#Amen
In complete and total honesty, last week was one of the most difficult weeks I’ve ever endured at PJP. Which is just the nicer way of saying that I could have walked out of PJP on Friday evening and never ever, ever, ever returned. And before you worry that I’m overly dramatic, please know I was back at PJP at 6 am on Saturday, so I got over myself pretty quickly. But still…it was rough.
So what was the problem? Well, basically everything. In no particular order:
To begin with, I was tired. I’ve worked six days a week since September, minus our Atlanta trip…which was actually work too. I can’t figure out how not to. I’m guessing it is some combination of more employees and me being less controlling in general, but yet here. #PityParty.
And we are busier than ever…which is a great thing. But producing more means more people working, more food in our weekly deliveries, more pie tins and boxes shipped in, and more EVERYTHING. And as the person that orders it all, I would have paid all the money in the world we don’t have for some sort of procurement expert to come and explain to me how to order enough whipping cream to get us through the week but also fit in our refrigerator. #Seriously.
To my dismay, we ran out of pie boxes in both sizes on Friday because the entire week was busier than I planned. And when I tracked our shipments, our nine-inch pie boxes were in Louisville and our baby pie boxes were in Peoria. And neither of those are Columbia, Missouri…so we went to every store in this town that cares any sort of bakery box and depleted their supplies. No one actually carries the sizes we need, so we had to Tim Gunn it and make it work. Classy. #OMG.
Managing a growing team is also difficult because I take everything personally. Apparently nothing in the #bossbabe, #bosslady, or #bossladymindset trend has clicked for me because I’m still occasionally surprised by people and my feelings are still occasionally hurt. #Lame.
Friday was also my birthday, so mainly I was mad at myself for spending 10 hours of my day at PJP with overwhelming pie demand, dwindling food supply, and zero boxes. And had I planned better, I likely would have had a much different day. #Hindsight.
All that said, here’s what I know about rough weeks as an entrepreneur: THEY HAPPEN. It’s just that most people don’t like to discuss it on a public forum. Since this is the story of PJP, I need to place a bookmark in our history here and say that we’ve taken some big steps forward in the last few months and last week felt like a giant step back. This isn’t the first time and goodness knows it won’t be the last. And if anything, it still wasn’t as bad at Thanksgiving 2014 and for that I’m thankful.
