So you’ve taken the big step. You have saved money for years, lived frugally, and borrowed the rest. Now you are ready to be an entrepreneur, living the dream of working for yourself.
First you will need property, so you go out and buy a piece of land in which to build your dream store. Ah, but beware, now that you have purchased your property local government steps in. You see there is no construction that can happen until they have done an environmental study to ensure the safety of Freddy the mud frog, and brown crickets, all at your expense of course. After all, we don’t want to make Freddy mad because if he protests about his relocation, then your land will be deemed a wild life sanctuary and become undevelopable. But you still have to pay taxes on it, of course.
If Freddy and his cricket friends agree, then you have to hire an architect to meet the hundreds of code rules that are enforced by mindless inspectors whom ache to find something wrong, thus validating their useless jobs. Immediately, the architect has come to you with a concern: you wanted to put big hooks in the back room to hang plastic tubing that you use for your business.
According to rule HG457, small children could hang themselves on these hooks and therefore they are illegal.
But children would not even be in the building much less the back room you reason. However, the bureaucrats are concerned that children could break in after hours, perhaps after midnight, and then remove your tubing and decide to hang themselves in some secret adolescent ritual. So, no hooks for you. Next you’re informed that you have to install hurricane safety windows even though you are in Kansas. It turns out that a local friend of the mayor has a factory that manufactures these.
At last the plans are complete and building begins. First the foundation is poured but then everything stops. It seems the cement inspector only comes out whenever he feels like it, and lately he doesn’t feel like it. Luckily for you, the builder is familiar with this inspector and for certain considerations (money) he could be persuaded to visit your sight within mere weeks! And so it goes nobody does anything from the government without a bribe. After months of delays, you’ve run out of money and you desperately go back to friends to borrow more.
Finally, the building is done and you check on the next phase which is drive and parking construction that will permit your customers to visit you easily. However, the zoning folks have not permitted a direct driveway to be built to enter your business from the road even though you paid considerable money for property that runs adjacent to the main road. Instead you must build an access road that only allows traffic from one direction to enter and then only after taking a twisty extended drive behind your establishment.
The inspector stated, “We can’t just have people pulling directly into your business Willy Nilly whenever they want!” You get angry at that statement and your spouse restrains you from killing the zoning person and burying them on the property!!
At last your building and lame inaccessible drive and parking are complete. After an extended battle with the sign czars, you are allowed to have a small sign placed in front of your business for all to see; too bad they cannot figure out where to enter and park.
Nothing could go wrong, now it is almost time for your grand opening! Yeah at last.
However, it seems that there was one more inspector that you did not consider . . . the landscaping man. He has demanded huge ten foot tall trees be planted in a row directly in front of your business.
“Nobody would be able to see my business from the road,” you object!
“Exactly,” states the man. “There is nothing uglier than a cement store and parking lot, my job is to maintain the beauty of nature and diminish the blight of development.”
“But I spent 100 thousand dollars on this store!”
“Maybe you could give your friends a flyer or something. Good bye.”
And so it goes despite your best efforts. Nobody see’s your store through the forest of trees or can figure out how to enter and eventually your dream dies and you close, putting the place up for sale.
But wait! All is not lost! It turns out that the local zoning commission has hired many new employees and is looking for additional space for their offices. They have offered you 50 percent of your original investment and you are forced to sell in order to pay back the money you’ve borrowed. So after paying off all those officials and jumping through incredible hoops it is the bureaucrats who are enjoying your lovely building complete with hurricane windows.
Postnote! You drove by your former store recently and there was construction directly in front, a sign posted read as follows…
DUE TO THE DIFFICULT ACCESIBILITY OF THIS BUILDING, A DIRECT DRIVEWAY IS BEING BUILT. YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK.
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