Yup.
Last night, I realized with some level of alarm that we have an exceptionally busy week ahead at PJP. And while being busy is in my wheelhouse, I’m feeling the demands of a growing business in all the ways that I can’t seem to solve. Primarily, I just realized that I’ve been at PJP Nifong six days a week since we opened (minus travel to Atlanta for the gift mart). And on the 7th day of the week, I’m ordering food truck deliveries and paper goods. And in the last two weeks, we’ve lost two staff members…one to a very long story that isn’t mine to share and another to the lure of the siren song of benefits and a standard 40 hour work week. Siiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggghhhhhh. It’s hard out here for a small business. Especially ones that take everything to heart. Thanks for attending my pity party for one.
When I’m able, I’m squeezing in work on a grant application that awards $50,000 to the winner. In case anyone from the granting organization ever reads this, here is what I would do with $50,000:
I would make a hefty payment on the construction loan that we do currently have to pay back on a monthly basis. I still want to cry when I think how many dollars it took to make an Orange Leaf not look like an Orange Leaf.
I would find storage. Even though we have double the space that we did a year ago, we still don’t have a home for the 1,100 Jelly Jar shipping boxes that arrived from Kansas City last week. As a side note, that guy drove those boxes over in a semi-truck on Wednesday in the snow and then loaded them all into the store. And that to the list of reasons that I would never last as a semi-truck driver. Also, I don’t think there is ever semi-truck parking at the Starbucks and that’s a problem for me.
I would give everyone on Team PJP a raise with nary a thought to the percentage of payroll to sales.
I would go to one of those ridiculous retreats where you don’t talk for 48 hours and you just lay and think. I’ve officially reached the age where silence and overthinking sounds like a dream come true.
I would open a second PJP in another part of town, preferably in a space less ostentatious than a vacated Orange Leaf. We would bake everything in the Nifong store and deliver it to the to-be-determined completely adorable storefront. That’s an idea floating around in my mind, which is precisely why I need to win a grant to afford a trip to go somewhere and lie in silence for 48 hours. Did I mention it is hard out here for a small business owner?
