Business and relationships are two different things and from my experience, it is best not to let both lines cross each other because the outcome can be really disastrous. I came to a conclusion on this a few years ago after different experiences that made me wonder why people can be so cruel and it still baffles me today why someone you have built a beautiful relationship with would decide to ditch whatever you shared just because of their selfish interest. It's no new thing in the world we live in today that people will go to any length just to take advantage when you don't set boundaries between business and relationship, they don't care about the setback or harm it would cause your business.
It's not my first time discussing this and the first thing people say when this issue comes up is that money is the root of evil. I completely disagree with them because humans are evil not money plus there are ways to make that money other than hurting a fellow human who is also trying to make ends meet.
One of the terrible habits among humans is taking things for granted, a lot of people become too familiar and just think of no other thing than to take advantage of your relationship with them.
I have been a victim several times and it's silly of me to forget these things quickly. I love to help people which isn't a bad thing to do and that's where my problem originates from. I am not saying helping is bad, it is a good habit to cultivate but not with your business because in the end, you won't even know how your money vanished.
It happened that there is a woman in my area who sells catfish pepper soup, she should be in her 50s and I admire her a lot because of how hardworking she is. We started as customers and gradually became close, I met her sons and they were really lovely people.
This woman goes through a lot of stress to pick up the fish at the farm since her boys are schooling in another state so I volunteered to always drop the fish at the bar where she sells the pepper soup. This is something I don't do for people but it won't hurt so why not just do it when I can?
The first time was a surprise and she was really happy about it. Things went on for quite some time and we graduated from that to not paying me immediately after giving her the goods. It still wasn't a problem since she would pay the next day so I just continued my thing.
One fateful evening, she called and said that she needed the fish earlier so I swung into action immediately. I quickly measured the fishes and delivered it to her at the bar. As usual, I left the place knowing well that she would transfer the money later.
Night came and she called me to come to the bar. It was unusual so I rushed there and upon getting there, she told me that the fishes I brought were dead fishes.
I was dumbfounded and felt like I was in a dream. I asked her if she didn't see the fishes when I brought them and she claimed to have seen them so what happened to the fishes? It was a long night for me as we argued back and forth about the fish, the argument got heated and she started crying.
I thought since I wasn't the only one who supplied her fish, she might trying to be covering up something but I don't know what was happening.
Everyone at the bar immediately thought I was the bad person and I felt stupid to have trusted her. The fishes were healthy and none of that would have happened if I didn't mix business and relationship. I lost 50 kilos of catfish and it would have been a different story if she had come to pick it up by herself and also paid for it immediately.
She can't leave my farm with healthy fishes and return them dead asking for a refund, it's definitely impossible. I was really hurt but I took the fault and blamed myself.
With my experience, it's best to let business remain as business and relationship as a relationship.
Not creating boundaries usually doesn't end well and even though not everyone will mess up the privileges, you can't know who exactly will abuse things so it's safe to create boundaries.
I was scared to create boundaries after my experience with the woman, I felt like it would make me lose customers but I just had to make the decision and those who had good intentions towards me never stopped patronizing me.
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