When I was working for Metro Toronto Ambulance I had a side line business, Captain Jim's Atlantic Lobsters. I would buy live lobster over the phone from 2 commercial sea food companies in Nova Scotia. I would call first thing on Friday morning, get my price per pound for pound and a half size lobsters. I would then call my regular customers ( hotels, catering companies ) give them their price ( three times what I was paying for them ) and book their orders. Then back on the phone to Nova Scotia, place my order. Go to the National Bank in Toronto, deposit the cash to cover the purchase, they would call long distance to Nova Scotia, and notify the company that their money was in their bank account. An hour later, the seafood company would call me, with the fight number and waybill number for Air Canada cargo, for my shipment. Around 3pm the lobsters would arrive at Toronto airport, in the cargo building. I would pay the air flight cost, and pick up the load with my truck, then start delivering to my customers. By 6pm, the deliveries would be finished.
A typical Friday would be from 1500 to 2000 pounds of live lobsters, which I paid around $5 for each one. My customers were paying me $15 per lobster. Less the air shipping, I was making around $28,000 a week. The job with Metro Ambulance saw me work 12 hour shifts, and in the 6 week schedule I only worked 20 days, out of 42. Once every 6 weeks I had seven straight days off. Not vacation days, but rest days, to balance the week before where I had worked 6 days out of 7. I ran that business for 5 years, then I sold it to 2 Toronto Fire Department guys, along with my customer lists, and Nova Scotia contacts. The profits from that business went in to my retirement fund.
A number of years later ( after I left Toronto Ambulance ) I was working as a Private Investigator. My boss was a ex Peel Regional Police detective, who got shot up pretty bad in a bungled bank robbery. He had to take early retirement due to medical problems. He and I were the only employees. We got a file to find and serve a crook contractor, who had taken a $250,000 deposit to build a building, but spent the money instead. In the process of finding him, I learned that he had 3 work vans, and 2 luxury cars leased from a large GM dealership in north Toronto. I went to see the leasing manager, to find out more about the guy. The leasing manger also wanted him found, so I made a deal, that if I found him, I would immediately inform the leasing company. Three days later, I tracked the subject down, to a house that was only 4 blocks from the dealership. The next morning at 6 AM, 5 tow trucks were lined up down the street, when I knocked on the door. He came out and I served him with the court papers, and signaled the tow trucks to come in and start hooking up the vans and the cars.
The leasing company was very pleased, in fact they wrote me cheque for $1,500 in gratitude. My boss and I pitched them and we got the exclusive contract to do all their tracing and vehicle recoveries from then on. We did that for 8 years. We were busy all the time ( this was in the economic slump in the late 80's.) My boss died from medical complications, and his wife sold the company to a rival PI company. I left the business . JimB.
