What a Difference a Crew Makes

There are some jobs that competent young people are adamantly unwilling to do anymore…and restaurant work appears to be one of them. That "you want fries with that?" mentality—the image of food service being the bottom of the social and intellectual barrel—has received way too much press. The actual fact is, restaurant work requires a level of competency and multi-tasking ability that similar "unskilled labor" jobs—like retail or light manufacturing—cannot approach. My girls have to be baristas, waitresses, cooks, bakers, receptionists, bussers, dishwashers, cashiers and clean-up crew. They have to know how to take a phone order, how to handle a customer complaint with grace and poise, how to jiggle the insides of the toilet tank in the ladies’ room to stop it from leaking, and how to balance a till, along with about a million other tasks, large and small. And all for slightly more than minimum wage ($7.80/hr here in Oregon, as of Janurary 1) because that’s all we poor starving entrepreneurs can afford. Come to think of it, restaurant work doesn’t really look all that attractive, does it? But not because it’s only for stupid losers.

When I think back now to those dark months of November, December, and January, when my crew just imploded before my incredulous eyes, it’s hard to believe this is the same restaurant. In my head, I knew all I had to do was get the right people and things would improve 500%. I knew it; but given the non-response I got to every "help wanted" ad I placed in the local papers, coupled with the fact that every person I did hire seemed to come with a ton of negative baggage, I was nearly convinced that acquiring an adequate crew was the Impossible Dream

This evening at the café, I cooked a busy dinner, aided by one of my amazingly competent recently hired young cooks. We made good food, and we made it quickly; we were organized and efficient. It was a thoroughly pleasant experience. This same young cook assisted me in the kitchen this past weekend—the chief cook’s weekend off—during the incredibly busy Saturday and Sunday breakfast hours I had sweated about all the previous week. "What if we get really busy?" I fretted. "What am I going to do??" Oh, we did the busy hours all right; but in the end, the dread was unfounded. We smoked ‘em! I honestly was beginning to doubt I would ever see the day.

But now…. Now,I’m not only beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I’m eagerly anticipating the day I’ll need to break out the SPF 30…

A Few Words

As usual, it’s Saturday night, and I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. But this week, it was a truck full of customers.

We had our first back-to-back $1000+ days since we took over the café. And almost made it back-to-back-to-back—missed it by fifteen bucks today.

So this is not the desperate, frustrated, one-step-forward-two-steps-back kind of tired I’ve been slogging through for the past eight months. This is the "We just might have finally turned the corner" fatigue for which I have been thirsting all these 273 days.

And I am just too damned beat to write any more.  

Teach the Children...What?

Here I am, back in the position of managing young people. This time, the age gap between myself and the people I am supervising (mentoring? guiding?) is easily 1.5 decades greater than the last time I was called upon to fill this role.

Fifteen years ago, I was nearly old enough to be the mother of my youngest employees. At 36, I could (biologically) have had a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old of my own. I was superficially cognizant of that fact, but it didn’t really register. I felt like an overgrown eighteen-year-old myself sometimes, back in those days. I was able to establish a sort of mentor relationship with my girls; the fact that I was almost twenty years their senior never seemed to be much of an issue—to me, anyway.

Fast forward to 2007. Other than my 38-year-old cook (who has a thirteen-year-old daughter of her own), my oldest employees cannot even claim a quarter of a century on the planet. So I am WAY old enough to be their parent. It’s an interesting dynamic. Having never had children of my own, I don’t see these girls as "children." I’m sure I have an entirely different attitude toward them than their (younger than me) parents have. Most of the time, I don’t give it too much thought. But then there are times when I wonder…exactly what DO these children think of me?

For one thing, I don’t think they realize I am older than their parents, most of the time. Not being a parent myself, I don’t act like a parent. Which is not to say that I don’t sometimes come off as a complete old fart. I’m sure that when I’m back in the kitchen grooving to my "tunes" on the radio (I found the greatest radio station out of Portland—they play all sixties and seventies music. The music of my childhood…!) my employees are thinking of me exactly what I would have thought of my mother hopping around to "Big Band" stuff when I was a kid. Come to think of it, my mother never did that. Was there (is there?) a certain dignity to being a parent that I completely lack? Or some rule in the Mom Handbook that says you should never let your kids see that Once Upon A Time you might possibly have been just like them?

The other day, I found myself expressing my spiritual ambiguity to one of my girls. She’s college-grad age, so I don’t feel guilty of poisoning a young mind with things of which her parents would heartily disapprove (I’ve met her parents and I’m sure they WOULD disapprove…but she’s old enough to make these kinds of decisions for herself.) But this is a small town, and this girl was brought up in a strictly religious family. So I wonder, really, how my lack of reticence about my beliefs colored her opinion of me. I try to think back to myself at that age…what would have shocked me? What would I have considered TMI from someone old enough to be my mother?

Then again, times were WAY different when I was a young twenty-something. Much as we would like to have thought we were so hip and so liberal and so enlightened… Let’s face it: I was an almost-affluent child of the lily-white suburbs. What today’s kids don’t give a second thought would have shocked my socks off. Here at my own little café we’ve had an openly gay cook, girls working on their second or third out-of-wedlock baby, tattoos, pierced everythings, the dark specter of methamphetamine in several employees lives… And this, as I said, is a small town. So imagining what might have shocked me at that age is totally irrelevant.

And even if I did suspect that I should keep a tighter rein on what I betray of myself to my employees, I doubt that I could actually DO that. I am who I am--almost completely without pretense or guile. It just doesn’t occur to me to be secretive about who I am or what I believe. Which, I concede, is not always a good thing. It’s certainly not "managerial" or "owner-ial" behavior. I suppose I should give great consideration to the persona I intend to create for myself, and project that and only that image. I’m sorry. I have about as much chance of doing that as I do of crawling back into my mothers womb and calling for a "do-over" of my entire life.

So god knows what kind of reputation I am creating for myself in this little town. If only to give myself one less thing to obsess about, I will choose to believe there is nothing about me that my employees won’t be better off for the knowing…

A Saturday Night's Reflection

I feel like I’ve taken a step backward in time. Here I sit, ensconced in my bunk in the trailer; flashing back to the essence of what was the sum total of "My Business" less than a year ago. The 8 ½ months of nearly overwhelming work and worry that have been the story of my life since July 1, 2006 have, for at least a few hours (with me wielding the biggest mental eraser I can lay my hands upon) faded into the background. For this short time, I have returned to what was definitely a simpler life.

A far less challenging life.

A far less frustrating life.

A far less rewarding life.

For what great reward was ever gotten without sacrifice? Without a massive investment of time? And energy? And blood, sweat, and tears?

Life is not the lottery. It is not a matter of buying the winning ticket and having it all handed to you on a silver platter. We say that’s what we want. The easy life. Instant success.

But what would we be, really, if that was what life was all about?

Could it really be called "Life?"

Some Good Stuff

1. Another Sunday off! And this makes, what, five or six in a row? Can I finally say I have enough of my shit in one sock that I can take one scheduled, predictable day off every week? It will probably jinx the whole thing to mention this, but things might be (dare I say it?) starting to gel at the café. I have employees who are happy, motivated, and enjoy their jobs. I can take a day off without wondering what kind of damage control I’ll be performing for days afterward. I always knew this day would come, but it seemed for awhile as if I wasn’t going to physically make it to this point. Hallelujah and pass the rolaids…
2. On the subject of the day off, we took Ms. Dog for another walk on the dike, and were treated to sightings of both our eagles, and possibly a third (which I think was a young eagle, since it looked the same basic shape and size, but lacked the white head and tail.) This time, one of the eagles was being very vocal. Quite a piercing, wild sound, the call of the eagle resounding up and down the length of the channel. Gave me goosebumps.
3. After our walk, we headed back to our restaurant for lunch. Weather was pleasant, and we had the dog with us, so we sat out on the sidewalk. How odd it is to be a small-town business owner and a total introvert at the same time. We have lived in this town for almost six years and literally do not even know our own neighbors by name. But, there we were, sitting out in front of the café, and getting honks and waves as regular customers driving by recognized and hailed us. Not something I’ve ever experienced, or ever thought I would. Just goes to show, even when you’re older than dirt, life can throw in a few surprises if you open yourself up to it…
4. In the course of an employee performance appraisal today, the "appraisee" went on at length about how much she enjoys working at the café. She remarked that the crew and management are so nice, and everyone gets along so well, and everyone is so willing to help. And that the customers seem genuinely happy to be there and to be having a good time. Did that ever crack a smile somewhere deep in my soul! The trials and pitfalls of buying this restaurant and dealing with the horrific staff issues have had me questioning everything from my management skills to my worth as a human being. To have someone say in so many words that they think MY restaurant is a great place to work probably added ten years back on to my life. (BIG Old Shit Eating Grin…)
5. Between the unwelcome time change and a turn in the weather, it’s obvious spring is truly on its way to the Columbia Valley. Daffodils are smiling, camellias are bursting forth, the flowering apples, cherries and plums need only a few more days of sun and higher temps to pop their fat buds into full bloom. Of course, I can hardly enjoy all this while steadfastly averting my eyes from the ever-lengthening grass and burgeoning population of weeds I barely encounter in my poor yard between twelve-hour stints at the restaurant. I have no idea how we are going to keep the property from looking like an abandoned rental this summer… The husband and I spent an hour yesterday searching for a little scrap of paper that had been stuck under our front door, touting the reasonably priced landscaping attentions of "Manuel." Surely small businesses keep the economy turning by creating work for one another!
6. We have another event coming up this weekend which will require my absence from the restaurant for three days. I’m so tired, I barely have the energy to pack…but can I say how much I’m looking forward to the break? Poor hubs will be stuck at home on café duty, though. We could sure use an actual communal vacation.
7. Bought fabric and trim for curtains at the café. Now all I need is someone to sew them for me ( I SUCK at sewing.)

Okay. I’m all done for tonight. Sweet dreams!

Ten Good Things

It’s almost midnight on Friday night, and I have to be at work at 8:00 Saturday morning. But, by god, I’m going to sit here and write until I come up with Ten Good Things from the past week.

1. The crappy, icy, frosty weather broke, and we had some nice days. Nice enough for folks to sit out on the front sidewalk of the café eating ice cream. (You have to realize, though, that Oregonians break out the shorts and flip-flops whenever the sun comes out, actual air temperature notwithstanding. It got up to maybe 50 degrees—ice cream weather for any card-carrying Oregonian…)
2. Lovely weather precipitated lovely walk with dog out on the dike on Sunday. During which we had our first "Sam" sighting of 2007. ("Sam" is our resident eagle who calls our little stretch of Multnomah Channel "home.")
3. I ordered and received, within the space of less than a week, a new desk/hutch unit for my bedroom. The better to contain some of the nightmarish paper clutter that has taken over my life since we bought the café (which seems to manifest itself most outlandishly in the bedroom—the room in which I now spend at least 80% of the time I am at home.) It’s a neat unit, and I am pleased with it. All I have to do now is transfer the paper anarchy from the floor of the bedroom to some organized spaces in this desk-thingy…
4. Wi-fi was successfully re-installed at the café this afternoon. At least, I think it was. My recalcitrant beast of a laptop refuses to properly recognize the connection, but customers don’t seem to be similarly inhibited. So, that’s a good thing…isn’t it?
5. Ascertained that the sucky business at the café this week was traceable to the opening of a new (much anticipated) restaurant about 8 miles up the road. This happens every time a new eating establishment opens anywhere in the county. New place enjoys rip-roaring business while everybody and their pup goes out to see what it’s all about. And the rest of us feel the squeeze… Then, in a couple of weeks, things settle back into their  normal routine and the faithful come trooping back to their old haunts. Of which we (I hope) are one. At any rate, it was a relief to figure out that this was the reason for our recent lax sales. I had been trying to figure out if we had poisoned someone or something…
6. Crappy business at the café also afforded the opportunity to get a lot of extra cleaning done. The place is finally starting to look like something I can be proud to call mine…
7. I found my kitchen countertop! (at home…) It had been covered by five or six months’ worth of mail and "Papers That Need Attention." Now, it’s just…clean. I could actually cook in my kitchen., if I had the time or the inclination. Which I don’t. I have an entire restaurant in which to cook. And I make it a policy not to bring my work home with me…
8. Found a couple of dynamite sandwich recipes on the internet that I’m dying to try as specials at the café. And then there is the lemon sour cream cake…
9. Got caught up on ALL the bills today. Both the business and the personal. Of course, our bank balances are going to be a bit anemic in the next few weeks. But, hey…there will be a few nickels left rattling around in the bottom f the change jar…
10. MADE IT THROUGH ANOTHER WEEK! A real ball-buster. (If I had balls. Or even estrogen…)

Funny story—I just woke up. Apparently, I felt the need to catch a few z’s between things eight and nine of my "Ten Good Things."

And So It Goes

I tried to start out the day today with a positive outlook. I didn’t have to be at the café until noon. Powered by three cups of coffee, undiluted by anything resembling solid food, I was able to crash through some housecleaning and organizing that has needed to be done since about…last September. I was feeling very accomplished…quite proud of myself, in fact. It appeared that things might just be looking up.

Until about 3:00 pm. At which time the caffeine buzz wore off. I realized that business was going to suck for the third day in a row. And I found out that my latest hire—with whom I have been extremely pleased—has accepted another job and will be all but unavailable to me after this week. Shit.

Last weekend, I looked at the business bank balance and realized that we had lost something like $6000 in the last two months.

And I can’t seem to beg, borrow or steal decent employees.

And my cat died.

This evening, I stood out on the sidewalk—in the dark, in the rain—looked up at the sky and said, "Could you just give me a break??

I don’t know who I was talking to…