A little side story about the tattoo shop

  I recently had an issue with a new studio opening up just blocks from our location and a couple of my artists and an ex-piercer decided they might do better there and they proceeded to lie to me and leave one day only for me to find out they had been planning to go there for some time. Well for several days I was panicking inside thinking that they really screwed me and my chances of keeping my shop open. It's like it is just a game for them as if I didn't have my life's savings wrapped up into it and it wouldn't screw my whole family if we lost everything, but whatever, in all reality I don't expect them to understand, it was the fact that I was lied to that really hurt. Luckily I had a really great artist who could have gone with them but he chose to stick with us because he knows we have already spent the last 3 years building our clientele and our great reputation and I appreciate him very much for staying with us for a while longer. Now we have a couple of new artists and I just got the greatest compliment last night. A girl came in to get her industrial pierced and she had several friends with her. After I got set up and brought them back to the piercing room one girl says "wow, this place is really legit!" and her other friend says "yeah, this place is way better than the place you got your tongue pierced at" so I asked where she got her tongue pierced at out of curiosity and she tells me it was at the new shop which the name I won't mention because I don't hate them personally. It just made me feel better and more relieved that we will survive, because I have worked hard to be great at what I do and to have a great reputation and I won't let anybody take that away from me. Anyway, I just needed to get that off my chest so there you have it.