Here we are together again ladies and gents. The following is from another nameless, faceless, business-owner-of-week. This one is pretty sure you will figure out his/her identity and he/she doesn’t much care!
I will remind you again that this area is going to be reserved for local business owners to voice their views about the current “situation” in which we find ourselves. Please contact me if you’d like to take part in an upcoming column.
I noticed that the boss kept my “header” at the top with my email address. You may also telephone me if you’d like. I’m the easiest person to find on earth and I get quite upset that more old friends don’t even try to locate me! WAAAAA!
OK, without further bloviating on my part, here is your NFBOW:
This shouldn’t be one-size-fits all
- By ???????
I own and operate a hair salon that has separate rooms divided off by walls. I told Lisa I didn’t care if she puts that in the paper.
I might not be considered to be “essential” by the standards they are using for these measures, but I think they are missing an important part of this whole thing which is mental health.
My business caters to men, women, and children. We have customers ranging from the very young to senior citizens. It might seem trivial to some who are reading this but many people feel better about themselves when they look good on the outside!
Not only is their mental health at risk but I think that a lot of small business owners, like myself, are also going to have mental health problems because of these measures.
All of this can have people feeling stressed out which has been proven to make people feel sick or to get sick.
I have thought from the start that people should be able to decide for themselves whether or not they want to come in for one of our services. Aren’t we supposed to be a free people?
I can take measures to protect everyone involved. Because my business is sectioned off, this makes it even more ridiculous that I can’t see clients.
I could have had my employees working with protective coverings in the different rooms. They are using a blanket formula for all businesses and they shouldn’t do that.
Also, I am very frustrated about basically having to use my computer for everything. All of the forms that had to be filled out to get help while being forced to close down are not easy to navigate on a computer.
I’m not the only person who has problems with this either. Because of my particular business, everything has to be customized on the computer. I have to buy special programs for it and have someone help me.
A person has to practically have a law degree or be a certified public accountant to even wade through some of the forms I had to do online. As far as I can tell, only certain people qualify for that PPP (Payroll Protection Program).
There seem to be a lot of different loopholes and things that might end up being detrimental when it comes to tax time next year.
It’s my understanding that 75% of the money has to go to payroll and the other 25% for utilities. It is also based on the status of the employees like if they are full time or salaried. My business is based on commissions so this might not even help me in the end! Like I said before, they seem to be wanting or doing a “one size fits all” here when it doesn’t work that way!
This closing down should have been decided on a local level or at a county level. There aren’t even that many cases in our county.
Many of us feel that we end up being dictated to by the state in the end, no matter what our communities might want!
I feel that we are not given any kind of chance for a rebuttal either. If they are going to police the small business owner, at least give them a chance to have a rebuttal!
This is going to screw everyone in the end. We live in a trickle down economy and this is not helping anyone.