HOLY HELL! So Ive been on vacation all week. Sort of. Well.....I havent been to work all week anyway.
First - I will NEVER understand why when I tell the folks that work for me that I will be off work and incommunicado for a week and to PLEASE email me if I am needed they still insist upon calling. I would NEVER call any of them on a day off, least of all while on vacation, unless it was dire. None of the calls have been dire. For the record I have let them all go to voicemail and havent returned one of them...all could have been very easily handled via email, so thats what I did. Just annoying. I run restaurants, not hospitals...there is no life & death in my job generally and an email will suffice. I have had a blissful week of not really knowing where my phone is...leave me alone and GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
So Mister''s jerkface manager decided to go ahead and schedule him to work this week and ignored his ROs for the weekend...so no going aways for me. Side note: I have met & chatted up Jerkface manager he is not JUST a jerkface - he is also an amazingly incompetent assbag who, if when my vacation rolls around end of October, is still Mister's manger and pulls this bullshit again will not only be dealing with a surly Mister (this is torture BTW, I know from personal experience) he will also be getting a pissed off Mindy upside his melon of a head. Last I had spoken to Jerkface Manager was while I had dinner at the bar while Mister was tending. He was telling me how amazing he was for being a corp assistant manager at 34 and all about his resume full of suck (Mister did not enlighten him as to what I do for a living at all apparently) and I took a moment of sheer pleasure when I told him my job title at 34 and a little about what I do. Unrelated - through the course of this conversation he said the weirdest thing to me. Hes a black guy, and made a crack about how he doesnt understand ebonics. He made this comment out of no where and it had NOTHING to do with our conversation. Even made a comment about his brother not being professional and "ghetto". I am not sure why he felt the need to tell me any of this -strange fucker to say the least. And Ill kill him if he fucks up another vacation for me.
Anywho....back on track. So since all travel plans were prohibited by Misters work schedule I decided some home improvement was necessary to keep me busy - I cant sit on my ass at home all week with no purpose. The Dining Room. It was one of the first rooms we tackled when we moved in here...and it showed in the plaster & patch work we were learning to do when we did it. Honestly that wasnt the main driving force behind my desire. When we did the room initially I did a sponge paint on the walls, we hung mahogany wainscoting & a chair rail and it was done in taupe & beige colors. This room is also in the back corner of the house so its kind of dark but I dug it for awhile. The more Ive looked at it over the last, oh I dont know, 5 years, the less Ive liked it. For some unknown reason that I do not understand at all I decided that I wanted the ceiling painted the same base color as the walls - a beige kind of color - and I hated it more the more I looked at it. Made the whole room look like a cave and it was just dark and felt oppressive......yeah for the 3 times a year we actually use that room. So dining room make over it is.
I painted all the wood a light sage color, the walls are a really light yellow, ceiling is white finally and we spent yesterday laying a laminate floor that I AM LOVING. The whole room just looks airy & bright and welcoming. Have a couple more floor pieces to lay today or tomorrow that involve some serious cutting around the radiator base...but overall I feel like we have a new house! So many hours of labor, a lot of swearing and most of a bottle of ibuprofen later and its looking good. Once its finished completely I will post some pics...at the moment it looks like a bomb went off somewhere around the center of the house and shit got flung everywhere.
My Mother-In-Law will be here Monday for a week - itll all be cleaned up & put away before she steps foot in my house!!
Have a whole nother post to write about this house....but I'll write that one later. I'm going to go sit on my new floor and bask in the glory that is our happy new dining room!
Showing posts with label Mister. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mister. Show all posts
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Well HELLO there!!! What a week, or maybe more...
The new restaurant is open. The test services went well, the opening went better than expected. Its been ugly at times...like throw yourself off a friggin bridge ugly through some of the lunch services, and most of the staff is solid, some are not...but that'll all work itself out i the next couple weeks, the criticism backlash has not begun yet, WIN! Overall I'm liking the store, I'm digging the crew and I'm feeling pretty positive. Not to say we havent had some hurdles throughout the week.....like a manager going MIA, having to replace 3 others on the fly, a huge event or 2 coming up in 3 weeks at another store. Oiy. What doesnt kill you makes you stronger.....right?!? Lets hope so anyway...
But I did not come here to talk about work...I came here because something Mister said to me the other night and the way he said has been lingering in my melon...so I wanna let it out.
Since leaving The Wizard Mister has been holding down a bar/serving gig he really doesnt particularly care for, but its money. The idea was for him to do that while he found something else. He kind of stumbled upon an upstart opportunity as a brewer that on the surface looked promising and intriguing. Long story short I dont believe it is. And we have gone back & forth about it a few times, I still just see FAIL written all over this thing. His argument is that its experience. Mine is experience at what cost if you & your name are tied to a failure. They want to put him under contract and the terms were just absurd, they have not at this point been able to show him any kind of sales forecasts or estimated revenues and I just generally believe the people doing this are completely in over their head and not in a way that will end in anything positive. I generally have a pretty good gut about these kinds of things too. But regardless we were talking about this some more because another opportunity came up back in good ol restaurant management and we were adding that option and blah blah blah we came back around to what WE want to be when we grow up....
We and another friend of ours want to open a brewpub. Adding this friend into the mix makes the 3 of us pretty much a brewpub all-star team if I do say so myself. With Mister brewing, me cooking and B running the bar...its the perfect combo, proven at that. And we may have someone interested in financing us as well. Very preliminary, very very, but we have to start somewhere, right? But the potential for this chance over shadows this FAIL brewery idea. At least to me it does anyway...
Which brought us around to the "experience" aspect of this whole dilemma...my suggestion was to tell them he would test batch their beers at $XXX per batch, outline exactly what they would be getting for their money, when he got the beer as they wanted it he would finalize the recipe and sell it to the for $XXXX or something to that effect. I'm NOT saying to completely ditch them, I AM saying do not hop into bed with them...just make out with them in the parking lot. His counter was blah blah blah commercial brewing experience- but its being contract brewed elsewhere, so I fail to see the relevance of that argument. Then I think I really heard him for the first time. In not so many words what he was basically saying was he was intimidated by the idea of working with beer on such a huge scale. Like not the product, the equipment.
So wait...he can make fantabulous beers 5 gallons at a time. And the process doesnt change with the increase in volume...like the principals stay the same, its just a matter of having to do some different things with different equipment but all of this equipment comes with bazillions of manuals and shit like that. So I didnt understand the problem, this, to me, seems a minor inconvenience, but far from an insurmountable one. Pretty minor actually. So I broke it down a little different...I know how to make a gallon of marinara, which in turn means I can make 5 gallons of marinara pretty easily, which also means I can make 5000 gallons of it given a large enough pot and the ability to figure out how to get it hot and cool it all down. And he looks at me and says I'm an asshole.
I'm an asshole? Why am I an asshole? I'm just pointing out that as intelligent human beings it cant be all that difficult to learn what is necessary to large scale produce beer. No harder than me learning how to use full scale production equipment at my production kitchen...I had no clue what half that shit was or how to use it, now I do because I learned. With this incredulous look on his face he calls me an asshole again, laughing mind you, and then says something to the effect of "is there anything you think you cant do?!?!? If someone said Mindy build a fucking rocket youd just build a fucking rocket and I have no doubt youd make that fucker fly one way or another!" and I was all like well, yeah?!? I still didnt get it until he said something about my confidence and how if I want to do something I just do it and keep doing it until I figure it out and get good at it, and then I was all like aaaaaaahhhh *DING*. So to me what seemed a minor inconvenience but not really an issue was apparently a larger hurdle for him, and to hear it somewhat trivialized like that was helpful to him...I think, I hope.
I cant even imagine the awesome that would be our bar. I really cant. And that makes it even better. Of course there are a bazillion things to talk about & figure out but none of them insurmountable, all of it important and every bit of it exciting. But this is the idea that feels right, so we shall see where it goes...it would be my effing dream job!! And I think the bit of perspective I lent to Mister also helped him realize that he's just as capable as me and can learn how to do what he needs to to have his dream job...win win win! Now if only I had a magic damn wand to bibbity bobbety boo us to when its all real life & not a cloudy mass of undefined ideas.
Moral of the story - sometimes even a HUSBAND can say something brilliant....when more drunk than sober....and when horribly annoyed with his persistent wife ;-)
The new restaurant is open. The test services went well, the opening went better than expected. Its been ugly at times...like throw yourself off a friggin bridge ugly through some of the lunch services, and most of the staff is solid, some are not...but that'll all work itself out i the next couple weeks, the criticism backlash has not begun yet, WIN! Overall I'm liking the store, I'm digging the crew and I'm feeling pretty positive. Not to say we havent had some hurdles throughout the week.....like a manager going MIA, having to replace 3 others on the fly, a huge event or 2 coming up in 3 weeks at another store. Oiy. What doesnt kill you makes you stronger.....right?!? Lets hope so anyway...
But I did not come here to talk about work...I came here because something Mister said to me the other night and the way he said has been lingering in my melon...so I wanna let it out.
Since leaving The Wizard Mister has been holding down a bar/serving gig he really doesnt particularly care for, but its money. The idea was for him to do that while he found something else. He kind of stumbled upon an upstart opportunity as a brewer that on the surface looked promising and intriguing. Long story short I dont believe it is. And we have gone back & forth about it a few times, I still just see FAIL written all over this thing. His argument is that its experience. Mine is experience at what cost if you & your name are tied to a failure. They want to put him under contract and the terms were just absurd, they have not at this point been able to show him any kind of sales forecasts or estimated revenues and I just generally believe the people doing this are completely in over their head and not in a way that will end in anything positive. I generally have a pretty good gut about these kinds of things too. But regardless we were talking about this some more because another opportunity came up back in good ol restaurant management and we were adding that option and blah blah blah we came back around to what WE want to be when we grow up....
We and another friend of ours want to open a brewpub. Adding this friend into the mix makes the 3 of us pretty much a brewpub all-star team if I do say so myself. With Mister brewing, me cooking and B running the bar...its the perfect combo, proven at that. And we may have someone interested in financing us as well. Very preliminary, very very, but we have to start somewhere, right? But the potential for this chance over shadows this FAIL brewery idea. At least to me it does anyway...
Which brought us around to the "experience" aspect of this whole dilemma...my suggestion was to tell them he would test batch their beers at $XXX per batch, outline exactly what they would be getting for their money, when he got the beer as they wanted it he would finalize the recipe and sell it to the for $XXXX or something to that effect. I'm NOT saying to completely ditch them, I AM saying do not hop into bed with them...just make out with them in the parking lot. His counter was blah blah blah commercial brewing experience- but its being contract brewed elsewhere, so I fail to see the relevance of that argument. Then I think I really heard him for the first time. In not so many words what he was basically saying was he was intimidated by the idea of working with beer on such a huge scale. Like not the product, the equipment.
So wait...he can make fantabulous beers 5 gallons at a time. And the process doesnt change with the increase in volume...like the principals stay the same, its just a matter of having to do some different things with different equipment but all of this equipment comes with bazillions of manuals and shit like that. So I didnt understand the problem, this, to me, seems a minor inconvenience, but far from an insurmountable one. Pretty minor actually. So I broke it down a little different...I know how to make a gallon of marinara, which in turn means I can make 5 gallons of marinara pretty easily, which also means I can make 5000 gallons of it given a large enough pot and the ability to figure out how to get it hot and cool it all down. And he looks at me and says I'm an asshole.
I'm an asshole? Why am I an asshole? I'm just pointing out that as intelligent human beings it cant be all that difficult to learn what is necessary to large scale produce beer. No harder than me learning how to use full scale production equipment at my production kitchen...I had no clue what half that shit was or how to use it, now I do because I learned. With this incredulous look on his face he calls me an asshole again, laughing mind you, and then says something to the effect of "is there anything you think you cant do?!?!? If someone said Mindy build a fucking rocket youd just build a fucking rocket and I have no doubt youd make that fucker fly one way or another!" and I was all like well, yeah?!? I still didnt get it until he said something about my confidence and how if I want to do something I just do it and keep doing it until I figure it out and get good at it, and then I was all like aaaaaaahhhh *DING*. So to me what seemed a minor inconvenience but not really an issue was apparently a larger hurdle for him, and to hear it somewhat trivialized like that was helpful to him...I think, I hope.
I cant even imagine the awesome that would be our bar. I really cant. And that makes it even better. Of course there are a bazillion things to talk about & figure out but none of them insurmountable, all of it important and every bit of it exciting. But this is the idea that feels right, so we shall see where it goes...it would be my effing dream job!! And I think the bit of perspective I lent to Mister also helped him realize that he's just as capable as me and can learn how to do what he needs to to have his dream job...win win win! Now if only I had a magic damn wand to bibbity bobbety boo us to when its all real life & not a cloudy mass of undefined ideas.
Moral of the story - sometimes even a HUSBAND can say something brilliant....when more drunk than sober....and when horribly annoyed with his persistent wife ;-)
Monday, April 12, 2010
ISO: Anwers!!!
Well I hope everyone had a fantabulous weekend! I was actually off both days, took only a very few work calls that were necessary and relaxed enough that I slept through the night last night into today...thats actually a pretty epic score. Generally speaking I spend Sunday night lying in bed, trying to sleep, getting myself all properly stressed out for Monday...cuz ya know starting every week tired & strung out is always a great idea! Well at least this week I am not tired....well mostly.
Good news?!?! Oh yeah I have some good news! So me & the Mister almost finished the retaining wall that we need to have in so we can plant the garden. We will have to go pick up ONE more load of bricks from Lane Block to complete the wall then we need a truck ton of dirt so I can lay out and plant. I got some more veggies & strawberries too! All told this is going to be a pretty ambitious project/garden seeing as I haven't ever in my life sincerely tended a garden. My parents have like 10 green thumbs between them...I on the other hand dont seem to have any. Its a running joke with the Mister actually that I can kill any plant I am given. Lucky for me I have stepped to the challenge and have successfully kept alive a rubber tree, spider plant a few miscellaneous other things for over a year so I am feeling pretty confident that I can pull this off with Mister's help. Its not a lack of ability, it that I forget to care for the little buggers and they die. Either way I am excited as hell to have this project for the summer. I have about 20 different little started plants to get into the ground and I should have one hell of a take this summer & fall. I do love the Farmers Markets but there is something to be said for growing it all at home yourself! On a side note anyone who needs or wants to buy good block for a project like this I highly recommend Lane Block in Carnegie. They are a bit off the beaten path, but are 1/3 the cost of all of the big chain home improvement places, super great to deal with and make good products. This thing would have cost us somewhere in the ballpark of $900 if we had done it at Home Depot or Lowes, it has run us less than half of that with all materials AND you support a local business instead of a national chain....that alone is enough for me!
So this is also Mister's last week at his current job with me. He put his notice in a few weeks ago and is going to be moving on to an easier gig for the moment that will give him some time to regroup after working with the Wizard for this long. I have very mixed emotions about this move. Mostly I am really happy for him though, and just amazingly sad for me. I am happy for him because I have already watched this job just about destroy him, our marriage & lives once and knowing that it isnt going to happen again makes my heart feel good, just seeing how much happier he is after making the decision and DOING it makes me ecstatic for him, knowing that there are great things on the horizon for him in the future and that he will accomplish them because he isnt going to be so beaten and defeated by this job is a huge plus for him and us....all of these things are reasons to be excited for him and looking forward to moving on and taking our lives back from the Wizard....
But the other side of this coin...Im still here. Im still dealing with the Wizard. I get to continue to smash my head in the car door trying to make it all fit for my delusional boss. I know. Its my choice, and one that is weighing heavily on me at the moment. This sense of obligation I feel to fix this for the Wizard and make sure he is ok is ridiculous. I have no idea where it comes from. I am going to blame my father, actually. I inherited his infinite martyrdom and its why I have such a hard time doing things for me when I feel that I am needed. I thrive on being needed, its a very large part of who I am and what makes me good at what I do...but at what cost?
Ive been wrestling with this since Mister gave notice. I would fuck the Wizard if I left. Would it be the end of him? Hell no...this place existed long before I got here and will continue well after I leave...I know no one is irreplaceable. Would it level a crippling blow? Oh most definitely. The kids have been pretty quiet about Mister's exit. There have been some rumblings, but they all know that he has been majorly unhappy...my exit would raise more eyebrows for sure and probably start an exodus as folks looked for new jobs. That really isnt my problem though. So to decide....do I stay here? Do I keep fighting for my people? The ONLY reason I am even having this much trouble is that I feel obligated to keep at this for my people. The people who work for me, the people who suck their shit through a straw, keep up with his absurd micromanagement, keep showing up, working hard and making my restaurants run. The people that I respect, like and would jump in front of a bus for because they would do it for me in a minute. A lot of us have been together for years now and there is a large part of me that feels like I am abandoning them with the Wizard and leaving them to fail, and thats the part I am having trouble stomaching. I KNOW they would all understand, they see what I do how thin I am spread and how difficult it is to do the 3 jobs I do and they help me all they can and I dont think one of them really gets why I keep doing it. They are why I do it. I do it because they do it and we are a team. But I dont think that is good enough.
So I have a decision to make. And Ill be honest rarely does it take me long to make any important decisions...weigh the facts and make a call, but this one isnt so easy. Money I am not worried about. Its just money. I work hard and can find a way to make it work. We have been broke before and its not the end of the world. Jobs in this industry are easy to come by and I can always find a way to make some money...even if its less than I'm making now. Budgets can be reworked and we will muddle through this. My problem? This job saps the life out of me and makes it very hard to be excited about anything else...which makes completing a business plan and finding money to open my place almost impossible. It literally just sucks the life out of me...emotionally, physically & mentally. I know in my heart that the only way I get my own place is to leave here. That I am not going to get this off the ground with or without investors as long as I am beating my head against a wall in this place.
Oh I wish it was as easy as making a decision. I wish it was as easy as just doing what I want to do and selfishly doing whats best for me. I wish I was better at being selfish about things that really matter. I wish that I could just say fuck it and mean it and walk away without feeling responsible for all of these people. I wish I wish I wish.....but wishing isnt going to fix this bullshit mess I call a job.
What to do...the question of the ages. How long will I make it without Mister here? Do I have the ability to not get fed up with the shit storm Im about to face and NOT walk out at some point? Oh I probably do...I am nothing if not strong enough to stay standing and stupid enough to keep taking it in the face...but the real question is do I want to? The answer is NO - I do not.
Now to decide do I keep at it until the Wizard is stable and the new place is open or do I do whats best for my mental & physical health and walk away? This is really the struggle. I do not want to fuck him over...sincerely I do not. Part of that is selfish, my name has been attached to this place and him for almost a decade, I dont want the house of cards to collapse and have my name associated with it in any way and make me look bad. But on the other hand I know in my heart & mind that if I dont just make the call and do it that one thing will roll into another and 1 year from now I am going to be sitting here trying to figure out how another year went by and I am still doing the same damn thing I was doing a year ago. We will never be optimally staffed because the Wizard is a cheap fucker and we will STILL be perpetually hiring the wrong people because that is all we can afford. There will always be an event or some other hullabaloo that will need organized-set up-executed. There will always be the next big thing on the horizon. There will always be a reason that I will be needed, and a reason to back burner what I want, and a reason to not jump.
I had at first thought it was fear...but I am not scared to fail. I know that I wont, thats just not my style. Then I thought it was fear of HIS failure...and that is a large part of it. I have invested years of my life, quarts of my bloods, gallons of my sweat and tears into these places and for it to fail after all that is just infuriating. But I think when it comes down to it that the only thing holding me back is obligation & a sense of responsibility to a boss who only has his own best interests at heart and a staff who has followed & supported me for years. I dont want to screw my peeps over...but I do every day anyway because of how tightly he's got my hands tied and how thinly I am spread.
My questions to you dear readers.....are my perceived obligations to the Wizard & my staff genuine? Is it wrong of me to cut & run after this many years and this far into a new project? Granted I prob wouldnt go until the opening is all secured, but notice would be given and I would be out soon there after. Am I deluding myself via my sense of obligation and is it really this is just me too scared to jump off the fucking cliff and leave my safety zone? These are but a sampling of the questions that spend their time bouncing around my skull...and I am genuinely interested to hear outside opinions with what limited knowledge you have. There is something to be said for unbiased opinions...and I am definitely actively searching for some. I am not real good at selfish...but I think it may be time for one of those big 'ol "Fuck you man! This is for me!!!" moments....
Another HAPPY NEWS!!! Perfected my chocolate chip cookie recipe....and THAT makes me happy as all hell! Another recipe locked down after much trial & error. SMILES!!
I hope you all are having a far less trying Monday than me...or at east one with more answers than questions anyway.
Good news?!?! Oh yeah I have some good news! So me & the Mister almost finished the retaining wall that we need to have in so we can plant the garden. We will have to go pick up ONE more load of bricks from Lane Block to complete the wall then we need a truck ton of dirt so I can lay out and plant. I got some more veggies & strawberries too! All told this is going to be a pretty ambitious project/garden seeing as I haven't ever in my life sincerely tended a garden. My parents have like 10 green thumbs between them...I on the other hand dont seem to have any. Its a running joke with the Mister actually that I can kill any plant I am given. Lucky for me I have stepped to the challenge and have successfully kept alive a rubber tree, spider plant a few miscellaneous other things for over a year so I am feeling pretty confident that I can pull this off with Mister's help. Its not a lack of ability, it that I forget to care for the little buggers and they die. Either way I am excited as hell to have this project for the summer. I have about 20 different little started plants to get into the ground and I should have one hell of a take this summer & fall. I do love the Farmers Markets but there is something to be said for growing it all at home yourself! On a side note anyone who needs or wants to buy good block for a project like this I highly recommend Lane Block in Carnegie. They are a bit off the beaten path, but are 1/3 the cost of all of the big chain home improvement places, super great to deal with and make good products. This thing would have cost us somewhere in the ballpark of $900 if we had done it at Home Depot or Lowes, it has run us less than half of that with all materials AND you support a local business instead of a national chain....that alone is enough for me!
So this is also Mister's last week at his current job with me. He put his notice in a few weeks ago and is going to be moving on to an easier gig for the moment that will give him some time to regroup after working with the Wizard for this long. I have very mixed emotions about this move. Mostly I am really happy for him though, and just amazingly sad for me. I am happy for him because I have already watched this job just about destroy him, our marriage & lives once and knowing that it isnt going to happen again makes my heart feel good, just seeing how much happier he is after making the decision and DOING it makes me ecstatic for him, knowing that there are great things on the horizon for him in the future and that he will accomplish them because he isnt going to be so beaten and defeated by this job is a huge plus for him and us....all of these things are reasons to be excited for him and looking forward to moving on and taking our lives back from the Wizard....
But the other side of this coin...Im still here. Im still dealing with the Wizard. I get to continue to smash my head in the car door trying to make it all fit for my delusional boss. I know. Its my choice, and one that is weighing heavily on me at the moment. This sense of obligation I feel to fix this for the Wizard and make sure he is ok is ridiculous. I have no idea where it comes from. I am going to blame my father, actually. I inherited his infinite martyrdom and its why I have such a hard time doing things for me when I feel that I am needed. I thrive on being needed, its a very large part of who I am and what makes me good at what I do...but at what cost?
Ive been wrestling with this since Mister gave notice. I would fuck the Wizard if I left. Would it be the end of him? Hell no...this place existed long before I got here and will continue well after I leave...I know no one is irreplaceable. Would it level a crippling blow? Oh most definitely. The kids have been pretty quiet about Mister's exit. There have been some rumblings, but they all know that he has been majorly unhappy...my exit would raise more eyebrows for sure and probably start an exodus as folks looked for new jobs. That really isnt my problem though. So to decide....do I stay here? Do I keep fighting for my people? The ONLY reason I am even having this much trouble is that I feel obligated to keep at this for my people. The people who work for me, the people who suck their shit through a straw, keep up with his absurd micromanagement, keep showing up, working hard and making my restaurants run. The people that I respect, like and would jump in front of a bus for because they would do it for me in a minute. A lot of us have been together for years now and there is a large part of me that feels like I am abandoning them with the Wizard and leaving them to fail, and thats the part I am having trouble stomaching. I KNOW they would all understand, they see what I do how thin I am spread and how difficult it is to do the 3 jobs I do and they help me all they can and I dont think one of them really gets why I keep doing it. They are why I do it. I do it because they do it and we are a team. But I dont think that is good enough.
So I have a decision to make. And Ill be honest rarely does it take me long to make any important decisions...weigh the facts and make a call, but this one isnt so easy. Money I am not worried about. Its just money. I work hard and can find a way to make it work. We have been broke before and its not the end of the world. Jobs in this industry are easy to come by and I can always find a way to make some money...even if its less than I'm making now. Budgets can be reworked and we will muddle through this. My problem? This job saps the life out of me and makes it very hard to be excited about anything else...which makes completing a business plan and finding money to open my place almost impossible. It literally just sucks the life out of me...emotionally, physically & mentally. I know in my heart that the only way I get my own place is to leave here. That I am not going to get this off the ground with or without investors as long as I am beating my head against a wall in this place.
Oh I wish it was as easy as making a decision. I wish it was as easy as just doing what I want to do and selfishly doing whats best for me. I wish I was better at being selfish about things that really matter. I wish that I could just say fuck it and mean it and walk away without feeling responsible for all of these people. I wish I wish I wish.....but wishing isnt going to fix this bullshit mess I call a job.
What to do...the question of the ages. How long will I make it without Mister here? Do I have the ability to not get fed up with the shit storm Im about to face and NOT walk out at some point? Oh I probably do...I am nothing if not strong enough to stay standing and stupid enough to keep taking it in the face...but the real question is do I want to? The answer is NO - I do not.
Now to decide do I keep at it until the Wizard is stable and the new place is open or do I do whats best for my mental & physical health and walk away? This is really the struggle. I do not want to fuck him over...sincerely I do not. Part of that is selfish, my name has been attached to this place and him for almost a decade, I dont want the house of cards to collapse and have my name associated with it in any way and make me look bad. But on the other hand I know in my heart & mind that if I dont just make the call and do it that one thing will roll into another and 1 year from now I am going to be sitting here trying to figure out how another year went by and I am still doing the same damn thing I was doing a year ago. We will never be optimally staffed because the Wizard is a cheap fucker and we will STILL be perpetually hiring the wrong people because that is all we can afford. There will always be an event or some other hullabaloo that will need organized-set up-executed. There will always be the next big thing on the horizon. There will always be a reason that I will be needed, and a reason to back burner what I want, and a reason to not jump.
I had at first thought it was fear...but I am not scared to fail. I know that I wont, thats just not my style. Then I thought it was fear of HIS failure...and that is a large part of it. I have invested years of my life, quarts of my bloods, gallons of my sweat and tears into these places and for it to fail after all that is just infuriating. But I think when it comes down to it that the only thing holding me back is obligation & a sense of responsibility to a boss who only has his own best interests at heart and a staff who has followed & supported me for years. I dont want to screw my peeps over...but I do every day anyway because of how tightly he's got my hands tied and how thinly I am spread.
My questions to you dear readers.....are my perceived obligations to the Wizard & my staff genuine? Is it wrong of me to cut & run after this many years and this far into a new project? Granted I prob wouldnt go until the opening is all secured, but notice would be given and I would be out soon there after. Am I deluding myself via my sense of obligation and is it really this is just me too scared to jump off the fucking cliff and leave my safety zone? These are but a sampling of the questions that spend their time bouncing around my skull...and I am genuinely interested to hear outside opinions with what limited knowledge you have. There is something to be said for unbiased opinions...and I am definitely actively searching for some. I am not real good at selfish...but I think it may be time for one of those big 'ol "Fuck you man! This is for me!!!" moments....
Another HAPPY NEWS!!! Perfected my chocolate chip cookie recipe....and THAT makes me happy as all hell! Another recipe locked down after much trial & error. SMILES!!
I hope you all are having a far less trying Monday than me...or at east one with more answers than questions anyway.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Happy Girl Dance!!!
It was another shitty day in a string of shitty days. There are going to be a lot of those in my immediate future. I'm ok with that, really. Its one of those things that I really cant do much about without making some ridiculously impulsive and stupid move that won't be at all helpful, just stupid. I'm know to be many things, but I'm pretty damn sure stupid isn't one of them...or at least if it is I'm blissfully unaware of it and that's good enough for me.
Work just sucks. And I'm not going to launch into some diatribe about it...there's really no point, so I'll just sum it up. We are wicked short staffed management wise, both me & the Mister are having to do a fuck ton of shift cover just to make sure we have openers and closers and whatnot while training a couple of new managers. None of those shifts will make our regular work go away, it's just going to postpone it to a much later, amazingly overwhelming & messy date. Add to that an ever increasing list of things The Wizard (apt new nickname for the Boss courtesy of a friend) wants taken care of, the things I really do have to do, and the other restaurants that also require attention and you've got what I like to call a KLUSTERFUCK! And honestly that little list over there is nothing compared to the REAL one that I haven't yet had the time to compile that will actually give me a well defined look at exactly how fucked I am. I think the list's lack of creation is equal parts no fucking time and I really don't want to know. Right now I know I've got myself, albeit with some assistance from various parties, so far in the weeds I don't even know if I know which way is out...but I'll figure it out. It quite frankly just blows goats. And it'll be over soon enough, but you can sure as shit bet that as soon as this quagmire is all cleaned up it'll be some other bog I wander into, nature of the restaurant beast I'm afraid. But like I said, it is what it is, no point wallowing in it, so I find my silver linings. Its the closest one to my house so quick ass commute...WIN! The staffing woes are due to a not so tragic loss we shall nickname Bitchface~ so thats done and that was best for every single party involved...WIN! I genuinely like the staff and the restaurant so its not painful, just irritating...WIN! So its not so totally awful I can't stand doing the shift cover, the point of ~ tension shall we say, is that I am not doing any of my work, and that stack just keeps growing, but all my office time is spent catching up on what I HAVE to do...and that is rarely what The Wizard wants me doing.
So I got a few annoying emails from our not so pleasant bookkeeper about invoicing some bullshit to somewhere and I had to do it RIGHT NOW because we had never done it in 5 years but it was all of a sudden, and for no obvious reasons, suddenly very important that we start doing it IMMEDIATELY....and then began a flurry of emails these need to be transferred at $XX each, stupid shit and I got annoyed and may have kind of sort of yelled at The Wizard. Long story much shorter I told him I was not even getting what I had to do done and if it was that fucking important for this to be done she could take care of it her damn self but if I got one more terse email about some stupid fucking garbage can I was going to blow my stack. I think I also may have told him that it was epic bullshit and that if he or she thought I could just extract a fucking invoicing system for about 150 different items from my ass, have it implemented and working at the drop of a hat he was high. Oh, yeah, and a buncha other shit about a myriad of other things that have pissed me off in the last couple weeks. I'll give him this...he stood there and took it. I was swearing, I was pissed, I was completely for real and mostly outta line. He stood there, decided that the invoicing thing could be done over the course of this year, we would plan to implement by the beginning of next year so we did it for the full year, agreed with all my other issues (not that that means much, he usually agrees, he doesn't do anything about it), talked about some things he had planned to do tomorrow and then went home.
I left shortly thereafter, annoyed and all sorts of irritated & frustrated. Just MEH! Honestly not shocking, about par for the course really. I was a bitch, and maybe for a good reason, but mostly because I wanted to be. I don't function well when I'm spread this thin, no one does really, and he is not helping or even just shutting the hell up. It would be helpful if he did, I always take care of my shit one way or another and he knows that so leave me the fuck alone. I'm on it...mostly. It's not like we are reinventing the wheel or saving lives. The bare minimum will get done, we will scrape by and he will make his money. So yeah, KLUSTERUCK!
Oh, yeah, and Mister's car went into the shop yesterday with some brake issues as yet to be diagnosed so we are with my car so that's fun. Going to be AWESOME!!! when I have to go out at 1am and go pick him up tonight...he's closing. YAY! <--- insert dripping sarcasm here
So I get home finally, find a box for Mister on the porch and am greeted by my ever so happy to see me and always makes your heart feel better puppies. I text Mister that he got a present from Amazon. He tells me that HE didn't, I did. I don't remember ordering anything, and was informed that it was ordered for me. That means present. I LOOOVE presents - fuck, who doesnt?!? So I ask if I can open it and yes I can! Mister said I CAN open it. I really found that kind of surprising. Usually I think he tells me I can't just because he knows I will listen and NOT open it, but that it will taunt me until I can and that amuses him. So I walked the dogs & then opened my box.
On top was a book I had heard about & mentioned I wanted, Mister had assessed it wasn't published yet (he's part google, ya know) and I had honestly mostly forgotten about it. Well apparently he didnt and he'd gotten it for me. I was wicked happy...and yet another reason Mister rocks~he remembers things like that!! So I pull the book out and notice this odd box thing, take it out, look at it quickly and figure out I don't know what it is therefor it must not be mine and put it on the table. Puppy makes a grab for the pillow plastic doohickythingies in the box and in the process I see ANOTHER thing in the box. So I look to see what this thing might be, it was just a small white box. I look at it and take off the paper and inside is an iTouch, I was confuzzled, he has an iTouch. So I grab the other box and its the rubber thingy that the iTouch lives in and its purple. Purple=MINE! I think i said Holy FUCK! to the dogs and texted Mister a wow...wtf?!?!? He says its just a present for v-day, just cuz & as a congrats for getting started on my business....and THAT'S why my hubby is the #1 ever!
Not to mention impeccable by accident timing for delivery of presents on really shitty days. Its really cool that he got me an iTouch, I really dug his and its just cool. It's even better he got the book, that's some pretty damn good paying attention skills there Mister. The very bestest part? He just did it because he knew I would love both & wanted to. He didn't do anything that warranted an expensive I'm sorry nor does he want anything that I'm aware of...he's just awesome.
So thats how my day went from dumb dumb stoopid dumb dumb to HAPPY GIRL DANCE!!!
And for the record I've been using my time with Mister closing to work on my business plan. I've made some pretty good headway so yes, I may be tired, but I'm tired from staying up too late working on that. I think I can live with that kind of tired...it's a productive for ME tired.
And totally off track ~ but I think Olympic Cross Country Skiing could sincerely be one of the most BORING things I've ever had the misfortune to watch. It's on as I'm finishing this, it is just boring.
I'm going to play with my iTouch some more and see what I can figure out before I hand it over to Mister to get it all set up with whatever it is I need on there ;-)
Work just sucks. And I'm not going to launch into some diatribe about it...there's really no point, so I'll just sum it up. We are wicked short staffed management wise, both me & the Mister are having to do a fuck ton of shift cover just to make sure we have openers and closers and whatnot while training a couple of new managers. None of those shifts will make our regular work go away, it's just going to postpone it to a much later, amazingly overwhelming & messy date. Add to that an ever increasing list of things The Wizard (apt new nickname for the Boss courtesy of a friend) wants taken care of, the things I really do have to do, and the other restaurants that also require attention and you've got what I like to call a KLUSTERFUCK! And honestly that little list over there is nothing compared to the REAL one that I haven't yet had the time to compile that will actually give me a well defined look at exactly how fucked I am. I think the list's lack of creation is equal parts no fucking time and I really don't want to know. Right now I know I've got myself, albeit with some assistance from various parties, so far in the weeds I don't even know if I know which way is out...but I'll figure it out. It quite frankly just blows goats. And it'll be over soon enough, but you can sure as shit bet that as soon as this quagmire is all cleaned up it'll be some other bog I wander into, nature of the restaurant beast I'm afraid. But like I said, it is what it is, no point wallowing in it, so I find my silver linings. Its the closest one to my house so quick ass commute...WIN! The staffing woes are due to a not so tragic loss we shall nickname Bitchface~ so thats done and that was best for every single party involved...WIN! I genuinely like the staff and the restaurant so its not painful, just irritating...WIN! So its not so totally awful I can't stand doing the shift cover, the point of ~ tension shall we say, is that I am not doing any of my work, and that stack just keeps growing, but all my office time is spent catching up on what I HAVE to do...and that is rarely what The Wizard wants me doing.
So I got a few annoying emails from our not so pleasant bookkeeper about invoicing some bullshit to somewhere and I had to do it RIGHT NOW because we had never done it in 5 years but it was all of a sudden, and for no obvious reasons, suddenly very important that we start doing it IMMEDIATELY....and then began a flurry of emails these need to be transferred at $XX each, stupid shit and I got annoyed and may have kind of sort of yelled at The Wizard. Long story much shorter I told him I was not even getting what I had to do done and if it was that fucking important for this to be done she could take care of it her damn self but if I got one more terse email about some stupid fucking garbage can I was going to blow my stack. I think I also may have told him that it was epic bullshit and that if he or she thought I could just extract a fucking invoicing system for about 150 different items from my ass, have it implemented and working at the drop of a hat he was high. Oh, yeah, and a buncha other shit about a myriad of other things that have pissed me off in the last couple weeks. I'll give him this...he stood there and took it. I was swearing, I was pissed, I was completely for real and mostly outta line. He stood there, decided that the invoicing thing could be done over the course of this year, we would plan to implement by the beginning of next year so we did it for the full year, agreed with all my other issues (not that that means much, he usually agrees, he doesn't do anything about it), talked about some things he had planned to do tomorrow and then went home.
I left shortly thereafter, annoyed and all sorts of irritated & frustrated. Just MEH! Honestly not shocking, about par for the course really. I was a bitch, and maybe for a good reason, but mostly because I wanted to be. I don't function well when I'm spread this thin, no one does really, and he is not helping or even just shutting the hell up. It would be helpful if he did, I always take care of my shit one way or another and he knows that so leave me the fuck alone. I'm on it...mostly. It's not like we are reinventing the wheel or saving lives. The bare minimum will get done, we will scrape by and he will make his money. So yeah, KLUSTERUCK!
Oh, yeah, and Mister's car went into the shop yesterday with some brake issues as yet to be diagnosed so we are with my car so that's fun. Going to be AWESOME!!! when I have to go out at 1am and go pick him up tonight...he's closing. YAY! <--- insert dripping sarcasm here
So I get home finally, find a box for Mister on the porch and am greeted by my ever so happy to see me and always makes your heart feel better puppies. I text Mister that he got a present from Amazon. He tells me that HE didn't, I did. I don't remember ordering anything, and was informed that it was ordered for me. That means present. I LOOOVE presents - fuck, who doesnt?!? So I ask if I can open it and yes I can! Mister said I CAN open it. I really found that kind of surprising. Usually I think he tells me I can't just because he knows I will listen and NOT open it, but that it will taunt me until I can and that amuses him. So I walked the dogs & then opened my box.
On top was a book I had heard about & mentioned I wanted, Mister had assessed it wasn't published yet (he's part google, ya know) and I had honestly mostly forgotten about it. Well apparently he didnt and he'd gotten it for me. I was wicked happy...and yet another reason Mister rocks~he remembers things like that!! So I pull the book out and notice this odd box thing, take it out, look at it quickly and figure out I don't know what it is therefor it must not be mine and put it on the table. Puppy makes a grab for the pillow plastic doohickythingies in the box and in the process I see ANOTHER thing in the box. So I look to see what this thing might be, it was just a small white box. I look at it and take off the paper and inside is an iTouch, I was confuzzled, he has an iTouch. So I grab the other box and its the rubber thingy that the iTouch lives in and its purple. Purple=MINE! I think i said Holy FUCK! to the dogs and texted Mister a wow...wtf?!?!? He says its just a present for v-day, just cuz & as a congrats for getting started on my business....and THAT'S why my hubby is the #1 ever!
Not to mention impeccable by accident timing for delivery of presents on really shitty days. Its really cool that he got me an iTouch, I really dug his and its just cool. It's even better he got the book, that's some pretty damn good paying attention skills there Mister. The very bestest part? He just did it because he knew I would love both & wanted to. He didn't do anything that warranted an expensive I'm sorry nor does he want anything that I'm aware of...he's just awesome.
So thats how my day went from dumb dumb stoopid dumb dumb to HAPPY GIRL DANCE!!!
And for the record I've been using my time with Mister closing to work on my business plan. I've made some pretty good headway so yes, I may be tired, but I'm tired from staying up too late working on that. I think I can live with that kind of tired...it's a productive for ME tired.
And totally off track ~ but I think Olympic Cross Country Skiing could sincerely be one of the most BORING things I've ever had the misfortune to watch. It's on as I'm finishing this, it is just boring.
I'm going to play with my iTouch some more and see what I can figure out before I hand it over to Mister to get it all set up with whatever it is I need on there ;-)
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