Rant About a Man... And Trust

It is about one man in particular; I cannot believe why he would not pay for a job we did for him, and the fact that I have lost my trust in people in general as a result. Almost three years ago, myself and my two brothers decided to purchase and take over our fathers business of 35 years as he wanted to retire. Not an easy task with no experience. My parents then moved to QLD and obviously we asked for advice here and there, but generally between the 3 of us we are managing to run the business at a small profit and everything is working well (mind you I wrote this 4 years ago.. different story now... a very interesting one at that!). Now, in the past 2 years (i.e. 6 years from the present Sept '08), i have learned so much it is undescribable, and I would have to say that the one single thing that sticks out is not to trust anyone.

Our company is a small precision sheet metal business with about 8 employee's. We mainly make small components for the electronics industry, and 90% of our work is on-going from customers built up over the years. One off customers really drag our production down, however we do like to help local sporting clubs etc where we can...

One afternoon in August '02, a man (I had better leave his name out at this stage) walked in to our workshop, and said he would like some brackets made up for a kayak they were building at his sea kayak club . He instructed us to invoice his company (again, I had better leave out the name). So we made the brackets very quickly, within a few days as apparently they were urgent (our lead times are generally 4-5 weeks). He came to pick up the brackets and paid for them with a cheque (about $220 total). Everything was fine. The next week he came back and asked if we could make some more. So I guess, why wouldn't you. So we dropped everything and made some more and this lot only came to $77. I realize this is a small amount, but i am hoping you understand that money isn't the issue here.. it's the principal.