what a sad commentary.  Our first year in Maine I was ecstatic about the beautiful world we’d moved to and the caring people we befriended.  Maine is still a beauty but hasn’t provided enough business to keep us as a Maine only business.  So this year we branched out worldwide and I’m completely speechless over the lack of ethics in the business world.  Multibillion dollar companies evaluate your worth based on whether we bring them significant income before making the decision to pay our invoice without argument and on time.  Each job literally determines whether our new business continues in operation so not living up to the contract puts us in jeopardy. (We own Bristol Marine Science and Survey – A service using remotely operated submersibles – bristolmarinesurvey.com)

Between a friend’s betrayal and the lack of ethics or just good business practices I’m completely disallusioned.  We even managed to catch FedEx unaware and completely uninformed about our shipment and do they make amends?  No!  They put us in collections when we wouldn’t pay $8,000.00 more than the smaller company that delivered our shipment on time, to our doorstep (we had to take our shipment to the airport tarmac to send it out with FedEx), and for $8000 less.  They promised a Friday delivery and didn’t know where it was on the following Sunday, it wasn’t located until Tuesday after doing our own sleuthing to find the package.  Each day delayed cost our customer $25, 000.00.  Apologies?  Nah, just pay the bill pal…