Keeping the Faith

As of this moment, my business has ceased to exist as I knew it. Everything has been flipped upside down and I'm doing my best to make sense of this mess. After watching my panini stand consistently decline in Rob's care, it was decided that deal or no deal, I was shutting it down. Each weekend he and his girlfriend spent there resulted in the further trailer trashing of my concept. I expected the menu to change, but I also expected my standards to upheld and sadly, they were not.

The final straw came last weekend when my husband and I were out of town for a wedding. I received a phone call from the inspector from the state inquiring about my process for canning my pasta sauces. I walked her through it and she told me she'd consult with her supervisor and get back to me. Five minutes later she called me back with the most devastating news I could have received at this time. I had to stop selling my sauces immediately and they all had to be removed from the shelf. Apparently, the complaint came from an inspector from the dept. of agriculture, who wanted to know about my canning process siting botulism as a potential hazard. Oh sure. Botulism, huh? My sauces have been on the shelves for over a year and my space has been subject to at least 4 inspections, but noooow we're concerned about botulism? Whatever.

The fact is that Grouchy, the dept. of agriculture inspector, has had it out for me from the beginning. After refusing to license me under her department, which would have cost a quarter of the price of the one I had to obtain from DBPR, she allowed some of her buddies at the market do what I do under her permit. No uber expensive additional permits required. She's been eyeballing my sauces since I brought them to the market and has made several snide remarks about them, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. OH! But the timing! She put me out of business beginning Black Friday weekend! And in order to comply with the department of agriculture's requirement, it's going to be  a long process that's going to cost me a lot of money I don't have, which kind of sucks considering that the dept. of agriculture has essentially laid me off.

I have spent this entire past week researching what to do next and making phone calls between sobs and snot. My husband, CP, made a determination that come this weekend, our booth at the market would be an empty spot. I guess he wants to make a statement. After so many problems and circumstances that have relentlessly chiseled away at my bottom line, CP had enough. So we packed up the booth and got it all into a storage facility today. So no market booth and no sauces. At least I still have my meatballs, right?

So what's the plan? Well, we're going to start by sending the first group of samples to the labs for chemical analysis and to determine whether they are shelf stable. In addition to sending the samples, I am required to forward complete recipes (nooooooo) measured by weight with specific procedures for them to determine that my ingredients and processes are appropriate. Afterwards, we have to have HACCP (hazard analysis & critical control points) plans completed for each sauce. Once that is completed, we need to prepare a certified kitchen somewhere somehow solely for the purpose of production, and then we have to have the facility inspected by none other than Grouchy herself.

Are you tempted to go out and play in traffic yet? I think I'd be less gnarly and run over if I did. So the bottom line is that either I play by their rules or I don't get to play. But if I play by their rules and master it, my product will actually have a fighting chance of getting onto the shelves of some great local gourmet stores. Anything's possible, right?

Let me tell you something and listen (or read) carefully. Anyone who can make it through the muck with a clear conscience and an honest day's work and still be successful, deserves to be successful. This may be the land of opportunity, but the opportunities are not easy to get and sometimes you'll have to jump through hoops like a circus poodle to get anywhere. If you have a dream, go for it, but be prepared for monkey wrenches, disillusionment, disappointment, exhaustion, and frustration. But more importantly, whatever happens, never give up hope. It may be the only thing that will keep you going when you're ready to throw your hands in the air and quit.

Welcome to My World

This week has been an interesting turn of events. Last Sunday, I found myself stuck at one of the markets waiting for one of my employees to arrive so that I could leave to work at another market. Sure enough, he was late due to a nasty flash flood that affected several parts of the county, and as I impatiently waited for him, a slightly disturbing thought crossed my mind. The little voice said, "That's it. I'm done. I don't wanna do this anymore.", and just like that I decided that I had had enough of the market. There would be no working through the season or waiting to sell it; I was done now. By the time he arrived, it was too late to set up at the other market, which I was depending on in order to pay the rent at the current market. It was so frustrating I felt like dropping to my knees and crying, but the show had to go on and we were somehow going to get through the day without any nervous breakdowns.

As I've mentioned before, one of my signature menu items are my 'famous' meatballs (yes, they really are that good) and there was already someone else copying me. Sunday morning, I learned that yet another lack luster vendor was serving the same item and had also drastically undercut my price, as well. Needless to say, that made my head spin. In addition to this, the owner of the market himself had put yet another booth in the market, this time across the hall from me, selling pastas and pasta sauces. The bread and pastries guy was selling paninis, like me. There's another booth selling crepes that opened a couple weeks after I had begun selling them. Little by little, my original menu was 'original' no longer. On top of that, my employees simply wouldn't do what I asked. They operated my business as though they knew better than me. Weekend after weekend of correcting, retraining, reorganizing, recreating, and reprimanding wore me down. While they walked away each Sunday with cash in hand, all I had to look forward to was another week of cracking my skull trying to figure out how to replenish the inventory, prepare more sauces, and cover all the expenses with the peanuts I was left to work with.

It just wasn't worth it. I don't consider myself to be a quitter, but sometimes knowing when to let go is one of the most valuable business decisions one can make. This being said, decisions like this need to be made responsibly without abruptly disrupting what has become a staple to many of our customers throughout the past year. So I made my friend and assistant, Rob, an offer I hoped he couldn't refuse. I offered him the opportunity to run the business as his own for the next month and if he did well and wanted to continue, he could purchase it from me in small payments. Great opportunity, right? Yeah sure... little did he know the burden he was about to take on.

This Sunday, as I breezed in to collect the money he owed me to reimburse me for the rent I paid upfront, the invoice for the vodka sauce and meatballs I supplied for him, and my cut on the jars of sauce he had sold for me, I felt like an Italian mafioso. He worked his ass off this weekend, but by the time he paid Mandy, the other assistant (who spent most of the weekend flirting with the new girl at the flower stand), me, and running out to buy some emergency supplies, Rob was walking away with about $30. I didn't know whether to laugh in relief or cry on his behalf. As he and his girlfriend stared at the scraps they were left with in disbelief, all I could offer was, "Welcome to my world.".

Ready to Transition

Some people are inspired when they read about how a young couple got out of debt, paid off their mortgage, and now can invest $20K a year just in building wealth with only one spouse working, 3 little kids in tow, and their dream house completely paid off before they turn 40. Me? It makes my head want to explode.

I have been busting my chops to pay myself $160 a week. That's right, folks... $160 big fat buckaroos. I used to make more on unemployment. Sure, I can take pride in saying that I EARNED that $160, but I've never worked so damn hard to make peanuts. I'm talking about at least 70-80 hours a week, no joke! My weekly schedule looks something like this:

Monday: Day Off / Buy more jars day.
Tuesday: Prepare purchasing list, menu, and go all over the city buying supplies.
Wednesday: Finish purchasing and begin production.
Thursday: Production continues and label all the jars.
Friday: Prep work for the panini stand. Set up one of the market booths and prepare inventory for the other market booth.
Saturday: Run booth at one market and then go to other market to close.
Sunday: Open and play short order cook all day at the panini stand.

REPEAT.

I'm tired. I am soooo tired. There's so much more to it than this, of course, but you get the jist. Earlier this week, I was thinking about how I would ever achieve any of my dreams or get a break with only $160 per week. The answer: never. Frustration and desperation washed over me as I thought about the mess I have gotten myself in to. Then today, as I drove around shopping for supplies, a scary but liberating thought crossed my mind. Sell the business. Well, the panini stand portion of it, anyway.

My first reaction was to pretend it hadn't crossed my mind. Afterall, selling my little startup would be like giving up my firstborn for adoption. But the more I thought about it, the more liberating it felt. If all goes according to plan, the panini stand will be placed on the market by the end of the first quarter or beginning of the second quarter of 2012. After mucking through these horrendous summer months, you better believe I have every intention of rocking the high season months before bowing out. Afterwards, I'll just continue to dedicate time to selling my sauces and take it from there.

It's impossible to predict what's going to happen in the next six months, but I do know that I'm ready to move on. I suppose that having the wisdom to know when I've had enough and having the courage to let go are two important lessons I'll be able to take away from this experience. I created something really nice, and it's been a great experience, but it's time to step up onto the next rung of my career ladder.

Get Your Balls While They're Hot!

The meatball war is ON!  As usual, drama is impossible to avoid no matter how much I try. Incredibly enough, it just shows up on my doorstep, knocks, and then lets itself into my life. A couple months ago I hired a former classmate to help me at the market and I spent her first morning introducing her to many of the other vendors at the market. We were almost at the end of our tour when I introduced Makia (this is not her name, but this is what my husband insists on calling her, so I guess it's a perfect alias) to the Drama Queen (DQ).

It went something like this, "Hi DQ! This is my friend Makia. She's going to be working with us from now on." DQ LOUDLY replies, "Oh, so I heard you wanted to hire my girl (the chick that runs her lemonade stand)." Huh? So I repeated, "Um, DQ, this is MAKIA and she's going to be working with us from now on. Your girl introduced herself to me a few weeks ago along with her boyfriend who was looking for a job, but I didn't hire him." DQ apparently doesn't understand English so she said, "That's ok, you don't have to offer me any explanations. I know you wanted to hire my girl over there. By the way, what the EFF is wrong with this EFFING generation? Why do they think they're so entitled to everything nowadays? Can you believe this girl already asked for a raise after working for me for 2 weeks?!". DQ proceeded to LOUDLY continue going on and on about all her grievances regarding this chick while Makia slowly began to step away. I cut DQ off and continued our tour.

A few hours later, I hear that the chick quit on DQ in the middle of her shift. Not long afterwards, the chick is at my booth personally telling me that she had quit and proceeds to tell me the reasons. We talked about it, I agreed with most of her complaints, but I told her that she made two fatal mistakes. First of all, she quit on someone in the middle of a shift leaving them completely stranded. You never burn bridges that way and it's incredibly unprofessional. Secondly, she quit before she got paid for the previous day of work. She was intimidated by DQ and afraid to ask her for her pay of $50 for the previous day, so she asked if I would accompany her to talk to the DQ.... and my bleeding heart agreed.

At the end of the day, I approached DQ with the chick in tow and said, "DQ, I'm here because this morning you shared something with me and then later on the chick shared something with me, and I was hoping you both could come to an amicable resolution to this problem. The chick was nervous about talking to you, but I told her that you're perfectly reasonable and there's no reason why this issue can't be resolved." Why did I do that? WHY?? DQ went off in a dramatic rant insulting the chick, the chick attempted to defend herself, and all that was accomplished was that DQ ripped off the chick, who is only 16 years old, and didn't pay her (DQ called it a $50 lesson), the chick never attempted to stand up for herself after that by having her parents assist her with this problem, and DQ decided to retaliate against me personally.

So what's my punishment for being Miss Goody Two Shoes? DQ decided to sabotage my business by copying my signature menu item: Meatball Subs. Her disgusting mediocre frozen meatballs with her ragu sauce were being sold on the same premises as my glorious tender delicious meatballs with my finger licking sauce. How daaare she? So now the bar, aka DQ's Tropical Escape, has meatball subs and chicken parmesan on the menu. My sales immediately took a nose dive and my anger nearly ate me alive.

I was overwhelmingly advised not to tear her head off or even demonstrate that I cared, otherwise she'd continue doing it. I spoke to the manager who has done nothing but give me some lame cop out to justify her lack of ethics and professionalism considering that DQ has done nothing but complain since the market opened a year ago that everyone copies whatever she does. Suddenly, it became ok for her to copy my signature item, not that she hasn't copied at least three of my other menu items in the past.

Although I've heard customers complain that her meatballs suck (of course they would), she's still selling the damn things. The only thing that gives me a little satisfaction is the knowledge that she's losing her ass and she was forced to close her lemonade stand because nobody can work with her. HA! But it's still annoying.

Now I'm making it a point to let people know that my meatballs are authentic delicious balls of heaven and my newest employee and friend has made it his mission to sell them to everyone and anyone who passes by - not even vegetarians are safe from his efforts. So if you walk by my booth and a good looking young man says, "Get your balls while they're hot!", please don't slap him.

Reflection

Some things are so predictable that they don't even arouse my anger anymore, just the dull throb of disappointment. In an effort to mend at least one broken fragment of the relationship between my mother and two of my uncles, I had an opportunity to reflect on how influential our upbringing is in who we become as adults. My mother is a drama queen, impossible to please or satisfy. Her mother is a drama queen, impossible to please or satisfy. I typically run in the opposite direction of drama queens, although I have had my own dramatic fits on a few occasions.

I envy people who gleefully recall their childhood memories because I don't remember much of it at all. Most of the memories I have are bitter at best. Before anyone jumps to any conclusions, I was not abused. I was just unhappy because of the way I was treated. Sadly, my family is oblivious to it since even when I have told them my about my childhood and adolescent experience, they give me a blank stare and ask me what I'm talking about. Perhaps that's the reason I've chosen a service career; maybe it's my way of making other people happy since it's not something I experienced often.

Sometimes I wish I was different. I'd like to be relaxed, light hearted, and sweet. Instead I'm usually an uptight opinionated smart-ass. My ego has taken a pretty hard beating throughout my childhood constatnly being put down, insulted, and criticized. It's unfortunate that I carried some of those awful things with me into adulthood, but at least I'm conscious of it and attempt to stop myself whenever I catch myself being a jerk.

I guess the point of writing this is to ask anyone reading this to be kind to the people you love, treat them with respect. Let them know how you feel and be sincere. Don't love them only when they're good to you or when they're doing favors for you. Don't expect the same feelings to be reciprocated, but if they are, be grateful. You can't control other people's emotions or experiences, but at least you can contribute to some happy memories in their lives.

Drawing the Line

Today I was pushed beyond my limits. I lost my cool and was infuriated by the blatant disrespect of one of my employees. It's something that's been irking me for several weeks, with one offense after another. I've spoken to him about it only to have it all go in one ear and right out the other. The tardiness, laziness, cockiness, arrogance, combativeness, and lack of accountability, reliability, and responsibility, finally took its toll.

I resisted the urge to impulsively fire him on the spot on several occasions, but today's topper was when I was told that I wasn't in fact being disrespected, but I was interpreting that what was happening was disrespect when in fact it wasn't. Well, now you're fired. Interpret that.

It's liberating in a way, since I have always been concerned about what would happen if my "star" employee were to leave. He knows the operation inside out, but you know what? Who cares? I decided not to have my business held hostage by an 18-year old high school drop out.

Who Said This Would Be Easy?

The last couple of weeks have been like my own little black hole. There has been lots of production, a move, financial catastrophe, personnel and personal drama, and lots and lots of physical exhaustion, migraines, and back pain. So needless to say, guess who has been a cranky bitch?

Just to catch up, here's the semi-short version of a bunch of long stories. I moved my booths at the market from a 3 booth spot in "suburbia" to a 2 booth corner in the middle of the market's version of Manhattan. So now I have less space, but I do have location location location! Yay!... I think. Truth be told, it's impossible to predict how things will go in our bipolar market. Saturday was great, Sunday was bad enough to bring forth tears of utter frustration. I made the decision to eliminate the paninis, which had initially been the primary cornerstone of my business, because I simply got tired of spending so much money to replenish inventory that would either perish or had to be given away every weekend. Besides, with at least two other vendors now selling paninis and generally copying my concept, I decided to focus on some other aspects of my menu instead.

The anxiety that has come as a result of making such a drastic change has been kicking my butt all week. The truth is that this is hard. I'm sure there are infinitely more difficult things to do, but all of my eggs are not in those baskets, so all of my energy is focused into my little market(s). There are so many factors affecting my business, including many that are simply out of my control like the crummy economy, some of the market's restrictions, the tourist-less summer season, the heat (and occasionally the rain), and the apparent inability for the market to successfully advertise its existence.  Based on customer feedback, I'm confident that my food and sauces are good, but there's always room for improvement.

My husband and I frequently bicker about our finances and everything I should or shouldn't be doing to improve the situation. I don't want my business to sink into mediocrity, but if it were up to him, I wouldn't sell anything but meatballs (I'm exaggerating a bit, but he is incredibly minimalistic). He has a valid point, but the fact is that the food industry is very different from IT and electronics. The motivating factors for our customers are completely different and the simple fact is that my patrons demand variety. I just wish my patrons were consistent. Few things are as annoying as people who stop at my booth, see my jars of pasta sauce, try my samples, and then say, "I think what you're doing in this place is wonderful. I just love this market. Good luck!", and then walk away without buying anything! The odds are that my luck would drastically improve if people would just buy something. Anything. Instead we've become a prime hangout for market mall rats who love to wander up and down the aisles for the sake of exercise.

Now I'm doing what I always do... figuring out what else I can do / make / sell / promote in order to bring something different into the market. It must be something that no one else will copy, but is easy and inexpensive to prepare. I have something in mind, but I'm giving it a lot of consideration. My husband said "no" (big surprise there), but my mom gushed about what a great idea it is. Sometimes I wish someone would just give me all the answers. Is that really too much to ask?