please tell us you don’t think China gives a flying fuck about stealing IP.

Best thing you can do is keep your patent quiet and make your money as fast as you can before someone steals it. I can absolutely guarantee that if you sent a good idea to China for manufacture there is a mirror of it being sold in every market you can’t reach already, and it will enter all your target markets as soon as your IP is diluted fat enough to have no value in court.

You are making enough net profit to straight up hire a proven general manager to handle half of your job and to promote one or two of your guys with raises.

If you do that you will then own a business rather than the business owning you. Give your guys the idea that there ARE promotions and raises lurking in their future. Hire a couple of sharp young idiots they can push grunt work off to while the young guys learn the business.

Sell your GM stock in the company after 90 days of success. Get him truly invested in making the company work. Build an incentive program for everybody, get them invested in making the business (and you, and themselves) successful.

Six months from now you can move to one day a week having lunch with your GM, another day at lunch with your accountant. Once you’ve become a business owner you can then build a new business doing anything you find more interesting. You can go fishing. You can embarrass your kids by showing up for lunch at school.

Please don’t let YOUR bad attitude wreck a successful business that could support you and the employees for a long time. Take a little less money, use the time to do something else. Fuck it get a job and see if that’s what you like.

OR - get that GM and get all the cylinders firing, then sell the business and cash out. You may be rich and too blinded by burnout to even see it.

Hahahahaha I’m not even going to fix it

Number ONE: do not make any long term commitments until you’ve done some things.

Number Two: Real estate investing and general contracting are two careers that do not require degrees or licensing (depending on where you are of course), and they both can make you very wealthy pretty quickly, if you’re willing to learn a LOT and work yourself to near death for a few years first.

Number three: move away from home and learn at least two other languages plus ASL. Dead people will tell you damn near anything simply because you understand their signing.

Make an appointment and speak to the mayor. Yes really. They can tell you if you’re stepping in on a grand plan or if there’s a better area where they know development is coming sooner.

Then be sure to stay connected with as many city council and Mayor and Chamber of Commerce people as you can. They can really help your decisions regarding real estate, ESPECIALLY for commercial properties.

1994 I’d put everything into the online store and advertising, and I’d burn the phone lines down between me and the post office / UPS / FedEx, and the Waltons. I’d be digging 100% of the time for freight and warehousing and logistics and investors.

1960 I’d go into real estate, which is a lot of work but easily the most lucrative business a determined person can use to make significant money consistently.

Also I’d bet on every World Series and Super Bowl between then and now.

Also I’d bang Sherry when I had that one shot.

OSHA has limited manpower and prioritizes investigations at places that have had incidents, industries that have been deemed to be priority for inspections, and locations with complaints.

In my 40 years in industry I’ve seen a half dozen actual OSHA inspectors, and every fucking one of them was a green hand straight out of college with nothing but a rule book and a slap on the ass. Every time they come out and write up everything they see whether it’s actually a violation or not, and then they let the poor company they’ve just fucked over fight it all out with their bosses (last years crop of children too stupid to get real world jobs).

It will not damage your relationship with the customers who actually buy things. The idlers who walk through your gift shop and let the kids go wild are not the people who spend money, at least not most of it.

So please! Tell little mommy that her asshole ruined some product and charge her for it. Respectfully of course, but yes ma’m, this product is ruined, and it’s your responsibility to cover the loss, just like any other accident. And no ma’m, I do not have insurance that covers you letting your spawn run wild and tear up my store.