IN
THE BEGINNING
In order to tell the whole story of Amac Enterprises
and Gamesnet I need to go back to a time before it all started, back
to the beginning.
In the beginning I was young and eager and
struggling to learn how to function in a world I couldnt really understand.
I decided early that the best was to have control
over your self ws to have control over your own money , that includeds
your income , where its spent ,how you get it everything!. I thought
that the best was to be really self reliant was to earn your own money
from your own time and efforts, To not owe someone els simply so that
you can fulfil relatively minor needs in the short term. I wanted
to get into a business of my own. A business that would contribute
to the betterment of myself and other people. Something that would
satisfy my customers or clients needs and help me to fulfil my own
I wanted to know that whatever I did it was for good reasons and it
would be of help to other people including my own friends nad familly.
But for the purpose of this story I have to go back a couple of years
before I had came to that realisation.
And so the story starts way back in 1995
I have at many times in my life been stuck
on various roundabouts. I guess it stemmed from what very well could
have been the first major roundabout in my life, moving from school
to school. I don’t think it is really realised how destructive
this can be on a child but anyway that's a whole other story. Later
in life I got caught on the unemployment round about moving from job
to job. Year after year on and of the dole and all of the time feeling
quite miserable about it all. I felt like I had no direction in life,
no purpose, no hope and no real future. I tried to make myself enjoy
the work I did but I felt empty on the inside and trapped on the outside.
The jobs that came my way gave me a very little degree of satisfaction
and no formal "qualifications" which I could use. I earnt ok money
, enough to kind of keep my head out of water enough to get a deep
breath for the next dunking.
I started work fresh out of school as a junior
warehouse assistant in a furniture making factory in November 1995
it was a casual position that only lasted over the Christmas rush
period. And boy was it a rush period. A friend of mines older brother
got me a job where he worked. He knew I was looking for something
and so it began. Adult hood . We caught the bus in the morning and
worked all day for little pay, I was young and had just left school
and I really didn’t want to be there but society preached the
need to earn money and pay your way so Hi Ho Hi Ho it's of to work
I go. I started out sweeping the floors with a giant broom and emptying
bins twice my size. It was an upholstery factory and I was the gopher
boy running around for the guys on the staple guns, unloading trucks,
stacking lounge frames, cutting and gluing cushions, getting the lunches
and taking the stupid jokes that the workers thought were so funny
like looking for the left handed hammers and stuff. As soon as the
christmas rush died down I cgot called to the office. They probably
didnt like me napping on the big piles of foam whenever I could sneak
off and get 5 minutes zz time.
Well anyway they gave me a pretty good resume
and I was glad to leave at that time to persue my dreams and goals
and to finally be allowed to enjoy some time off from school or work
for a while. I just wanted time to find myself and follow my heart,
not run off into any job that pops along because of pressure applied
from the world I live in and end up liveing a miserable existence
in pursuit of money, marriage and the great Aussie dream home.
THis ws now supposed to be my time off, a great
time to enjoy. So off I went to enjoy some of it, I spent time riding
dirtbikes and hanging out, getting pissed and stoned, fishing and
diving, going to pubs and parties with mates and all the stuff I wanted
to do without worrying
Shortly after Christmas that year I was involved
in a car accident. I was as a pedestrian walking with my mate Ambo
in the emergency stopping lane one night on our way to visit another
friend. We were both hit by the car which was illegally overtaking
in the emergency stopping lane on an 80 km/h stretch of road. I remember
the impact as the car slammed into my back and my heals flew up into
the bumper bar, I rolled up the bonnet and into the windscreen with
my head hitting the glass so hard that it didn’t completely break,
it jsut left an impression of my skull in the glass with only the
impression shattering amazingly the windscreen itself was perfect
except for the egg shape left in the centre of the passengers side.
I sailed threw the air for what seemed like 10 seconds or so but was
probably only 1or 2 and my battered body came to rest 15 metres from
where the car came to a stop. Ambo was clipped by the side of the
car and bounced off the front fender into the bushes.
We never hitch hiked again and the accident
pretty much grounded my teenage rampage years of riding dirt bikes
and running amok to a complete stop ending an era. My lower back was
damaged quite badlyand I suffered from severely pinched nerves which
gave great volts of pain up my spine and down my legs, I spent a good
while on crutches, I had trouble walking for months and couldn't run
for over a year due to the pain.
This put me off my feet for sometime and caused
me to feel like I had now blown my chances of getting myself into
a good job ever. Then by luck one day while I was visiting a good
mate Richard I met Bill. Bill was a friend of Richards mum and he
was a painter and decorator. Billy Brandon , Bill offered me some
work as a casual brushhand for a few weeks which I gladly accepted.
Off I went with Richard and Bill in overalls two sizes too big to
be a painter.
Man was it messy, its was mostly boring, and it was work! But I actually
seemed to have a good knack of it , I was pretty fast and started
learning how to cut in realy sharp. Bill was great to work for and
we had lots to talk about every day and he was happy to keep me on.
We developed a good friendship old Bill and I and he also employed
most of me mates at one stage or another who were still at school
for work experience, we had a great time and learned a lot from Bill.
He became a friend and mentor to us all but unfortunately the work
wasn't always consistent and it was messy and unpleasant for the most
part, when the work was pile up there was quite a bit of pressure
involved and when there was much work on I spent many days and nights
not knowing whether or not there was work for the next day or not.
The paint fumes were strong and fumy and the turps and thinners ate
into your skin and I didn’t like being called out on weekends
for rush jobs that had to finished on time. At times we were forced
to work well into the night because jobs had to be finished. I wasn't
happy with the pay, although I knew that it was all Bill could afford,
I wasn’t happy with the hours or the work itself. But it had
seen me through a couple of years and given me some skills which by
now I was trained up enough to look after a team of painters on my
own. I may not have been happy but at least I had a job.
I decided I needed to look for a more stable
position so my parents pulled some strings with relatives and got
me a start as a painter for A big Building Company called Keywest.
It was a long way to travel to work each day with many jobs up in
the hills clocking up nearly 200 kms a day sometimes. Luckily I rode
a motorbike so petrol was nothing, the pay was good and they did provide
travel allowance, I was learning quite a bit even though the work
was very monotonous and boring painting units and homes one duplicate
place after another and I felt completely unchallenged but still,
I planned to stick it out and I was getting faster and faster as I
became more familiar with the units. I felt like a greater force was
working with me guiding me on so that I could prosper in life but
I had no Idea where it was taking me.
One night while riding my bike with my mate
Gary riding shotgun on the back I was pulled over by the boys in blue
and charged with reckless driving. That would teach me for doing 120K
in a 60 zone. I was 18 and only on my P plates I lost my license for
3 months which of course ended my chances of a promising long career
with Keywest after only 6 months.
Bill was now painting with a large team Headed
by a man called Brian Amos, they where working on a mansion that had
over a years work left to go on the painting alone and after some
time managed to get me a position on the team for a trial period.
The team consisted mainly of Brian's Sons and family and a couple
of others from time to time. They were a good bunch of blokes, we
all got on pretty well which made the days kinda enjoyable even though
I still didn't like the boring monotonous work I was doing. I sold
my motorbike and bought a 1978 Toyota Corola of my step father for
$3500, he let me pay it off which really helped me out, after a year
I sold it for $6000 paid him back and bought my own car for $1,200
a 1975 HJ holden.
We painted some really big houses which at least was interesting and
I stuck it out and stayed with them for about a year with reasonably
consistent work.
Then one day my ex-girlfriends father Eric
asked if I would like to work with them as a factory hand at W.A Signs
which was a new business he had recently purchased. I had been painting
for 4 years and quite frankly hated the monotonous boredom of doing
the same things day after day on similar looking items, gutters, downpipes,
ceilings and walls. I had been having a lot of trouble with my breathing,
shortness of breath and constant coughing and my back gave me a lot
of grief when it came to climbing around on ladders and scaffolding
as a result from the car accident in 86.
Yeah I was definitely happy to make a change
in my life so of I went.
Sharon's family where like a surrogate family
to me and I currently lived with them even though I had broken up
in a relationship with her sometime earlier. Sharon and I remained
very close after we broke up and we became more like a brother and
sister. The Griffith's looked after me for many years.
So I went to work at W.A Signs as a factory
hand.
The new job still involved painting but it
was varied and different every day which made a big difference in
my enjoying the work somewhat.
By now my mode of transport was an old rusty
Holden and I decided that I needed and could afford to buy a better
car .I had no financial ties at all and decided to go for a loan to
buy the car I had always wanted. After some visits to a few banks
Eric went guarantor for me and I purchased a 1976 Holden Monaro which
seemed to be in excellent condition. A classic holden V8 it had a
308 which had been worked a bit and was mean and fast. I loved the
car and felt like I had achieved one of my first real goals I had
set in life,
That's when it all went wrong, after only a
few months of use the motor blew up and I put it in for repairs.
Family members started telling me things like
"I told you so" and "it serves you right" "you should have listened
to me" "we told you not to buy such an old car". I had the car towed
to a mechanic who gave me a quote which I thought was extremely high
even though he assured me that the end result would be professional.
I was young and I was into cars I bought magazines
like "street machine" and liked to talk to others about cars and I
thought I might as well get a strong motor built. I rang a few more
mechanics and ended up talking to a Guy that had a reputation with
building fast drag and speedway motors at affordable prices and who
ran adds on the radio Jeff Kendrick. He seemed to know what he was
talking about but I hadn't made up my mind. The car was at another
place where the quote I got seemed too high and I was seriously thinking
about how much I could afford and what to have done and who to get
to do it. I could get my father to do it he owns and runs his own
mechanic's workshop but would he do what II want or would he talk
me out of everything and make me have a standard pussy engine.
I should have heard the warning bells when
I found out that this "speedway guy" had organised a tow truck to
take the car to his workshop before I had made a decision. The mechanic
where it was taken from even tried to warn me about who I was dealing
with but I chose to let the speedway guy do the job because he took
an interest in me and seemed like he was interested in helping me
fulfil a dream. I gave him the go ahead to rebuild the motor and to
trust him that he would make it fast and mean and it wouldn’t
cost me a lot.
This turned out to be a life changing mistake
,I went to see the progress after a week and nothing had been done.
After 4 weeks I was getting really worried, I needed my transportation
and this guy kept my car locked up in the back of his workshop after
4 months I was really pissed off and then came the outrageous bill,
over $4000. When the motor was finally ready and dropped into the
car he called me and told me that there was no carbie with the car,
he argued with the mechanic that he had picked the car up from saying
it wasnt with the car when he picked it up and in the end the first
mechanic ended up suppllyng me with another carbie but stated all
along that the carbie was definitely in the boot when it left his
workshop but that he could see I was getting messed about and ripped
off so he felt he was duty bound to try and do the right thing anyway
after many sleepless nights, arguments on the phone, threats of legal
action and battles with my father I accepted the bill and decided
my only choice was to increase my already existing bank loan in order
to get the Monaro back. again Eric helped me out with the bank and
I picked up the car. To my great disappointment it ran really bad,
pinging and spluttering , overheating and slipping at the gearbox.
After complaining I was told that the motor
had 12:1 compression and needed octane booster or aviation fuel to
run properly for street use.
I was forced to go back to the other mechanic
that had given me the first high quote to put things right. He helped
me out by dyno tuning and servicing the carbie for me and trying to
sort out some of the other problems as he felt partly responsible
for my position after letting the shonky mechanic pick up the car
the way he did. He also told me the only way I could run the car on
the street was to fit a larger radiator and run it on a mix of aviation
fuel and petrol.
Unfortunately by now It was obvious that I
had been taken for a bit of a ride and that the costs of putting the
car right outweighed the value and practicality of owning it.
Anyway I came to the conclusion that I had
to cut my losses and sell the car. Unfortunately It was in good condition
but not good enough to regain the money I had lost. I was going to
have to improve the cars appearance by sorting out some rust spots
and repainting it, fixing suspension problems and recovering the upholstery.
It soon became evident that the car needed a new diff then it was
tires and the gear box needed servicing. The car became a nightmare
and a bottomless money pit which gobbled up all of my pay cheques
with what was left going to the banks to pay the loans.
The Monaro wasn’t the only drama going
on in my life at the time.
I had been single since Sharon and I had parted
ways and hadn't really been thinking about relationships because of
my financial position but then one night I met a really nice girl
at a party who was actually there on a date with my friend Richard.
It didn’t work out between them but Michelle and I really hit
it off. We started seeing each other and things were great for a while.
Disaster struck again in February 1990 when
we had run so low with work at W.A Signs that I was doing painting
work on Eric's house just to fill in time. Eventually Eric was forced
to let me go as they couldn't afford to keep me on and pay my wages.
This meant I didn't have the income to service my loans and finish
the car. I couldn't drive the car as a mode of transport because I
couldn’t afford the aviation fuel it needed to run properly and
the insurance premiums on the car were $1200 for 6 months. To make
matters worse one night when I took it out for a drive returning home
late I decided to park it in the driveway, I usually parked it in
a locked up carport but didn't want to wake Eric or his family as
it was 3am so I parked it in the drive. That night my Monaro was stolen
and driven hard. Eric was angry as hell and I thought my life was
over. Luckily I got it back in one piece, the tires where worn completely
out and a window was smashed but there was no serious damage that
I could find.
Michelle came to me one day with news that
she was pregnant. Of course I went threw all the normal reactions
of worry and woe but after thinking about it for a few days I kinda
liked the idea and so we decided if it was meant to be then we would
go through with it together, we told our parents and friends and prepared
ourselves mentally for the future. Michelle's father was completely
against it and suggested that we abort which upset Michelle and I
both alot.
The loss of work and lack of money had spun
me into a depression and the pregnancy seemed to be an uncertain turn
of events but still Michelle and I both felt positive about having
a baby. Then one afternoon after a trip to the doctors Michelle came
to me crying and told me that the doctor had told her that she wasn’t
pregnant and that apparently she had been experiencing what was called
a phantom pregnancy. Her body had shown all the signs of pregnancy
earlier but now the tests were negative. Michelle was distraught and
I told her that We could wait a while and try for a baby when I got
out of the mess I was in.
That whole situation made me realise how unprepared
I was for life and how I had to change my money situation before I
could relax into a life with a partner and I was in no shape to be
a responsible father so I actually felt very relieved. Soon I started
avoiding Michelle because I felt so bad about myself and how my situation
would affect her life. I felt I loved her and it was not fair to make
these dramas going on in my life a part of hers. She was working and
at times giving money to me to buy petrol or cigarettes, and I felt
that I was using her and it was unfair. Eventually we both agreed
to let it go and we parted ways. I still loved her, in fact very deeply
but it just was not going to happen for me until I sorted out my financial
and emotional issues that I was burdened with. I swore that I would
stay single until I was out of debt and had changed the direction
in my life. Anyway I had my dog Brandy and she loved me enough to
keep me company for a long while.
Soon after this I left Eric's house to share
a rental property with a friend. This made my financial position even
harder. I was still unemployed and owed a lot of money for the car.
I was forced to accept handouts from the salvation army for food and
to seek Homeswest help with rental assistance. By now I had fallen
into a deep depression and all but given up the fight. I felt that
looking for work was hopeless and could see no reason for trying at
all. I owed so much money for the car and I would never be free again.
Then another blow came when the Monaro threw
a piston and damaged the motor beyond repair. The mechanic who checked
the engine out discovered that it had been built with sub quality
parts and even suspected they may have been second hand speedway parts.
He also discovered that some of the original parts that should be
on the drive train had been swapped with non genuine parts. Basically
I had been conned.
I attempted to take legal action against the
mechanic however Consumer Affairs said that I didn't have much of
a case because of the length of time that had passed since the repairs
and the fact that the engine had been built without warranty. They
also said that there was no way of proving what had been done to the
car or how it had been driven since the repairs and the fact that
it had been stolen all worked against me.
I eventually sold the car for $2,500 and the
remains of the engine for $1000.It had so far cost me more than $25,000
in total
I paid what I could off the accumulated debts
which by now had built up to include rent and others due to my lack
of employment and the amount I owed. I could now see no way forward
as I had no car, no job and still owed out over $20,000 I was struggling
just to get food for the week and very very depressed.
I got to talking with the guy I sold the Monaro
to and he told me how he owned a car yard where they bought cheap
cars and rebuilt them to be sold. He offered me a part time bit of
cash work at his car yard and even said that he would consider giving
me the car back if things turned out. Something didn’t feel right
but I was desperate and so I accepted and worked there with a friend
of mine for a while quite happily. Then one day I discovered that
they where selling drugs from the yard. I needed money so I just kept
my mouth shut, eyes and ears closed and continued to work. One day
Tony offered me a way to make a little extra money and so I took an
ounce of pot and sold foils to my mates. Still I kept my nose in my
work and avoided too much contact with the other guys aside from Nathan
my friend that came to work there as well. We worked amongst all sorts
of characters and it made me realise that life was hard for many more
people other than myself. I pretty much kept to myself and didn't
really mix with the drugies that filed through the place.
Then one morning I came in to work and they
where cutting up a car with a hot-axe and throwing the panels into
a dumpster. I think it was the next day that I came to work to find
bullet holes in some of the cars including a mini I was working on
for myself and the shed door pitted with bullet holes, Warning bells
where really ringing in my head but still I chose to ignore them again.
I ran a few jobs for tony driving cars fro
one palces dropping htem off and bringing back differnt cars, I worked
on them as I was asked and collected my pay at the end of the week.
somtiems I would see them open the boots of the cars and they were
filled with car stereos andbits and peices, other times they would
unload guns and bags of drugs.
Nathna and I jsut kept our heads down and took
no notice of the life going on around us. We were jsut happy to have
jobs.
the none day when we turned up for work the
place was raided by police and I was taken in for questioning. They
had been watching the place for several weeks and busted into the
place like in the movies, glss and brken bits of doors were all over
the main office where the trg and drug squad had busted in. luckilly
for Nathan and I we arrived after the raid occured and deciuded to
jsut drive past and go home wehn we saw all the cops everywhere. THe
cops let us go, they had been wathing for weeks and they knew we werent
involved in the illegal aspects of Tony's car yard. I stayed away
from Tony as much as possible after that. He still contacted me for
little favours and stuff but I had enough and wanted to clean my life
up so badly.
After all the trouble at Tony's I moved to
another house with my brother and some mates and we had Homeswest
help with the bond and rent. I had no assets, no credit rating, no
car and no job and I was in debt up to my eyeballs. I gained a few
days here and a few days there painting with different painters and
eventually gained a run of work with Kevin, the son in law of Brian
Amos who had by now taken over the painting firm from Brian. I was
able to purchase a car for $400 which enabled me to get to and from
the jobs. I hoped this would help improve my life and get rid of some
debt but instead of things improving and the financial burden easing
things just got worse. The debt collectors and banks started hounding
me harder than ever to pay the bank lons for the monaro. It got so
bad I was afraid to answer the door or the phone. The work was still
inconsistent and I was extremely depressed and moody.
I needed to escape the painting and building
trade as I couldnt find any stability and I was getting nowhere in
life, how could I ever pay these debts like this? , I went to the
CES reguarlly however the people there told me that I didn't have
many options and should take the work that comes my way. I felt trapped
, my lack of formal training and skills in other areas made it hard
to escape the painting and the fact that I needed money to feed the
wolves meant that I could not refuse any work that did come my way.
This kept me bound to painting and I swore that one day I would escape
painting and when that day came I would never go back. I decided to
take every opportunity to work that came and to clear all the debts
and karma of the past away.
Just when my determination and drive was at
its highest trouble started at work. First of all Kevin started turning
up later and later leaving us with no paint and me to deal with the
builders and owners of the jobs. We had too many jobs on at once and
they where all past their deadlines. I was needing a new place to
live also and organised to share a rented house with one of the other
painters.
Then Kevin started not paying us on time. He
would give me $50.00 for the week and tell me he was just waiting
for a cheque to clear. eventually it was obvious that we were not
going to be paid and it was time to leave Kevin's employ.
The other painter and I who shared a house
both found work elsewhere straight away and I managed to keep my determination
to live. I gained the highest pay rate I had ever had and began knocking
my debts down with consistent regularity. I was still unhappy but
could see that I was getting somewhere. Soon the other painter started
missing his rent and soon he showed that he had no interest in paying
his share of the bills at all. He was extremely grose and untidy and
I wanted to, needed to, get away from the current living arrangements.
I found myself staring blankly in my mirror
at nights not knowing who was looking back at me and turning to pot
smoking in order to escape reality, I tried to keep some interest
in my guitar playing and computer which I had always swore I would
focus on fully one day but couldn’t seem to focus on at all at
the moment. Eventually we got evicted and I moved from place to place
for several months sleeping on friends couches and paying what debts
I could.
Eric and his lovely wife Gloria had a full
house of boarders at the time but let me stay on their couch for a
couple of weeks until I eventually moved into a house owned by my
parents who where stationed in New South Wales with the Australian
Airforce. My Sister moved in with me to share the costs and for a
while it worked out fine for us both. But unfortunately being a single
unemployed mother she was not in a strong financial position herself
and was going through a lot of emotional problems herself which eventually
saw us getting into conflicts and in the end she decided to live closer
to mum in New South Wales.
I lost the job painting after the end of a
run of work and again became unemployed. My $400 car died and this
time it was worse because I had to pay rent to my parents. Another
friend moved in with me to share the costs and I somehow managed to
scrape by week by week. eventually I gained some work as a brickies
labourer, at first it was just a day here or there and eventually
things started looking up and I got a good long steady run of work
I was out of the painting-unemployment roundabout now but still messing
around in the building trade. My boss picked me up and dropped me
off so I didn't need a car and I swore I would conquer my life and
started by putting every cent I got into paying debts and rent.
