It's Personal

Sometimes saying, "It's not personal, it's business.", is the biggest pile of crap you can say. When you're married or it's family related, it's personal, no matter what. Today, my husband caught me completely off guard. I can sympathize with his point of view, but I'm not sure I can swallow it.

My new cafe is just barely in its eigth week. We've had many ups and downs during this time and naturally, our fair share of stupid mistakes. I'm directly responsible for a handful of them, but indirectly responsible for all of them, considering it's my business. There are a number of issues I've addressed numerous times that my staff, particularly the cook, continuously forget, which causes the kind of mistakes later on down the road that makes me look like an incompetent fool.

It's frustrating, to say the least, and incredibly embarassing and humiliating to mess up or potentially ruin a customer's experience. As much as I 'know' about customer service or how things are supposed to operate in the restaurant, the fact is that people's reactions are completely unpredictable. Things you expect to be a problem, aren't, and things that wouldn't even register as a blip on my radar become explosive disasters.

Everything started off well today, but as usual, there's always that one table where if one thing can go wrong, then why not everything? Long story short, at the end of the day, my husband delivered one of the most devastating blows to my ego I've experienced in years.

He told me that going forward, he would not continue to recommend to his friends to visit my cafe because it was making him look bad and lose credibility. He's used to being able to offer advice, suggestions, and tips and having people hold him at his word. Therefore, in order to salvage that reputation, he could not continue inviting his friends to the cafe (the catering operation is ok, though) because he was concerned that they wouldn't have a good experience.

He was prepared for my wrath, but I wasn't angry. It was heart breaking. How do you respond to that? Sure we've made mistakes, but geez, really?! You're willing to deny me the opportunity to put a plate on a table in order to put a plate on our table? My goal is to serve every customer that walks through my door or places an order in excellence, but the growing pains were impossible to learn from a text book at culinary school. It's a harsh realization, but no matter how you phrase it, it is personal. It's very personal.