Kicking it up a notch

We were in the middle of a fairly large increase in production with recipes that we weren’t quite ready to produce in large quantities. We also had an increasing number of special orders that broke up the day weirdly. It was summer and the freezer suddenly stopped freezing. Unfortunately, one of our cakes needed to be frozen and then unmolded while it was frozen so we panicked. Luckily, we were able to get some of our product to the neighbor’s freezer, then cart them back sheet pan by sheet pan to finish each step in the production process, working as fast as we could so they wouldn’t thaw out too much. Of course we weren’t fast enough because then the neighbor closed and we had to find a second backup freezer. I was so stressed out that I didn’t do a good job of telling our landlord about the issue, so it went on unresolved for a few days. Oops.

But we got through the freezer not freezing mishap, and I of course decided to reorganize how we did the bakery production yet again. I hired a very qualified assistant who was very efficient and fast. I must say she saved the day. It was great because she took breaks. I don’t take breaks, but it was great to take breaks. I found I got a lot more done, and it was starting to seem like I could step away from the kitchen and start growing the business.

See, the problem with running a bakery is that the baking itself is so all-consuming and if that is what you like to do, it’s all you want to do. So like at the end of a busy day, you’re physically and therefore emotionally, exhausted so the last thing you want to do is try to add any more clients which would increase your work load. Plus, if you don’t necessarily account for all the little tasks that creep into every day so that an 8 hour day quickly turns into 12, you then are adding frustration to your exhaustion because you hoped you would be home by 5pm. I don’t think there was ever a day that I was home when I thought I was going to be home, it was always several hours later. This was the source of almost daily arguments with John, the sort of arguments that ended in me saying “you just don’t understand.”

John is really good at knowing his limits. What I think might be laziness is really his genius way of doing just the bare minimum of work to achieve his goals. He doesn’t bury himself in work like I do, and he’s much more relaxed and able to make quick decisions whereas I allow myself to get overworked so that I can barely decide what shirt to wear. That is why he was always able to break away from his day and jump into the bakery to help during those semi-regular emergencies. At the time I was so buried I wasn’t able to see how I could ever get perspective for the business. We had several meetings to try to resolve some of the ongoing issues with the bakery, which would solve the problem temporarily, but then the same problems would happen over and over again. The overarching secret seemed to be my leadership, which I seemed to be able to lead myself with my own goals, but when it came to my employees, I was always struggling and often failing to delegate tasks to free up more time for me.