Some days in a Bakery/Cafe are more difficult than others. We had one of those difficult days the latter part of July. It reminded me of the children's book I used to read to our kids, "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day". The problem with employing young women is that they typically decide to get married. Not that we are against marriage at the Coffee Pot, because we laud that institution. Those who get married during one of our busiest seasons, however, are not on our most favored list! Two of our bakers chose the same Saturday in July to get married. They have lots of friends who work at the cafe, so that took even more people out of our work force. No worries, one of gals who recently left to start her own business committed to coming back to help us during "Wedding Day". Unfortunately, she ended up getting shingles in her eye! Our Bakery Manager and her sister, who also works for us, were at a wedding in Tennessee. The Front of the House Manager was the coordinator for one of the weddings. "Skeleton Crew" might have described that Saturday's work force. This was the beginning of the trauma of the Coffee Pot's "Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day".
That day, along with the weddings, David and I were going to a funeral. We left right before the Saturday lunch rush but at 11:30 I got a text that the electricity had gone out at the Store. That makes for a very traumatic event, when our cash registers, POS and most of the kitchen equipment runs on electricity! There was a 30 minute frantic search for the breaker that caused the problem, but it was finally identified and eventually the electricity came back on. Unfortunately the espresso machine would not work so we couldn't make coffees, and we didn't figure out until Monday morning that it had come unplugged in the chaos! Through all of this, our Director of Operations, Colette, was as calm as could be, helping everyone else to be as calm as they could be under the circumstances. The little handful of people who were at work told us that she was the one who kept everyone from panicking. Afterward, she told me that that was the most stressful day she has ever had at the Coffee Pot!
In "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day", the book ends with Alexander's mother's assurance that everybody has bad days. If you have a business, indeed, if you're alive, you will have bad days but fortunately they won't last forever. At the Coffee Pot, enough time has gone by that we can actually laugh at our horrible day and look back as comrades who prevailed.
That day, along with the weddings, David and I were going to a funeral. We left right before the Saturday lunch rush but at 11:30 I got a text that the electricity had gone out at the Store. That makes for a very traumatic event, when our cash registers, POS and most of the kitchen equipment runs on electricity! There was a 30 minute frantic search for the breaker that caused the problem, but it was finally identified and eventually the electricity came back on. Unfortunately the espresso machine would not work so we couldn't make coffees, and we didn't figure out until Monday morning that it had come unplugged in the chaos! Through all of this, our Director of Operations, Colette, was as calm as could be, helping everyone else to be as calm as they could be under the circumstances. The little handful of people who were at work told us that she was the one who kept everyone from panicking. Afterward, she told me that that was the most stressful day she has ever had at the Coffee Pot!
In "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day", the book ends with Alexander's mother's assurance that everybody has bad days. If you have a business, indeed, if you're alive, you will have bad days but fortunately they won't last forever. At the Coffee Pot, enough time has gone by that we can actually laugh at our horrible day and look back as comrades who prevailed.