We Never Change
Later this week, we leave on our annual family vacation. And in a first, Jeanne is joining us as well. I mean, short of us all getting on each other’s nerves and/or the stores burning down, what could really go wrong? Ahem.
Seriously though, we are very much looking forward to next week. And as always, we are so appreciative to Team PJP for all the extra hours and extra duties they are willing to take on in our absence. But, of course, we are nervous to leave. Leaving one store is enough stress, but two? Well, that is uncharted territory. I guarantee we’ve been just as worked up in the previous years about the idea of leaving for a week, so let’s see what we were doing:
2021: We were struggling to find work/life balance. Bwahahahahhaha. Those were the halcyon days of single store responsibilities.
2020: I was having a meltdown because a local news station used B roll of our storefront with a story about employer struggles with employee coronavirus exposure…even though PJP had no exposure. And honestly, this would still cause me angst because CORONAVIRUS.
2019: We were gearing up for a PJP garage sale at our Buttonwood location in advance of our move across the parking lot. And quite honestly, it is about time for another one. How do we collect so much stuff? (Though, this week I accidentally ordered a five gallon bucket of sliced strawberries instead of our regular five pound container of sliced strawberries, so that probably explains something. Also? Not sure what to do with five gallons of pre-sliced strawberries.)
2018: We purchased a large laminated map of the United States and endeavored to color in a dot to every location we’ve shipped pies to. I’m not sure we ever finished because after a review of our UPS account history, it was A LOT of places.
2017: Speaking of Jelly Jars, we were shipping out 78 packs of Jelly Jars this week in 2017. And I was moving our household of 15 years into a new house, with Jeanne as our new neighbor across the road. We still call it it the PJP compound. Or Co-Dependency Circle. Either way.
2016: I was on vacation and Jeanne was captain of the ship. She was VERY worried about the cash register not working. She has a very big thing about the status of the cash registers.
2015: We both didn’t work on that Saturday during this week of 2015 for the first time since opening in April 2014. Our hours then were only 9-1 on Saturdays, but we were super stressed at the prospect of not going to to the store for that short stint. Our hours are longer now, but it is still pretty rare to find one of us not here on a Saturday. Or if we aren’t, we are stressing about it. Apparently, some things never change…
