Owning a Business

[MistyBlue]

I just created a new town and made all these little businesses. I created sims to own the business, but I don't want to play with those sims. I only want them so that my other regular, poor sims will be able to go to community lots and actually pay the town for what they buy. So I set everything up and went to play. When I took my sim to the community lot, the owner just stands around doing nothing, especially at a bar or coffee shop. The only thing they will do is restock things. So do I have to hire employees for all of these lots if I actually want anything to be done? I think it's pretty dumb to have to hire a bartender when the owner is perfectly capable of doing the job himself.

[ZiggyDoodle]

The game programmers were complete assheads on this aspect and transferred their assheadedness to every Sim who owns a business.

I have a couple level ten businesses run by Sims I play regularly: my flower and robotic shops.  Each time I send another family to purchase shop specialities, the owners (as well as their hired staff) are screwing around doing everything but tending the register.

To keep my Sims from flinging down their shopping bags in fury, I've learned to direct them to things like chat, sitting in a chair, entertaining, etc. until finally someone shows up at the register to check them out.

So, no, hiring employees won't improve things very much.  Too bad there's no option to bring a book...

[abelle]

I think you just have to visit the lot with the owner once and tell him to tend the bar. I don´t have BRY maybe that can help as well.

You can alternatively make the owner selectable, when you visit with another sim and then tell him to tend bar or whatever you want him to do.

[eamethyst]

I would highly recommend Business Runs You.  Yes, the Hammer and Sickle are hideous, but if you take your owner sim to the lot, click on the BRY dohickey and choose "Assign Unmanned Owner" (I am at work, so not completely sure what the correct name of the option is).  Then in the future whenever you visit that lot, the owner will be doing whatever you assigned him/her to.

[MistyBlue]

I do have BRY and set the stupid sims to do their tasks, but when I visit with another sim they are not doing anything. I went and bought a pet this morning and all the supplies, but the stupid owner never went to the register. I thought it would automatically pay if I just left the lot, but when my sim got home, nothing was in her inventory. I'm really pissed about this. I sepnt a week building all these community lots and they don't even work! DAMMIT!

[Flamingo]

I don't have this problem at all, I just send my Sim to the lot and either the owner or the employee are at the register. I have BRY, I just use an invisible recolor to keep it from being too hideous. I suppose my only question is whether or not you have actually played the lots with the owners. That might help, but I'm unsure. Maybe you just have to assign one thing with BRY, but I really don't know.

[MistyBlue]

Before I started actually playing the neighborhood, I sent everyone to the respective business and set things up and played till they had a decent revenue. I'm going to try this again and see if I did something wrong. This is the first time I'm actually playing like this so everything is new to me.

On a side note, can you point me to where you got the invisible BRY recolor? I'm so sick of making basements and extra levels just to hide that thing.

[Flamingo]

I did it myself, actually, haha. It took about 3 seconds to make, but opening SimPE is a bitch anyway.

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,6749.0.html

At the moment, I'm actually trying to set something up like you, but I need to make more Sims in my neighborhood and have them actually buy the businesses. Right now, it's just one robot that owns four establishments.

[blubug]

I just put it in a toilet stall. I make sure it's still clickable though. And don't forget that the owner can only do one job on his own without you controlling him, so assign a couple of idiot townies to the other jobs. That's what I do. And I have BRY.

[J. M. Pescado]

I do have BRY and set the stupid sims to do their tasks, but when I visit with another sim they are not doing anything.

You need to set your owner's "Unmanned Owner Task". Note that some tasks require a minimum badge level to be achieved before BRY takes over its routines, and that Sales intentionally operates at reduced capacity in "offline" mode.

[MistyBlue]

Ok, I went back and set everyone to their tasks. The main problem I am having is that the stupid-heads are only restocking even if I set them to be the cashier. On the lots that don't sell anything like the bar, I set the owner to be the bartender, but he plays pool the whole time. Same thing at the coffee shop...the girl just pisses people off and doesn't serve any coffee.

Thanks for the recolor flamingo and good luck with your hood. I'm about ready to send mine to the recycle bin!

[witch]

Is the cash register alright? I had a cashier running around selling and restocking the other night, wouldn't go near the till. I replaced the till and it was fine.

[MistyBlue]

I think the cash register is alright. When I am there with the owner they don't have a problem going to it, but I have noticed that they jump sometimes. I should probably look into that, huh?

I used the hack detection utility and it's not reporting any conflicts...but I'll get rid of the few squinge mods I have and see if that is the issue.

[AllenABQ]

I used the hack detection utility and it's not reporting any conflicts...

What is this? First I've heard of it.

[witch]

Simwardrobe I think.

Sims 2 / Programs / Sims 2 Hack Conflict Detection Utility

PS Hi Allen, long time no see.

[MistyBlue]

It still doesn't work. I made my sim go to the little grocer and my plan was to just make the owner selectable so that I can make him cashier, but the owner walked off the lot as soon as my guy's car pulled up. I then made my guy drive home and right as the car was driving away, the owner walked back onto the lot.

On a different lot I was able to make the girl selectable and set her to her task, but they are not doing their jobs when I get there at all.

[OpiumGirl]

I have had the most hellish time with businesses as well....They are completely useless when you are visiting as a customer...If I assign a sim to be "janitor" the sim will just stand there, and when I make him/her selectable they have no task in their queue. (Yes the place had a lot that needed to be cleaned, so it wasn't that there was nothing for the sim to do)
What I don't understand is why it is impossible (as far as I can tell) to have your family work on the lot as well.  When I play, I use my families to work, but when you actually visit the lot, there's only one person there, the owner..
I could be completely blind, but I've seen no option to hire family members to prevent this...is there a way to make it work so that your family members who are assigned to tasks to actually be there when you are using a visiting sim as a customer? 

You are not alone in your frustration if that makes you feel any better!!

[cwykes]

Going back to basics - some of them might work better if they were not owned?    I mean if they are just regular community lots at least the till, the bar and the kitchen would be manned by NPCs!   Not sure if you can buy crafted items or if anybody does selling or re-stocking, but having the till manned would be an improvement!   Why not sell some of them to townies, so they are back to being regular community lots - see what works and what doesn't when you go visit.

I don't do visit owned businesses much as I have a set of small community lots I like, but having a cashier assigned definitely improves the experience!

[blubug]

I just have my sims own businesses if I want to have a shop that sells cc or crafted stuff. All my restaurants are community owned, it works much more swiftly. Still, I hate the clothes the employees wear in unowned businesses, have to find a way to change that.
But all my shops have a cashier waiting. Even the owner runs around either restocking or standing at the till (I set the unmanned owner as a restocker). So I don't have any problems. Oh, I always assign jobs to employees with BRY, not manually.

[vcline]

I had a similar experience as blubug, with a playable-owned grocery store where I had assigned the unmanned owner to be the cashier (it has no emplyoees).  I thought he would just stand behind the cash register, but when my other sim went to buy gorceries, he was pacing back and forth.  Then after she filled her grocery basket (completely depleting one of the produce stands), he ran over and restocked it.  When she clicked on the register to pay, he ran over there and took her money, then went back to pacing.  I enjoyed those actions so much, I'm going to convert all my stores that I buy things in to playable-owned.

I did have a problem a few weeks ago on a playable-owned lot with a ticket stand (bandatron?).  I has assigned him to be a salesman but he just paced and didn't try to sell any tickets.

[MistyBlue]

I did sell most of my community lots, except the bar...that was my biggest money maker whether there was a bartender or not.

It's just upsetting because I spent a long time building (not downloading lots) this entire little city and it sucks that it's not working the way I wanted it to. Stupid EA!

[witch]

I did have a problem a few weeks ago on a playable-owned lot with a ticket stand (bandatron?).  I has assigned him to be a salesman but he just paced and didn't try to sell any tickets.

JM said not so long ago that sometimes salespeople will not sell if the customer's bar will get high enough on it's own or maybe the customer is not in a good mood. BUY will only make the salespeople do their thing if it is worth doing at that time.

Having said that though, it is with the ticket machine that the sales staff seem to do the least selling.