This process is like a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle (that you find out later had a few missing pieces).
Corners are always the easiest to get in place, or at least they should be. I’m still missing one of the corners of the puzzle, but still building none the less. I lay awake every night thinking in my head what I have to still get done, then I wake up and realize that I can’t remember all I was thinking about the night before so I start the thinking process all over again. There is so much I have yet to understand about the business and this process and by no means am I afraid to admit that. The scariest part of all of this is that I’ve got less than 4 weeks before my projected opening date (*insert anxiety attack here*).
Hell, if someone like me can do this I have faith in that the rest of the world has some pretty serious untapped potential. Instead of the Things We Love list this week, I’m giving y’all a little insight into the personal lessons I have taken (found pieces) from this journey so far:
3. Do not let the idiosyncrasies of another influence how the rest of the day, week or month will go. Sometimes you have to be fine with the way people are.
Puzzle piece #326: There is this personality I have to deal with almost on a daily basis. Hates hot dogs, I can pretty safely assume has a strong dislike for me as a person and sends (in my personal opinion) the not-so-friendliest of emails when any concerns (large or small) arise. This used to piss me off to the point where I would want to come home and throw a frozen hot dog at the window in hopes of breaking it (the window, not the hot dog). After a few unpleasant phone calls and email exchanges I came to realize there was little to no way of connecting with this person so now I deal with it and have stopped wasting perfectly good hot dogs. Hard-to-work-with-personality, I appreciate you for reminding me that I’m not going to sell a million point six hot dogs because not everyone has an appreciation or liking for such a delicacy.
1. If you’re opening a restaurant and are unmarried, you should try to get engaged to an architect. They can make anything happen.
Puzzle piece #21: ADA requirements. Acronyms can stand for a lot and this one stands for You Must Comply Or Else. The not-contractor in me went ahead and approved the moving of two toilets in my space in order to accommodate an easier piping path…. Oops? Yeh, that didn’t work so well since a few inches all of the sudden changed the world (insert architect fiance here). FIXED. There are a million other things I can list that I did wrong that Super Architect Fiance had to come in and fix. Let’s just say I haven’t had to pawn my ring due to any costly unfixable mistakes just yet.
12. You can’t always trust that sales people have your best intentions in mind because 93% of the time, they don’t (and trust me, I can’t blame them).
Puzzle piece #166: After a few bids and more time spent reviewing and reviewing, I realized that my Fiat budget was nowhere in the minds of some of my vendors. Seriously, did I really need a solid gold toilet or a diamond-encrusted bar top (slight exaggeration on both)?! I knew I didn’t, but I somehow expected them all to feel sorry for me and give the “she looks like she could use a break” discount. Didn’t happen, at least not on all of them. I can’t blame them for trying though. I’m still working on perfecting the “give me a break” face.
5. Sometimes things don’t always have to go in the “correct” order and they still end up working out just fine.
Puzzle piece #2: It just seemed appropriate to put this for a number of reasons. I’m what they call an entreprenuese which translates into being capable of coming up with some creative solutions to seemingly impossible roadblocks. None of it makes sense right now, but in the long term it will!