Busted Can of Biscuits
In no way did I ever intend to drop off the Internet grid for almost two months, but I literally had nothing to say. Which, admittedly, is really odd for me and I understand the emails of concern. For the most part, I have something to say about everything and when I just have nothing…that’s the creative rockbottom. Though now I find myself thinking of things to share here, so I think just maybe I’m recovering enough from my bout of non-creativity. Either way, there’s a lot to say about PJP at any given time, so let’s catch up.
Let’s start with the holidays. This past November and December HIT HARD and I’m still feeling it in late February. We worked sun up to sundown for days. And when we weren’t in our stores, we were stressing about our stores. That’s not different than any other year, but I think I particularly felt it because I missed Elaine at the front counter and I tried to cover so many different roles that I couldn’t figure myself out most days. We also didn’t hit our yearly sales goal until December 30th at noon. And as someone who determines self-worth by outlandish self-determined sales goals, IT WAS STRESSFUL. And also, we had about 36 hours to relax before the whole show reset to $0 at 12:01 am on January 1st.
(In 2022, we hit our goal on December 17th, so we had a hot minute to relax and take a collective breath. I wonder why no one has asked Patrick Mahomes if he just feels like a busted can of biscuits by the end of the Super Bowl because I know he (and everyone on the team, really) must be so relieved when the season is over. Alternatively, I think confetti from the ceiling on December 30th might have helped my mindset a bit. Can you imagine if small business owners who met their goals got an invite to be in a parade at Disney? What a world we would live in.)
As a side note, I’m going to start a business consulting service and just call it Sisyphus. Because once you accept that entrepreneurship is just rolling a boulder up a hill to have it immediately roll back down, you can pretty much handle anything. I guess my role as consultant would be just to remind people the pushing up and rolling back is pretty normal…it’s all in how you handle yourself on the up and the down. I bet Ellery could make a cute logo for that.
I bet that name does terribly in Google searches though. I’ve read that monikers with difficult spelling are terrible for SEO. It makes me sad that I know that random knowledge.
Though what do I know? More people have told me in the last 60 days that I look tired than in the combined entirety of my life. The bone chilling cold days of January did nothing to help my gumption, our sales numbers, or my patience. So I guess don’t hire me as a consultant. But at least all my thoughts are coming back to the interwebs for free.
