Surfacing

I have not really been at work for a week. I made it through most of service last Friday, long enough on the 4th to see it wasn't going to be busy, paying bills on Monday and doing some things on the computer for our upcoming incorporation on Wednesday but other than that I have been out of commission. For me, or any other cook, this is HUGE. I have never in my professional life missed this much work. When I had a kidney stone I missed one day. Ask any cook, you don't take time off. So, I was really, really ill.

When I am ill, it is an 8-12 hour thing. A full day perhaps when it is really, really bad. I had not been this sick for a loooong time. Is my immune system finally letting me down? As it turns out no. The source of the trouble is an impacted wisdom tooth which is creating an infection throughout my body, causing severe pain, making my heart rate go crazy, spiking to 175, hovering around 120, etc. I was supposed to have had the tooth removed, but the lab that took the MRI-like image botched the job and didn't get the whole tooth. There is concern that the nerve might be around the root of the tooth. If the nerve is damaged during the extraction there is a chance that either my lips could go numb, or I could lose taste on one side of my tongue. Most likely temporary if at all, but in rare instances, permanently. Well, I've always been a rare one, so..... Not good prospects for someone in my profession.

I did however manage to do a lot of reading. The sidebar shows all the things I've recently finished, among them "Setting the Table" by Danny Meyer. I won't go into a big description, others have given this book the more than once-over except to say that I extracted a few pertinent gems. I also could have done without as much biography. But then I know who Danny Meyer is, which restaurants are his and roughly when he opened them. Many of his readers will not.

After reading the book and through conversations with the GM I realize it's time for another shift. Not another shift on the line mind you, a shift in perspective, or function. Over two years ago I wrote about becoming an owner. Some of things I wrote about have happened, some have not. The huge difference though is now there is The Sardine. Becoming an owner was easier when the GM had the time to help me devise and implement systems. Now her priorities are squarely, as we both agree they should be, with The Sardine. Summer and illness have reminded me of my physical limitations. I cannot go in, do prep in the late morning, do some quick book work before service and then spend the evening on the floor being gracious without something, somewhere, breaking down. It's how we operated when we opened and it proved disastrous from the financial point of view. My inexperience and burnout led to some mistakes, one of which is still plaguing us to this day.

The very good news is that the loans we took to open the business are nearly all paid, ahead of schedule and we have a reasonable looking lease on the table from our landlord though our lawyer hasn't yet seen it.

So, my after summer task is to do some serious reflection about what my role is, what it should be and what I need to do to define it. If any readers have resources they'd like to share, books to read, questions to ask of oneself, exercises, anything, pass them along. Now however, I have to do what I'm not supposed to be doing. Get moving, assess the damage at work, try to get things ready for one of the cooks to go to the Bay Area (I'm covering some of his shifts) and then upon his return pick my mother-in-law up at the airport, try to get an appointment with the ABC to change our license from a sole proprietorship to a corporation, spend a few days in SF with mom-in-law and make sure a luncheon for a good customer goes well in our absence. Oh yeah, get a new image of my tooth and have surgery.

Comments

[kudzu]

Welcome back, Haddock! Are you now rethinking the title of the June 10 post? All the best of luck to you -- you were missed.

[cedichou]

Hope you're feeling better. Welcome back.

[Dr. Biggles]

Ya know, it's funny. I sawr your comment over at Meathenge yesterdee and figured you'd seen my comment here hours earlier. Yeah, no. I got to work this morning and found that this window was still open and I hadn't posted it !!!

er, so here it be.

HEY !!! Welcome back and it's good to see you and the family. Being ill like that can really sap the good psyche juices from yourself and the people around you. Not something you wish to do very often, eh? Health rules.

xo, Biggles