So I’m in a bit of a bind, and I need some advice.

I also need a good lawyer willing to work on contingency :P

When I got back to MI, I started driving a cab again.  That’s what I was doing when I left, it’s a fairly easy job, and hey when unemployment is closing in on 16%, you take what you can get.

The first company I drove for lied to me about their insurance – their vehicles don’t have any insurance.  This is a problem given my accident a few weeks ago where I got rear-ended.  I’m still sore and stiff from it, having intermittent headaches.  This is what I need the lawyer for.

The second company is a more difficult proposition, for a couple of reasons.  The company’s owned by a friend of mine, and she needs me driving.  The problem is, I’m not making crap.  I mean literally not making anything.  Two nights I drove last week, I took NO calls.  Several nights all I’ve taken is three or four, and two of those are typically ‘account’ calls that don’t pay cash. 

I could go work for the company I worked for back in the day and make money.  Unfortunately, this means a lot of crack runs and BS that I don’t feel like dealing with.  I like driving for my friend’s company.  I was even prepared to offer my own vehicle up to use as a cab.  Unfortunately, my friend feels that there are other things she needs for her business (i.e. a stretch limo) before she needs another regular car on the street.  Personally I disagree – I think having another car on the street would be excellent advertising, plus it would ensure that the existing customer base is well-served during peak times.  It would also give me a vested interest in helping to promote the company, which needs all the promotion it can get (being a startup).  Finally, it would be cheaper – probably by an order of magnitude – to put my van on the road versus the costs of buying a stretch and getting it road-ready.

But that’s just my opinion, and I don’t own the company or have anything to say about the decision-making process, so my opinion means dick.

In the mean time, I can’t afford to keep my phone on, or to keep insurance on my vehicle, or to keep paying the bills for my websites (which includes client sites).  I haven’t even been able to come up with the spare change to have Chad and Cherri send me the power cord from my camcorder.  Given my personality and work history, much of which amounts to ‘working for myself,’ chances of finding anything decent other than driving are slim.  I haven’t been making enough to get any kind of equipment purchased to make music, or even to pay cover charges at bars so I can check out what’s left of the once-great Kalamazoo music scene.  I don’t have drums, so I can’t just put a band together (although there ARE some things going on in that regard, but nothing certain and definitely nothing I can count on long-term).  I have a standing offer at this other company, but I don’t want to leave my friend hanging…plus to be perfectly frank, this friend is the kind of person who would tend to take it personally, even though it’s not personal at all.  I don’t like doing things that hurt my friends’ feelings, intentional or not.  My friends are important to me.  If it weren’t for the need to survive and get moving forward rather than stagnating and being broke all the time, I wouldn’t care about any of this.  If I was independently wealthy I’d drive for free.  I actually dig it most of the time, and I get to meet lots of fun people (*waves @ ann-marie and ellie*) and generally get paid for having a pretty decent time. 

Except for the getting paid part.

Another key factor is timing – the best nights to drive are Thurs-Sun.  Because my friend owns her company and only has the one car and has her own bills to pay, she tends to drive those days most of the time.  And that’s fine, except it leaves me kinda screwed money-wise.

My friend is also a very strong personality, and isn’t really amenable to taking suggestions.  I can dig that, I’m the same way a lot of times.  The stretch-v-van question is a good example of this.  On the down side, this makes it hard for me to put any of the experience and knowledge I have in running my own business (not to mention all the work I did for the theatres and so on) and in promotion and publicity.

I’m not a savior, much as I’d like to be.  I’m not a hero, much as I’d like to be.  I’m not omniscient, even though the way I carry myself might tend to make people think I believe otherwise.

I didn’t work last night.  I likely won’t work tonight, or tomorrow night, because my friend needs to make money to get her stretch and get it on the road…at which point she’s counting on me being available to drive the regular cab and then I’ll make more money.

I’m rather at my wit’s end here.  Do I “look out for number one” and go where the money is?  Do I stick it out and help my friend even though it’s leaving me in a financially untenable position?  My web hosts and insurance company and telephone company aren’t really concerned with whether I’m helping my friend.  My daughter doesn’t care if I’m doing a good thing, she just cares that I haven’t talked to her in a month or so because along with keeping MY phone bill paid, I also can’t keep HER phone bill paid.  My sister and brother-in-law don’t care that I’m trying to be a ‘nice guy,’ they just care that I’m sucking up their electricity and food and not paying for it.

And on the other hand, I don’t want to risk losing a friendship that goes back literally farther than I can remember.

Am I being a mark here?  Am I allowing my friendship to be used against my own best interests simply because I’m conflict-averse and don’t want to hurt people’s feelings?  Or am I doing the right and honorable thing by helping my friend at my own expense (and at this point it’s quite a considerable expense:  my business is at risk of shutting down because I can’t pay my bills, and I’ve already lost my car insurance and a bank account now because of the lack of funds, which means I shouldn’t actually be driving my car anywhere at all)?

All my life I’ve been told, and believed, that there are more important things than money.  Personally, I hate money.  I wish I had no use for it.  However, I can’t accomplish the things I want to accomplish in life without it.  I can’t *live* without it, and what little life I have is being eroded away to nothing while I sit here being a nice guy.  How do I extricate myself from this situation without hurting anyone’s feelings, losing friends (and friends of friends), and generally creating a disgusting, pathetic mess o’ drama simply because I would like to actually LIVE rather than just surviving hand-to-mouth?  Should I extricate myself, or keep being the good friend and sticking with it until money (hopefully) starts coming in that I can actually get a decent piece of?  Where does my obligation to myself become more important than my obligation to my friend?

For most of my life I’ve been an advisor, shoulder to cry on, open ear, helpful hand, to anyone and everyone who needed it.  More than once, this has resulted in me busting my ass for someone else’s benefit to my own detriment, ultimately to find that when my usefulness runs out, my friendship, advice, and hand is no longer needed and I’m cast off and forgotten (or scapegoated and pilloried, in a few cases).  Am I just following that same old pattern again, so desperate for approval and friendship and human contact that I’m willing to sacrifice my own well-being for it?  Or am I doing the good, right, honorable thing by short-changing myself and possibly losing my own business to help a friend get theirs running steadily?

Now, for once, it is I who needs your advice.  I look forward to everyone’s input.