Not going to have a job in six weeks!

Backstory:

Years ago there was this guy named Aaron that worked at his dad's electrical shop. Aaron wanted to start up his own hobby shop, and Aaron's dad, Ross, let him set it up within the electrical shop. Then Aaron got married, and as a wedding gift Ross gave the happy couple the building next door to the electrical shop so Aaron could have the hobby shop he always wanted.

But Ross didn't really give him the building. Actually, he just let Aaron use the space for free. Ross kept the deed. But for some reason wrote up a fake lease agreement, listing the weekly rent at $500 p/w.
But everyone was happy so it didn't matter and for years the arrangement worked.

This cool guy that sometimes goes by the name of Jin started working there about four months ago, which was pretty cool.

But then Ross started to get in a tight spot with his business and needed to make some money. "What to do?" Ross wondered. "I know," he thought, "I'll sell the building next door, right out from under my own son. The wedding gift I gave him. The space that supports his livelihood. God damn I'm such a douche bag. Mmm."

Ross then rubbed himself all over, gleeful about how much of a douche bag he was being.

And that brings us up to about a month ago. We weren't really sure what was going to happen, but we all knew we'd have to start looking for other work soon. The fake lease agreement meant that prospective buyers figured they would be able to get at least $500 in rent, and the hobby shop didn't make enough money to cover that. Not that it mattered - every prospective buyer that came to see the building had talk of turning the place into a yoga studio or chicken take-out or whatever. They didn't want to keep us. The fact of it is that the hobby shop doesn't make enough to pay any rent, really. The only reason it could stay open was because it didn't pay rent. So without a free space, it has to close.

And now we're at today. We've been told that a buyer is organizing finance. And we've been told we'll have six weeks to clear out.

I hear the supermarket is hiring. Sigh.

You guys should consider creating one of those shared workspace environments (this is probably not the best way to say it). You could collaborate on projects with other people that would pay you a fee to share your space & equipment. You can rent out other rooms for different purposes as well. This may require a loan but it has the potential of eventually generating income. These things have been popping up all over the country & many of them are very successful. Here's an example of one that we have in my home town (it goes far beyond what you see on the website).

If I'm not mistaken, the guys that invented MakerBot used a similar workspace (not sure if they hosted it or not).

Sorry to hear you lost your job, that sucks.

"Shared workspace environments" in retail is called a flea market.....

Oops, my mistake! I'm not familiar with the term "hobby shop" (this says something about my childhood) & just assumed that it was a workspace in which these guys worked on their hobby. How embarrassing. In hindsight I now realize it's a retail store for hobbies. However, now that Jon'C mentioned it, if they're not profiting, a flea market may not be a bad idea.

What I'm going to say isn't going to make you feel better about losing your job. It sucks to lose a job, and you have the right to be angry. I'm just going to try to give you some perspective on who to be angry with.

I live in Alberta. I know a lot of business dads. The really d-bag dads are the ones rail-roading their children into dead-end jobs at low pay so they will eventually have to take over the family business. The great business dads are the ones giving their kids businesses to run and the freedom to fail. I could tell you some stories if you're really interested, but I don't want to post about it on a public forum. The point is, it sounds to me like Aaron's dad did a supremely generous and awesome thing to get his son interested in business, and only put an end to it when it became obvious that the business was never going to work.

That's the unfortunate reality of retail... if your store isn't making enough money to pay a standard retail lease after several years in business, you just aren't going to make it. If I were you I'd be pissed off at Aaron, because he was the one hiring people when he didn't have enough money to keep his business above water. From what I remember, the textbook average lease rate for retail space is $10/sqft/yr, so the rent he was recording doesn't sound unusual at all. Depending on the structure of Ross' business he might have been legally obligated to charge your friend rent (on paper, or it's possible he was paying his own business for the use of space.) It could also have been for tax reasons. Either way, that's a huge opportunity cost to carry around.

Im kinda with Jon on this one. I mean a hobby store sounds fun and cute and all (I love hobby stores) but in an economy like this, maybe he should have choose something that would maybe actually make him money because now look at his situation.