As the weeks went by, I was getting discouraged. And I don't care how enlightened we have become as a society -- there is still something very uncomfortable about being a man at home during the week. Everyone in the neighborhood knows you're not working. Your friends know you're not working. People don't quite know what to say to you. It's like you're dying of cancer -- people don't know whether to say they're sorry or pretend the problem doesn't exist.
And then there are the days when the phone doesn't ring once. And nobody you've called is in. And you know you should be doing something, but you've crossed everything off your To Do list. Certainly people who are out of work go through self-doubt and anger and frustration and despair. I'd been through it before, and I remember it all too well. But for me, there was added pressure this time, because I wasn't spending time looking for work -- I was looking for a company to buy. And as each day passed without the perfect company surfacing, I had to ask myself, is this what you should be doing? Your family is counting on you, and you have done absolutely nothing today (or this week or this month) to protect them from the very real possibility that your severance is going to run out and you will have nothing to show for your efforts.
And what if you find something and go ahead and buy it -- what then? You may not even like the business. What if the key employees walk out the door when the owner leaves? What about the big accounts? What if you're being lied to? What if you pay too much? If you lose a job, that's all you've lost. But you're going to have to put up the house, the stocks and bonds, the college money, everything to buy a business. And if you screw up, you're starting over. Not at 24, with your whole life in front of you and no debts and literally nothing to lose. No, you're 37, and you have two kids, another on the way, and two houses and some savings and a lot to lose.
But balancing out the days of anguish was the unequivocal support of my wife -- and the time I got to spend with my daughters. At ages three and a half and one and a half, it didn't matter that their father was a bum -- I was around. They got to see me doing much of the cooking (particularly after daughter number three was born in mid-May) and the grocery shopping. We went out to breakfast together; we played hide-and-go-seek while the rest of the world worked; I got invited to their tea parties; and I would take one or the other on the bicycle to the post office or the bank or just to ride around the Naval Academy.
There was one sparkling, chilly spring day when I announced to my older daughter that we were going on a picnic. I packed lunch for us and off we went on the bike. We ate lunch next to the water, talking about this and that, just chatting away. At one point, I glanced down at her and she gave me a look that parents die for -- a look that said, "I-love-you-so-much-and-this-is-just-the-neatest-thing-I-can-imagine." That took care of me for a week.
One day in late spring I answered a blind box ad in The Wall Street Journal. It was for a food-service distribution company whose location was listed only as "mid-Atlantic." I had answered several of these vague-location ads and discovered that mid-Atlantic meant anywhere between Richmond and Philadelphia. It turned out that the ad had been placed by a broker and that the company in question was located in New Jersey. However, the broker sent along capsule descriptions of four Washington-area businesses for sale. One was an access control/security company. Sales were near $2 million; pretty good cash flow; the owner was retiring; it was selling for slightly above book value; it was "highly leverageable." I told the broker, Lauren Finberg, I was interested. On Wednesday, May 24, I met her in a Denny's restaurant near the company's offices. The owner would join us in a little while, but Lauren first wanted to size me up and give me a chance to go over the information package on the company. The narrative section was a little weak, but there were two years of financials from the accountant (not a bunch of numbers taken apart and put back together by a business broker, as was usually the case). We chatted about the owner, Peter Klosky, and it was obvious that Lauren genuinely liked the man. I liked Lauren and appreciated her intelligence, something I had not found in abundance in her industry.
Peter Klosky joined us at the table. He was a grandfatherly type with a mass of unruly white hair, a big smile, and a gentle manner. He looked all of his 65 years. I had no trouble believing that he was ready to retire. He told me that there was nothing wrong with the company that a little salesmanship and marketing muscle couldn't cure, that he'd gotten a little lazy about all that the past couple of years. Peter believed his people would stick around if he asked them to do so. He said the business was fun because there was something new every day. He said he'd tell me anything I wanted to know.
I asked Peter when I might see the company. He was nervous about that and said he really preferred that it be a Saturday and that I should pretend to be a neighbor coming over for a visit. I suggested that I bring along my wife and our two-week-old baby. Who would ever believe that this was a potential buyer coming to scope out the place?
It was a rainy, muggy Saturday when Judi, the baby, and I pulled up in front of the offices of Automatic Door Specialists. The building was too ugly to qualify as nondescript. It was a one-story structure painted industrial tan that had obviously been a retail establishment in a former life -- it had plywood where a couple of storefront windows used to be. I thought it looked like a dry-cleaning business. My wife shot me a look that said, "You've got to be kidding."
