Convince Me Otherwise
We are about to roll right into the most stressful eight weeks of the year at PJP. (Or, I guess the most physically stressful because all the weeks are stressful when you own a small business and you are constantly aware of what a tenuous game this all is, but I digress.). I always believe perspective is important, so let’s refresh our recollection of late Octobers in PJP history:
2021: News outlets were reporting that Thanksgiving dinner in 2021 was set to be the “most expensive in Thanksgiving history”. Which is sort of funny now because I think 2022 was like WATCH THIS.
2020: We were baking 60 Jelly Jar six packs for local pickup and someone else had just ordered 200 six packs for pickup in November. I questioned if we needed a Jelly Jar factory. And in hindsight, no, no we don’t. A factory could never produce the amount of chaos I need to function in a space.
2019: We decided to open on the Saturday after Thanksgiving for the first time in PJP history. And now this year, we are leaning heavily toward opening on Black Friday AND Small Business Saturday that Thanksgiving week. And honestly, I don’t want to at all…but I don’t want PJP to be the dark storefront in the retail hotbed at Shoppes at Stadium. Even my stores have FOMO.
2018: We hosted our annual Team PJP bonfire that weekend and had so much fun. We paused that during COVID and then when we resurrected it, we had a largely new-to-us staff and most chose not to come. I think (or really I hope) this is part of changing from 10 people on staff to 33 people on staff.
2017: We hosted a Epic Pie Tasting, encouraging guests to arrive in costume. And that doesn’t sound like me at all, so I don’t know what I was thinking. It did look fun though, so there’s that.
2016: We were contemplating renting the space next to our Buttonwood location to facilitate Thanksgiving pie pickups. It seemed like a bold move and we had a lot of indecision. And as we know now, it was a completely solid choice. There was certainly nothing aesthetic about that space, but it was more aesthetic than watching us manage Thanksgiving in 1,050 square feet. I don’t miss it, but I’m happy it worked to our advantage then.
2015: Our dishwasher was acting odd and that’s probably because we didn’t know then that you have to stick your hand in a small hole on the inside and root out errant teaspoons. I don’t think that is what the hole is actually for, but that sounds like an Ecolab problem and not a me problem.
2014: We were recovering from 150 tarts due at 10:30 am. That would never be an issue now, of course, but the 2022 version of us is so different than the 2014 version. Thankfully.
2013: We hosted a pie baking class as part of our Kickstarter fundraising class. It was an integral part of our initial fundraising campaign, but I was certain in the blog post that we were awkward during the event. And even with nine years of perspective, you can’t convince me otherwise.