This week has been pretty hellish at the bakery. Our head baker scheduled a week's vacation two months ago. When he booked it, we thought we'd be fine. We had a full staff of bakers, baristas and a competent general manager.
That's when the wheels started falling off the bus.
The first wheel to go was our general manager putting in his two week notice. I understood. It's a tough job and it wasn't the right fit for either of us. He recommended that I replace him with one of our long-tenured bakers.
I didn't love the idea, but I felt starved for choices and decided that continuity was preferable to training someone new. And wouldn't you know it, 15 days later that guy put in his 2 week notice. Dude, what?!? Lesson learned, never hire a baker to run a coffee shop. Now we're down 2 wheels.
Next, a baker injured himself outside of work and had no definite return date. Each day we reached out to see how he was doing. Each day he responded, not better yet. Each day he missed, our backlog got longer and overtime hours piled on. And then he decided not to return at all. The delay prevented us from hiring and training a replacement for his station. That's 3 wheels off if you're counting at home.
And then another senior baker started feeling some foot pain. Uh oh. It got progressively worse, until he could barely walk. Four wheels officially gone!
So, of course three days before our head baker was going on his dream vacation, he trips on some subway steps and can't walk without crutches and definitely can't cover his pre-vacation bake shifts. Seriously? We didn't have a 5th wheel left to lose!
And so, this particular Wednesday night at midnight I drove 90 minutes to Brooklyn to offer a hand with doing anything I possibly could to help the remaining bakers. When I got there I jumped into whatever unskilled labor was needed. I packed wholesale orders. I weighed flour for the next day's bake. I made the glaze for our orange almond cake. I swept up the baguette station.
Perhaps most importantly, I showed up when I wasn't expected, but was surely needed, even if just for a few hours, to support the team that does the things that I can not.
The whole drive there and back, I had two competing thoughts running through my head.
"It's not what happens, it's what you do about it."
"Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong."
The first one gives me the strength to carry on. The second tells me I better find some new wheels.
Disclosure: I write these posts. AI helps me edit them.