Talking to the void

Seven years ago, as I sat in the cold, sterile conference room of the lawyer’s office, I thought to myself, “How did it come to this?”. I was seated on one side of the long conference table while my former business partner was on the other. We were there to dissolve the business we had spent the past six years building, and it wasn’t amicable.

We had spent the better part of the past six years building a cookie company from the ground up. It started in my kitchen with a recipe I developed for a preschool fundraiser. It was a cookie geared toward adults. Other recipes followed. They all had unexpected flavors and adult twists on classic cookies. I was passionate about the business. I worked to certify my kitchen for production, got the necessary Serve-Safe licensing, tested and developed recipes, created marketing materials, and sorted out packaging.

Where I struggled was with sales. I am not the person who can make cold calls or walk into a store and ask to speak to the buying manager. I am much too introverted and shy, so a friend of mine agreed to join me. She was good at getting our products into stores and talking to other business resources. We were a good match.

As the years progressed, our business did as well. We were no longer baking in my kitchen. We rented space in another bakery with ovens big enough to stand in. Professional printers now handled our logo and packaging, and our client list grew. Unfortunately, so did my dissatisfaction.

The pressure of recipe development, scale-up formulas, marketing, tastings, maintaining product inventory, and the physical baking of the cookies, all while taking care of my household and raising two young children, was taking its toll on me. The lion’s share of these tasks and the entire financial burden was on my shoulders while my partner handled sales calls and QuickBooks. I dreaded the long days in the bakery and the toil of standing at a booth doing tastings. While we were close to becoming profitable, the company’s financial burden was putting an enormous strain on my family, and I couldn’t afford to hire staff to alleviate any of my workload. The business I had so carefully nurtured for years was becoming a burden to me.

As a consummate people-pleaser, I kept my growing dissent to myself. Contrary to my discontent, my partner thrived on the business, and it became a large part of her identity. With pride, she would talk endlessly to anyone interested, and her social media accounts brimmed with posts about our endeavor. She even brought samples to her high school reunion to show what she was up to. With her children getting older and an unhappy marriage, having the business meant the world to her. We were close friends and I knew how much pleasure it brought her. I couldn’t bring myself to let her down.

For another two years I kept going. Saying nothing. Working diligently to grow the business. During those years, I would lie awake at night dreaming of contracting an illness bad enough to preclude me from continuing with the job. I would wistfully think of ailments that might land me a hospital stay but were not harmful enough to do permanent damage. Maybe a survivable cancer? I was dreaming and wishing myself ill to keep from disappointing someone! What an insanity! This had to stop!

The following spring, I couldn’t take it any longer. I fought against my natural people pleasing nature I sat my partner down and told her how I felt. With knots in my stomach and an ache in my heart, I told her of the strain on my family. I told her of the secret desires for an illness. I told her I didn’t think I could go on. She was understanding but disappointed. She just asked that I give it a few more months and see if I still felt the same. We had the Fancy Food Show coming up, in which we were nominated for a Sofie award (basically the Oscars of the international food world). She was hopeful that after the show, I would feel differently.

While at the show, I developed stress-induced asthma. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get enough air. My throat constricted, my chest tightened, and my lungs felt crushed. I spent the three-day expo suffering.

We placed second in the Sofie awards, earning a silver statue and gaining several new customers. We were now coast to coast. I spent another month fulfilling orders, chasing leads, and developing a new flavor. A flavor we were confident would earn us the gold Sofie the following year. Whole Foods contacted us to begin talks about getting our products on their shelves, but I was miserable. I couldn’t keep going in the trenches day to day.

With all the bravado I could muster, I scheduled a meeting with my partner. I rehearsed my speech and prepared documentation on how I could still support her on the back end. It terrified me to have this conversation. She had been my best friend for many years and I didn’t want to lose her. While we spoke, she told me she understood. Again, she was disappointed, but she seemed sympathetic. We talked about a strategy for her moving forward without me; we talked about how the financials would transfer now that I would no longer be supporting the business and how the company would reimburse the loans I have given. We discussed how my health came first, and she wished she knew how I felt sooner. Walking out of that meeting, I thought it went better than I could have imagined.

When I arrived home, I felt lighter, liberated, and proud that I had finally stood up for my needs. I was able to fully breathe for the first time in months. I was getting our order schedule together and packaging some final products when my cell phone buzzed, indicating I had a text. What I read floored me. It was a text, obviously meant for someone other than me. It was from my partner explaining that she didn’t intend to pay a quitter, and she was only giving me lip service when discussing the buyout, so I would move the inventory and supplies.

My world was jolted sideways. The person I spent the most time with and called my closest friend for many years was stabbing me in the back. All that was left now was to dissolve the business. My heart was broken. A few days later, I was researching the value of our equipment for the paperwork our accountant needed when I found she had posted our machinery for sale without my knowledge and through her personal accounts. I was dumbfounded. Not only did I discover she had no intention to pay back the loans I made to the company but she was also trying to cash in on our equipment for her personal gains. I thankfully caught her attempted theft before it was too late.

So, I sat in a cold, sterile conference room, dissolving our business and friendship. Another experience to give justification to my distrust of others.

It took me five years before I baked another cookie or trusted another friend.