[Bradzvette]

I was to receive the following in lieu of any salary:
My own lift space
Keys to the shop so I could shoot the podcast after hours
A commission on any work I brought in
An office
Free tunes whenever I needed them and use of the dyno for the show, at the time I had it worked out to shoot a video comparing the dyno numbers of the four intakes, LS1, LS6, LS2 and FAST 90
I would also maintain and fix any of the Shop's computers at a discounted rate of 50% my going labor rate. (Yes I have my own computer business since 1997)

So, where did I go wrong and what things are my faults? Everywhere and all of it are my responsibility.

I was warned by many, many people in the Corvette community not to go there. But old stubborn me, I figured I have a degree in Applied Behavioral Science, (psychology) I can handle it. Wrong! Big mistake on my part. But I thought I saw an opportunity and was excited. I wanted to be a part of something and thought the endeavor had potential.

Almost from the get go, it was clear I was not wanted there by the shop manager, JP. A big mistake was that as soon as I realized there was friction with JP, I should have said thank you but no thank you and left. But there is that stubborn Irish/Italian streak in me and I trusted Tracy and thought we were friends. I don’t make many friends unfortunately, mostly because I don't have patience for adults, all of my patience is usually spent on my students and by the end of a school week my patience is gone. But I did truly think of Tracy as a friend and tried to act as I thought a friend should.

I definitely saw that there were many people around him who merely were there to get what they could from him for free. It did not take me long to recognize this at all and I felt bad for him. I vowed not to become like that. I did ask Tracy to adjust our agreement after a week or two to allow me to get any parts I needed at the Shop's cost. He agreed.

So I went along posting up on several sites marketing RevX. I went out on Sunday night cruises and breakfast cruises doing my very best to help promote RevX. I brought in a major deal for the shop from a Corvette Forum Oldsmar member who had a blown motor and it was set to generate a nice profit for the shop and a few bucks to me for the commission. Well I wont go into details as to what went wrong but the deal ended up not making any money at all due to some errors that had nothing to do with me and since the shop lost money on the deal Tracy refused to pay me any commission.

I wasn't happy but went along with it and reminded him that I wanted a 410 diff for my car and that he agreed to let me have it for shop's cost. But again, my mistake I should have left when I wasn’t paid, but foolishly stayed trying to work things out. JP was working against me every step of the way, constantly undermining my ideas. I had set up a car show at the shop on a Saturday in October 2007 but Tracy and the gang were out of town racing that day and JP tried and almost successfully got Tracy to cancel the show.

Thankfully however, it proceeded and the show went fabulously. One of the mechanic's wives called Tracy and told him how great things went and I believe some business was generated from the show.