Hi,
I am new here, thank you for taking the time to read this.
My 27 year old adult son works in the business that I own. He has had a large role in building it since I put up the money to start it about 8 years ago. He was not going to go to college, so I figured this was a good way to let him create his own job.
He has worked hard over the years, but he has consistently taken money from the business to spend on personal expenses. He uses the company credit card he has to buy everything from food to TVs to clothes and whatever else you can think of. There is a lot of cash in the business too, so I am pretty sure he takes some of that off the side too.
I have not been working full time at the business until last summer. I had other employment until then, and the company did not have the space for me to work at until we leased a larger office last summer. I have been taking a salary that is far less than his salary.
Long story short, lately he has been telling me that I should stop working there and get a job elsewhere because it's only causing problems, costs too much, etc. Yet he is practically never in the office because he's spending almost all of his time in a city 200 miles away, trying to expand the business there.
As a part of that effort, he rented an apartment, purportedly so the workers could stay there while working in the new location. He outfitted it quite nicely with company money. Now I notice that there are credit card bills for a motel nearby - he's having the workers stay in motels when they are there and he's keeping the apartment for his own personal use. He has 2 children and a girlfriend who he only sees once a week since he is down in the new location "trying to grow the business and make more money for everyone" almost all the time now.
Does all this sound incredulous? I suppose it is. He is very persuasive, a much better "talker" than I am. I express myself better in writing.
I guess I am looking for advice. If I were super hard nosed and harsh I suppose I could fire him. He does not handle money well, whatever he gets he tends to just spend extravagantly and he pays bills late almost always. So I start feeling bad about what would happen to him. But maybe this is a case of just needing to pull the band aid off? He would probably hate me and maybe we would never speak again, I don't know.
Please don't be mean in your replies - I know this is a bad situation but all I ever wanted to do in life was to help him. I have another son who is severely disabled and I have always felt awful about that.
I am new here, thank you for taking the time to read this.
My 27 year old adult son works in the business that I own. He has had a large role in building it since I put up the money to start it about 8 years ago. He was not going to go to college, so I figured this was a good way to let him create his own job.
He has worked hard over the years, but he has consistently taken money from the business to spend on personal expenses. He uses the company credit card he has to buy everything from food to TVs to clothes and whatever else you can think of. There is a lot of cash in the business too, so I am pretty sure he takes some of that off the side too.
I have not been working full time at the business until last summer. I had other employment until then, and the company did not have the space for me to work at until we leased a larger office last summer. I have been taking a salary that is far less than his salary.
Long story short, lately he has been telling me that I should stop working there and get a job elsewhere because it's only causing problems, costs too much, etc. Yet he is practically never in the office because he's spending almost all of his time in a city 200 miles away, trying to expand the business there.
As a part of that effort, he rented an apartment, purportedly so the workers could stay there while working in the new location. He outfitted it quite nicely with company money. Now I notice that there are credit card bills for a motel nearby - he's having the workers stay in motels when they are there and he's keeping the apartment for his own personal use. He has 2 children and a girlfriend who he only sees once a week since he is down in the new location "trying to grow the business and make more money for everyone" almost all the time now.
Does all this sound incredulous? I suppose it is. He is very persuasive, a much better "talker" than I am. I express myself better in writing.
I guess I am looking for advice. If I were super hard nosed and harsh I suppose I could fire him. He does not handle money well, whatever he gets he tends to just spend extravagantly and he pays bills late almost always. So I start feeling bad about what would happen to him. But maybe this is a case of just needing to pull the band aid off? He would probably hate me and maybe we would never speak again, I don't know.
Please don't be mean in your replies - I know this is a bad situation but all I ever wanted to do in life was to help him. I have another son who is severely disabled and I have always felt awful about that.