Today is four months since our little soda shop opened. It has been a whirlwind and also a marathon.
I have stressed nonstop since we opened. I worry this venture will bankrupt Genius Golfer and me. I worry it will make one or both of us crazy. I worry this could be the reason behind G deciding I'm too much work--since I come with the shop--and will divorce me.
In reality, GG has been a ROCKSTAR! He works his regular job from home then comes over and works another full time job at the shop. He handles all the bills, orders, accounting, payroll and franchise stuff. He talks me down off the ledges I keep finding myself teetering on. He reminds me that we will be fine, and that this is what I signed on for--for the next 10 years.
Actually I have come to understand that we can tot his project with differing mental picture of what this would look like. I imagined that I'd hire and train all the cute high school kids and then leave them working happily as I ran errands and did marketing in person to the schools, PTAs, etc. I imagined that GG would receive the billing for vendors and payroll and write the checks. Oh how wrong I have been!
I work M-Sat, from before we open until usually, 6 or 7PM. Saturdays I'm in a little later and out a little earlier, thanks to GG who spends another very full day there. I think I am averaging 60 hrs/week since we opened. My body sure feels it. On weekends when the local high schools have dances, I work more since the Saturdays are reserved for day-dates and dance things for our employees. I have been open to close several weekend nights because I am free labor and no one else was available.
On Sundays GG will deep clean the coke machines monthly and the ice machine quarterly, since that is the only day we are closed. We usually visit the shop every Sunday to pick up the rags for laundry, or at least to make a drink for ourselves.
But the weather finally turned out of winter and that has made all the difference. We are just beginning the summer season down here and the warm sunny weather brings people out in much larger numbers. Now if we can just keep enough employees all summer--while their families go on vacations, the kids go to camps and conferences, and all the regular family stuff people do together--to keep our shifts staffed to serve our customers when t ey come in.
