Jeanne-ology: Don't Even Remind Me
It’s Thursday and Jeanne surprised me with a blog post today - AND I DIDN’T EVEN REMIND HER. I think she missed sharing her perspective on the week? Enjoy!
*****
Hello Thursday Readers! A couple of weeks have passed again without me saying anything. The is the end of the school year and we are losing some staff for the summer. So, we are experiencing staff shortages while also training new arrivals. Training is somewhat difficult for me because I assume they know some things, but I have learned my lesson and cover the basic things of how to rinse dishes, how to load the dishwasher, and then other things like there is a difference between a wet measure and a dry measure. I was taught these things as a child growing up on a farm. Now, so many families just pick up dinner and bring it home, I’m not sure kids are taught these skills. (Rebecca editing to add: Honestly, I always questioned the wet measure versus dry measure thing but then it turned out she was right - it does make a difference.)
I was almost seven years old before I ever ate at a restaurant. I remember it so well. It was late in the evening, about 8 p.m. and it was harvest time of the year. My whole family helped out and my dad had just delivered a load of soybeans to the grain bin. My mother was the one that said for us to stop at a restaurant because she was tired and it was close to our bed time. We ate at some small diner and had soup. I was amazed to see how our order was taken and see our food magically be served to our table. Gosh, I hadn't thought about this in years, but it all came back when I realized most young people do not know how to cook and teaching them some very basic rules, such as measuring, never add dry mixture to liquid but only add liquid to the dry mixture. We get a lot of questions such as what difference does it make either way, isn't a cup a cup whether you are using a glass measure or a metal cup. (Rebecca editing to add: Now, most almost seven year old kids can tell you their preferred restaurant and their specific order.)
Losing staff because of summer, the good news is that my granddaughter will be able to help at the pie shop. Outside of merchandizing, she is great at rolling out dough. She is skilled and I never need to check her work. What a plus! My grandson will also be putting in more time since he is not taking summer classes at Mizzou. Our business is truly a family run business and I enjoy that so much. (Rebecca editing to add: It is a 10/10 experience when we are all working together. Sometimes I get such a different perspective from the way my kids approach something. We are so very lucky that way.)
Other than staff changes, the pie shop has been doing well. Our new west location has a different customers than our Nifong location. We seem to sell more baby pies at West than larger pies. So many new customers that have never heard of us and came in out of curiosity. They purchase and we soon see them back again. (Rebecca editing to add: Thankfully both stores have been very busy. I feel like this week has been 1000 years long.)
As any business knows, the year has cycles and we are beginning the summer cycle. I am thankful the temperature is cool. I understand we are expected to have a blistering hot summer. Maybe it will be late in coming. I dread the utility bill coming in the mail. I know Rebecca dreads the cooling bill at the shops. Maybe we should have a mister installed to cool us off? (Rebecca editing to add: Aren’t all of our summers blistering hot? And we definitely aren’t getting misters - she would be the first to roll across the kitchen like a slip and slide.)
