Karaoke Forums

Man ! Im so sick of not being able to trust anyone to work for us! Family at that! This has happened both times we hired someone to work for us.First is was my own brother..he worked for us got stuck on stupid while doing shows by drinking too much! We kept getting mad at him for losing gigs b/c of that.so he and a husband/wife team went into business promising my brother more $ than we were paying him & not caring if he drank during shows.So he gave us 2 weeks notice(something we said heck no to & just said go! ) He basically told this husband/wife team where I bought my karaoke "stuff" (equipment,cd's & other stuff) And after he lined up a few gigs for them they fired him.He "tried" coming back to us but we said no. Fast forward a few years my husbands cousin was coming to our shows at a bowling ally.He loves karaoke & could sing pretty good.Randy offered him a job doing the weekly shows he said yes.I dont trust anyone family or not with my equipment and more my music..(karaoke music) Anyways we paid him for set up & break down something we dont charge the venues for at all.Anyways so we paid him $20 for that and 10$ an hour.We gave him high praise b/c he is an ok kj & thought everything was ok.Until 2 weeks ago he drops our equipment off tells us he quits and that the venuse "decided" to stay with him.He says its b/c my husband told him we were closing up shop! (That came from a fight me & hubby were having b/c I thought the website looked like crap & told him to call his cousin to get it fixed seeing he is the one who messed it up) Anyways my hubby gets mad at me b/c he didnt think the website was all that bad..he calls his cousin (just to p me off & tells him to tell the shows that were closing up shop) Well long story short it was LESS THAN 3 hours he calls his cousin back & says " disreguard that crap I told you to do,I was mad at Kelley & was just blowing off steam!" So we thought that was the end of that.He's going & telling the venues that were closing up shop & he'll be buying his own equipment so they dont have to worry about finding another KJ.We went to the bowling alley venue they all from the owner to the daytime manager talked all kinds of crap about him to our faces but come to find out they wanted to keep him anyway..so what Im thinking is hes filled their heads with a bunch of promises & junk & they think hes the best to stick with even though the gig was ours wayyy before he started running the shows there for us.Soo whatever..go figure that one..Im tired of trying to figure on why they kept him knowing he lied about us going out of business.Whatever! The other venue hasnt even had the balls to call us & fire us.Pu**y! All we know is we had the fight at about 7pm at night & he says he applied for and got approved for a small business loan told both the venues what was happening & did all of this at 7pm at night (and in the less than 3 hours that we were supposedly closing up shop) Bull Crap! Bull Crap!! Bull Crap!!
He bought the same set up as us the same hoster program & God knows if he has our music..BUT we will find out,believe that! Ya know I would be able to understand better if he did all this in the open & let us know he was branching out on his own we wouldnt be too happy but to take our gigs too?! Slimy bastard! We paid him decent with bonus' at Christmas time of $250 (not alot I know BUT this past Christmas my husband didnt have a job..he could have & should have bought gifts for our kids..but he didnt he gave it to his cousin..As a matter of fact my husband was out of a job from October of last year until February of this year.He COULD HAVE & SHOULD HAVE taken the shows FROM him & not had to pay an employee..we have two kids to feed hes single & living with his granny & pap.BUT we didnt do that either! BECAUSE he was family. We lost our home in light of losing his job in October.So karaoke was paying the bills (pretty much food & lights & gas..the essentials) We're not too happy but we're moving on in a way..We now have another show and KJ she brings our equipment back to our house after a show (thank God that the show is only 10 min from our house) We are blessed with a great girl that enjoys singing also. BUT I dont trust anyone anymore & she knows that & "gets it" she says. Its so crazy but my motto has always been there is more than enough work to be had without stealing someone elses shows! What a cuchi for stealing what he has instead of good old fashioned competing ! Anyways just wanted to tell ya "Just dont trust anyone!" Thanks for letting me vent

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Kelley
Star Sounds Karaoke & Mobile Recording Studio


[shadow=black][scroll]You have to respect your audience. Without them, you're essentially standing alone, singing to yourself....KD Lang[/scroll][/shadow]

Sorry to hear about that, and I agree with you. Fair competition is one thing, taking advantage of someone is another. We all have a few people in our families that we just don't associate with. I have a brother who is a radical Communist, and a father whom I didn't talk to for 20 years, because he dumped our family, and both situations are painful. I was able to work things out with Dad, fortunately, but some people are just hopeless, even if they are family, and we have to keep them at a distance. Fortunately, there are some people in my life whom I can trust, and I wish you the same good luck.

-denise

Aww thank you Denise But ya know ya gotta hold the venue accountable too..they knew what he was doing all they both cared about was the all mihty dollar! But now its all I can think about b/c he took $800 a month out of our families budget! After hubby getting laid off,losing our home and getting another job,which we are very thankful for,but it literally is half of what he was making.Its a big blow! But we'll survive! We always do !

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Kelley
Star Sounds Karaoke & Mobile Recording Studio


[shadow=black][scroll]You have to respect your audience. Without them, you're essentially standing alone, singing to yourself....KD Lang[/scroll][/shadow]

Kelly...I am so sorry to hear this happened to you. DH and I know just how had it is to find GOOD loyal KJ's and it takes us forever to check someone out befor we allow them to start traing let alone have access to our equiptment un attended. I am so sorry this happened to you

I feel for you Kelley,, and know how ya feel. I just went through a similar thing early this spring. I am still trying to recover from it. Most likely will never recover lost income. It's really sad there is no loyalty or common decency these days. I hope you can get past this entire ordeal and will be able to move on quickly.

Good luck, and if you need any advice or anything,, feel free to drop me a note

Scott

Seems common place these days, Pirate gets a job working for successful KJ and, at the first opportunity, copies the KJ's hard drive or discs and goes into business without ever buying a single song. I know 2 KJ's around here that used to work for another KJ and they all seem to have the same song library. Ooops!

A gal out here in the Kansas City market ended up having her music pirated by a family member who KJ'd for her when she went digital. Supposedly he's gone legit since that time, but I guess the whole thing has me thinking about Dave Ramsey's warnings about lending money to family.

Doing business with family just seems like a bad idea because you probably won't want to throw them in jail if they screw you over.

The friend who got me into the KJ business screwed the venue I worked at for him, which I was supposed to only work at once a week, but it ended up being three - four nights each week because he over-committed himself. When he took on a gig at a neighboring venue, they said a condition of his getting that gig was he did not work anywhere else. So he just lied to "my" venue and said he was doing private parties, weddings, etc. when he was really KJing or DJing at a competing bar, and he didn't even have the guts to tell them he had agreed not to work for them anymore.

Needless to say, it only took the venue a few weeks to find this out, and once they did, they fired him. They asked me to stay and I did, on the condition that they continued to pay me through my friend until the end of the year. I thought that was very fair, especially since my friend was not going to help me get another gig because both his son and daughter were unemployed AND he "gave" one of my nights at that venue to his daughter, who did such a bad job that they just canceled that night all together, and said she could never work there again! Money out of both our pockets!

So fast-forward about six months, I'm now working for the venue directly, and my friend's son was fired from his KJ gig, and my friend went to "my" venue and offered to quit his gig, put his son there, and come back to "my" place and take over all my nights.

Some friend! As you might imagine, the venue owner politely said no, he had been screwed, he had watched me get screwed, and he saw the friend trying to screw me again.

So I am still friends with the friend in this story, but I don't do business with him anymore except for fill-in work, and I charge more than he does. I even had to quit giving him a favorable rate when I did fill in for him because he "forgot" to tell me about private party/wedding venues with steps, extra needs, etc. so many times, I just quit doing him any favors.

Had to stop lending him equipment after his kids broke some stuff I lent him, too. :/

Business with friends and family is tough. But if you can at least separate business drama from your friendships and family relationships, you can still go bowling with them even if you don't like to work together.

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Jeff Wheeler, moonlight DJ/KJ

Kelly

Wish you luck and sorry to hear about all the struggles.
Don't give up on the human race yet ...there are some good and honest people out there.

Never hire Family ..it almost always leads to trouble.

I to am sorry to hear you've had so many problems. It's tough to find good help, but it's out there. Good luck darlin

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[shadow=pink][glow=deepskyblue]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

I've heard that story a thousand times over the years.

Karaoke/DJ outfit gets more gigs than they can do (or want to do) themselves, and they hire someone else to run the shows.

Few months go by.. the hired man is making $50 to $100 a night, and the venue is paying the company $150 to $250 a night.

Employee starts realizing, "Hey.. I could get my own rig and put ALL that money in my pocket."

It's easy for the employee to pick up the gigs, especially if the venue is busy and the guy doing the hosting is well liked and has been doing that same venue for awhile.. normally the employee will piece his own system together slowly week by week, then when he or she is ready, they'll approach the bar management.. usually with this pitch:

"You'll still get me.. but cheaper!"

I've also heard of the venue buying their own house equipment and then hiring the KJ companies hired host.. so the KJ company looses a gig AND an employee.

Best way to avoid this situation is to not hire people. Do all the shows yourself.

If that's not an option, then the next best way to prevent employees from hijacking your gigs is NOT to use the same host at the venue week after week. Alternate hosts.. one week they get YOU the next week they get the hired host.

The more familuar with the hired host the venue is, the more friendly they become with them, and the easier it is for them to end up with your gig.

Third option is to have anyone working for you sign contract that includes a 'non-compete' clause. You'll want to look into your local and state laws regarding non-compete clauses. I know places like California they are next to useless.

If enforceable in your state, if your employee decides to quit and go on their own, and take your gigs with you, you can legally prohibit them from doing so.

Most jurisdictions in which such contracts have been examined by the courts have deemed CNCs to be legally binding so long as the clause contains reasonable limitations as to the geographical area and time period in which an employee of a company may not compete. Courts have held that, as a matter of public policy, an individual cannot be barred from carrying out a trade in which (s)he has been trained except to the extent that is necessary to protect the employer.

Thanks for all the support everyone.As for the "dont do business with family" I learned my lesson with my brother doing it.My husbands cousin was always I mean always spouting this line" Im not your brother..God dont like ugly" UGH it makes my skin crawl just to type it! My husband thought about the non compete contract but put it on the back burner until it was too late.For any good it might or might not have done it prolly would have been a detourant at least.This is TRUTH! (what I quoted below) It happened just like this! He has done that show working for us for about a year or a little longer..The people came to like him & the people are totally different than when hubby was running the show. Its ok though Im a firm believer in what goes around comes around I just hope Im there to see it hit him square between the eyes! I cant wait for the venues to find out all his bs promises are just that BS!

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Kelley
Star Sounds Karaoke & Mobile Recording Studio


[shadow=black][scroll]You have to respect your audience. Without them, you're essentially standing alone, singing to yourself....KD Lang[/scroll][/shadow]

I feel sorry for you also and dealing with relatives can be a real hassle.
Heck if I had all the money that I lent out to relatives in the past paid back to me I could be debt free, learned that lesson and will never ever happen again.


I think I would talk to the venue and explain to them that if he does not have all the discs to go with the music he has that they are open to a law suit. Tell them to have him show them all the discs. I'm sure that they don't want that kind of trouble. I also think I would let him know that if he did in fact copy all you music just what kind of trouble he could be in.

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I like everyone when I first meet them. If you don't like me that's not my problem it's YOURS!
A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet

Trust, but verify.

1. Get a non-compete, have it reviewed by a lawyer.

Generally, a non-compete says that when they leave your employment for any reason they can't do that job within a geographic area for a period of time. However, if they came to you already trained - meaning you don't provide training to them - then it gets more difficult. Also, they likely will have to be an employee to enforce it - which means taxes, etc. If they're a 'subcontractor' paid on 1099 (or under the table) then enforcing a non-compete is nigh on impossible. Talk with a lawyer about it - it will likely be the best $100-$200 you'll spend on the consult.

2. Keep the personal business (arguing) and the actual business separate.

Part of the problem is the call made to the cousin. It put his wheels in motion (or nudged him to make the leap).


3. Go to the show. If he's using your library, turn him in.