Negotiating

"Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love."

Lao Tzu

 Negotiating.

Some people thrive on it.

Some people feel it's a part of life.

Others think it's a way of life.

I for one hate it.

I really don't see a need for it.

When I go to the grocery store, it's a simple transaction.

A can of tuna costs $1.49.

I then make a choice....yes or no.

I would never consider taking it to register and negotiating a better price.

Similarly, the grocery store puts a price on each item.

I would never go to the register with the expectation that the clerk would say "so what will you give me for this?"

Wouldn't it be easier to go into a car dealer and say "I want to spend $299/month....what can you show me?".

Instead we end up negotiating..

Why?

It's a fairly simple transaction.

Today I am faced with having to do some more negotiating.

It's ridiculous.

No one wins.

Establish the deal, make it fair and equitable and then it becomes a simple yes or no.

Period.

Imagine if you're on an airplane. The flight attendant offers you a beverage.

Yes or no.

There is no negotiating.

To some people, it's a game.

I for one find it insulting, even demeaning.

My contractor says "it's how the wealthy accumulate so much money".

I don't accept that.

Maybe for some.

I for one believe that fairness and generosity can bring you wealth, financially as well as in quality of life.

Make the offer fair and equitable and the buyer will be back time and time again.

Negotiating is an emotional trigger for me.

Someone is trying to take advantage of me.

I don't like it.

Never have, never will.

"No one has ever become poor by giving."-Anne Frank

Shabbat Shalom!

Olympics

"Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds,

can change the outer aspects of their lives."

William James

 In case you hadn't noticed, the 2020 Olympics are being held in Tokyo.

Yes, I know, it's 2021.

So why are they calling it the 2020 Olympics?

Beats me!

I have to admit, I could care less about these games this time around.

Is this just me?

I don't think so.

I think in general that like many other events of this nature, people are just not as interested as they once were.

The thrill of victory just doesn't seem to be as thrilling anymore.

The agony of defeat just isn't that agonizing.

Maybe we are a little numb to it all.

The media and corporate hype may play a part in dulling my attitude.

When everything is "extraordinary" and a spectacle, then nothing is extraordinary or special.

As a kid, I remember being glued to every single event they would televise.

This year I have not watched one.

The human interest stories are no longer interesting.

Many of them seem to be contrived if you ask me.

When did the competition become secondary to the skin color, sexual preference or any other cause celeb of the athletes?

It's such nonsense.

It's supposed to be about the competition not self- promotion and certainly not about advancing some social agenda.

I can remember racing to get the newspaper in the morning to see how many more medals America won and were we still kicking Russia's ass.

Sure we were captivated by any great individual performance no matter what country they came from.

However in the end, it was really all about one thing...

U.S.A. ....U.S.A.!

Japan 2020?

A big nothing burger in my eyes.

The Olympics will never go away.

To me, they just don't seem to mean much anymore.

I can't believe I did that!

"Sometimes you get the results you wanted, sometimes you don't. What matters is that you did your best."

Jonathan Lockwood Huie

 As I was pulling into my driveway, after putting in what has become my normal 11 hour day, it suddenly dawned on me that I never wrote to you yesterday.

I can't believe that I did that.

I considered putting my car in reverse at that point and heading back to the shop where I could use my computer.

Of course that would have meant that my family would have had to wait until after 8:30 to eat dinner . That would not have been optimal, however I did think about it for more than just a minute or two!

Early that morning, I had thought about taking a few minutes to write.

Given it was so early in the day, I felt I would be better served getting some work started first.

It's not that anything on my agenda was all that urgent, however I wanted to get my day started in a productive fashion.

I feel like things are in a very precarious place right now.

The transition from our old location to our new home has not gone as smoothly as we had hoped, mostly due to unavoidable and unexpected staffing challenges.

The Petcare Market is at that point where we must push daily to get to the point where we can open for business next week. as long as we stay at it, there should be no reason that we can not meet our goal of next Tuesday to be ready to go.

Obviously, sitting at my desk and taking time to write early on a Tuesday morning was not going to help us in reaching that goal.

After 11 hours of dotting I's and crossing T's, one after another after another, I had simply forgotten to write.

as I said, I can't believe I did that!

In hindsight, I think what this means is that we are in a really good place.

we are close.

The only impediment to us not being ready would be losing our focus.

That is something that I just won't let happen.

Time to get back at it!

Taking the day

“To get what you've never had, you must do what you've never done.”

Brian Tracy

 When I left the shop on Saturday, I was considering taking the day off on Sunday.

My agenda for the day was light.

The only thing on my schedule was to drive Sara and Patrick to the airport.

I considered stopping in to use the computer on my way back from dropping them off.

That would have been the smart thing to do and would have afforded me the opportunity to keep up with my writing.

Instead, I drove straight home, which in hindsight, I am not sure was a good or bad idea.

I got home around 9:30 and chose to lay down for a few minutes.

An hour later I woke up freezing.

I climbed under the covers and the next thing I knew it was almost 1p.m.

I made my way to the couch where again I fell asleep for another hour.

At 2 I forced myself to sit upright.

At 3 ,I made myself something to eat and put dinner up in a crock pot.

For the next 3 hours I did little other than sit staring at the tv as Susan watched her beloved Yankees blow yet another one against the dreaded Boston Red Sox.

The a/c was blowing at full tilt while I was dressed in sweats and a hoodie.

To say I felt crummy would be an understatement.

I felt like crap!

There are times when I just need to listen to what my body is telling me.

Yesterdays message was a simple one.

STOP!

Just stop everything.

The world won't fall apart if you take the day.

The Earth will continue to spin and the Sun will rise again the next day.

It's just that simple.

STOP.

And now it's Monday.

The Sun is shining and once again the temperatures are soaring into the 90's.

My body is still pretty achy, but heck, that's normal nowadays.

I can't say for sure what yesterday was about.

I can say with complete confidence that doing nothing was the best choice I could have made.

Shavua Tov!

Procrastinating

"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I do not believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world, are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they cannot find them, make them."

George Bernard Shaw

 Procrastinating.

This is so not me.

Yet here I sit daydreaming, doing anything I possibly can, to avoid getting started on the one and only real project I have to accomplish.

I can justify my day so far knowing I set out this morning with a few small chores which all were attended to.

However, now I have just one task left, cleaning up the data I have been entering into the POS system, and I am just not all that interested in getting started.

It's tedious, monotonous and unbelievably boring work.

Still, it has to get done.

Everything else that we need to accomplish to open in 9 days has been scheduled and accounted for so far.

Once I clean up things at my end, we will actually be in pretty good shape.

So why is it that I just can't seem to get started on this?

There can only be one reason....procrastination.

No more dawdling.

Time to cowboy up!

The hard stuff is done.

It's final mile time.

Kind of like using the bathroom.

The jobs not complete until the paperwork is all finished.

T.G.I.F.?

"What the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve."

Napoleon Hill

 I never was a T.G.I.F. kind of guy.

As someone who is accustomed to working 6 or 7 days a week, the weekend meant very little to me.

One thing I have noticed lately is that the rest of the world seems to start to pump their collective brakes as the weekend approaches.

In turn, there just seems to be a whole lot less scurrying and scampering about.

The residual effect of this is that my life seems a whole lot more settled on Fridays.

I find myself to be less on edge and more clear minded.

My choices and decisions on Fridays are more thought out and certainly less reactive.

A by-product of this is that the forward planning for the upcoming week starts much earlier ,in a calmer fashion, than it has in the past. Normally, sometime Saturday night or more often than not, early Sunday morning, my mind would start racing. scrambling for the following weeks game plan.

Things just seem easier lately.

It's 9:30 on a Friday morning and my desktop has already been organized and cleared of the clutter from the week that was. That's just simply amazing to me.

If I was a shut it down the weekend's here kind of guy, I would be half way out the door by now. Instead, I now have a clear mind and calm approach towards the rest of my day as well as the upcoming week.

As they say....T.G.I.F !

Shabbat Shalom!

Mission Statement

“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”

Joseph Campbell

 Many months ago, when we first started talking about growing The Grooming Shoppe, I mentioned to Becca that any endeavor should have a mission statement.

Anyone can open a business.

The truly successful entrepreneur not only has a vision , they also have a purpose.

Since that initial conversation, the topic of a mission statement was not brought up again.

That was until last Thursday when Becca started texting me some possibilities.

Of course, she chose to do this on a Thursday and as you know, there is always something bout Thursday!

To say that I was not connected to the conversation would be an understatement, although I did find it interesting that what seemed like something out of the blue, had come up.

Yesterday, as we literally approached the very last minutes to get some copy to our advertising firm for a mailer we are sending out, Becca blurted out " I want people to know that we offer responsibly sourced products".

And there you had the essence of what she has been working so hard to create,

A place where responsible pet owners could source responsibly curated products.

This was her goal.

This is her mission.

From eco-friendly poop bags to earth friendly packaging, Becca has made it clear to our distributors and vendors that this is the experience we want to bring to our customers.

Words like sustainable and environmentally responsible are not catch phrases to her. They are her way of life.

She has created a pet supply store for tree huggers.

In the end, she didn't have to find her mission statement, it found her!

Slip Sliding Away

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."

Thomas Jefferson

 And just like that, it's 5 o'clock.

Where did the day go?

After treating myself to a long overdue haircut this morning, I have spent the rest of my day cutting, pasting, down loading and uploading 100's of items into the POS system.

With the exception of a brief meeting with our credit card processing company, I have spent the entire day in front of my computer.

If I had not looked at the time, I would have never stopped and hence, would have completely missed writing today.

I suppose this is a good thing.

For the most part, I have conquered the in's and outs of data entry for the POS.

A good part of what I am doing now is cleaning up what I didn't do in the early days of setting this up.

There is also a lot of fine tuning and double checking to be done.

It is tedious and time consuming.

I am also coming across a lot of "duh's" on my part.

Still better caught now then later (or never).

By the end of the week, I will have every bit of the product we have ordered in the system.

A major accomplishment on my part if I do say so myself.

Next up, pricing every thing that's on the floor and getting the shelves merchandised.

12 days until we open.

12 days.....like in the Christmas song!

Ho Ho Ho!

Like a normal person

So this is what normal might feel like.

There are no contractors scurrying about.

The stench from the paint has dissipated.

There are no fires to be put out.

The groomers are grooming.

Becca is Becca-ing , meaning she is able to calmly begin taking on the full time duties of running this place without being torn in 50 different directions.

A friend has jumped in and is quietly going about the business of merchandising the shelves. (She's awesome!).

I have caught up with entering all of the invoicing I have into the POS.

I didn't have to pick up any day labor today.

My handy man is not here so my attention isn't being diverted as it so often is as we tackle one project after another.

It's calm.

Almost serene.

The mechanic from Blinds to Go installed the shade in my office so the oppressive sun no longer beats down on me all day long.

Our walkie talkies came so we can now communicate from one room to another.

Life is good.

Life feels normal.

It almost seems foreign to me.

I feel like a normal person.

That's kind of nice.

I might even be able to get used to feeling like this!

  

Accessibility

“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise”

Oscar Wilde

 It was 6:30 this morning when my phone started ringing.

3 call in a row.

All from the same person.

Thankfully, my phone was on the other side of the house and I made the very conscious choice to not answer it.

Whatever it was and whom ever it was could wait.

I made myself less accessible.

Since moving my computer to the shop, that part of my work day starts when I get to the office and ends when I leave the office.

10 hours a day is a large enough window to operate in.

I no longer have the need or desire to be accessible 24/7/365.

It has not been an easy transition.

For years, I was on duty for way too many hours each day.

It's a hard habit to break.

I still live in a world where I work with people in different time zones.

Then again, nothing is so time sensitive in what I do that it can't wait until I am back at my desk, even if it means answering someone the next day.

I am sure that given enough time, I will become more and more comfortable with this disconnect.

I dare say, I may even find that I look forward to it.

In the meantime, it's still a big change that I am just starting to get used to.

Change is a good thing.

I have to keep reminding myself of that!

On this day..............

“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise”

Oscar Wilde

 It feels like a lot of "stuff" happened for me on this day. Not just on the standard calendar but the Jewish calendar as well.

On the Jewish calendar, today is Tisha B'av, the saddest day of the year. It's a fast day on which we commemorate the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE as well as other infamous events.(read more https://rabbiarthurweiner.blogspot.com/).

It also marks the first day I worked in Halloween retail.(Climbing a ladder while fasting is never a good thing!).

My friendship with one of my dearest friends began 25 years ago as well.

Today happens to be his birthday.

Today was also supposed to be the Grand Opening of The Petcare Market.

What was I thinking?

While we have and continue to make progress towards getting open, it is inconceivable to me as to how I even thought we could be ready to do business.

The Grooming Shoppe is all moved in and is pretty much doing business as normal. The old location is shutdown, broom swept and now a fond memory.

It was a terrific incubator for what I know will be a hugely successful new adventure.

For a fairly non-descript day in the middle of a hot summer, I have a lot of memories and remembrances around this date.

Just for fun I Googled significant events of July 18th.

Not much to make this day stand out.

Still for me, there will always be a little something about this day on my calendars.

Somethin more than just another hot summer's day

Shavua Tov!

Real World

"To know even one life has

breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 When I think back on the week that was, words like stressful and chaotic come to mind. After moving in from our old location last Sunday, I really did not expect this much unrest and interruption to the daily operation of The Grooming Shoppe. Let's just say the the transition was not as smooth as I had hoped for.

That doesn't even address the stresses and complications we faced in The Petcare Market.

By Thursday, we were all on the verge of a meltdown.

(Ah yes Thursdays!)

Then came Friday morning.

The dust up from the week's maelstrom was beginning to settle down and it became clear to me that we had weathered yet another storm.

As a matter of fact, things had calmed down so much that I was able to regroup and come up with a fairly achievable forward plan.

My brother reached out mid-morning and it was decided that we would all get together for Shabbat dinner last night.

Normally diner for 10 would be no big deal, however being in the shop all day and having prepared nothing in advance could have become problematic.

Suffice it to say, the same calm which had greeted my day Friday morning carried over to dinner preparations.

By 7:30, we were all seated for a lovely Shabbat meal.

And in the end, isn't that all that really matters?

Shabbat Shalom!

Old School

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall."

Confucius

 In the 1975, I had a summer job in a textile warehouse. Along with 5 other average suburban kids, I spent the summer taking inventory. When I came home at Christmas break, I was invited back for a few weeks to work there again. The following summer, after graduating from TSC, the warehouse was able to provide work for me as I searched for a teaching job. Who knew that this part time gig would turn into my life's work for over two decades?

Over the next few years, every summer, I would hire teens looking for summer employment.

Every year, this enterprise grew, eventually hiring dozens and dozens of high school and college students.

They all came from right here in Bergen County , which was nothing if not your typical, middle class suburban community.

If you needed a job, we found work for you.

The place was dirty, hot and wreaked of chemicals and dye stuffs.

Yet, these kids all appreciated the opportunity to work.

I get it that it's 45 years later.

I get that here in Bergen County, that "average" suburban family is more affluent than it was when we grew up.

However, that part time work force just doesn't seem to exist anymore.

I don't know if it's that kids don't want to work, don't need to work or just have more opportunities elsewhere.

I do know that when I woke up the day after school let out, I had no choice but to have a job.

Sleeping in was not an option.

If I ever told my father that I was exploring my options, the only exploration that would be needed would be how to get his foot out of my butt.

Our "choice" was a simple one . Get a job or else.

And no work was beneath any of us.

Food service, warehouse, landscaping, painting, retail, office work even telephone sales.

It didn't matter.

It was work and we took it.

There was no discussion.

A job was a job.

Anything less than 40 hours was wasting time.

This "go get a job attitude" served all of well.

We learned certain set of values.

I don't know, but it seems to me that things are just different today.

My son and I were talking last night. I shared with him a story told by Jon Voight.

At a particularly low point in his life , he found himself alone, laying on the floor.

Frustrated he said out loud "Life is so difficult".

A voice spoke in his ear and said "it's supposed to be".

My son argued "no it's not".

I of course disagreed.

Without difficult, we will never challenge ourselves to be better.

I guess that's what is considered old school.

Shabbat Shalom!

Guess what....it's Thursday again!

“Motivation is the fuel necessary to keep the human engine running.”

Zig Ziglar

 5:45 in the morning and my phone is ringing.

Who? Why? WTF?

I get it....it's Thursday.

2 out of our 3 groomers are out today.

Yep....it's Thursday.

The guys putting up shelving think they are tuning the engine of a Grand Prix race car.

An hour's work is taking over 3 hours.

Thursday!

My handy man took 3 hours to hang 3 shelves.

Not so handy!

Then again, it's Thursday!

The freezer alarm went of.

I had no idea how to shut it down.

30 minutes of that incessant noise.

Thursday!

Just about everything we did today.....2 steps forward,3 steps back.

Thursday!

Bathroom door locked itself again....

Thursday!

I could go on and on but I think you get the picture.

It was just another typical Thursday.

The bright spot is that Thursday is almost over.

T.G.I.F.

When did this happen

“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”

Khalil Gibran

 Listening to the radio on my way home yesterday, the radio personality was talking about a recent survey done in the U.S

70% of people surveyed said they were afraid to go back to work post quarantine.

70%!

54% said they would want some sort of therapy before heading back to work.

Am I nuts or what?

I can't imagine how we ever could have got passed The Great War, The Spanish Flu, The Great Depression, WWII or any other challenge we as Americans faced if this was the attitude of our country.

In the immortal words of Tony Soprano, "what ever happened to real men like Gary Cooper".

Maybe I'm just cut from a different cloth.

When a challenge arises, I always take it on.

I walk directly into the eye of a storm.

When did the Land of the Brave become the Home of the Wusses?

Thankfully, I am on the back 9 of my life.

I can't imagine what will become of us if we continue walking in fear.

It's a sad thing.

Ryan O'Neal in Love Story is like Rambo compared to Americans today.

Gone are the tough guys.

The can do attitude that I grew up with has been replaced by maybe we shouldn't, as if someone's feeling may get hurt.

We never would have landed on the moon with today's values.

I grew up with the adage "chew nails and spit rust'

Nowadays it's eat sushi and s#!t your pants!

It's high time we stopped this nonsense and pulled up our panties and took on life instead of hiding from it.

Saddle up, strap ourselves in and repeat after Bruce Willis....

Yippee ki yay Mother F#@kers!

Quarantine

"Many of life’s failures are people who had not realized how close they were to success when they gave up."

Thomas A Edison 

For the most part the marshal law that we have been living under is over.

Call it what you want, this fiasco that we have been subject to has been lifted and most people are getting back to some sort of normalcy.

The damage has been done. There is not much anyone can do about it other than to dust our selves off and move on.

I am not going to debate the so called merits of the last 14 months.

I will say, in my estimation, the restrictions and protocols were way overblown and did more damage than good.

The so called preventative did more harm than the actual problem.

So here we are.

The plain truth of the matter is, my life isn't all that much different today than it was before the shutdown.

I get up.

I go to work.

I come home.

I eat dinner.

I watch some tv.

I go to bed and then start the whole process again tomorrow.

The quarantine certainly didn't have any effect on my so called social life.

I don't have one now and I really didn't have one before all of this nonsense.

No one close to me died.

Of my close friends and family, very few even got sick.

A few got pretty darn sick.

They lived.

The greatest hardship was job losses, an unfortunate result of the oppressive strangle hold we had to endure.

Besides that, life today is pretty much what it was a year and a half ago.

There were lessons learned.

God help us if anyone ever tries shutting life down again.

That was a huge blunder.

Remember 2 weeks to flatten the curve?

Someone screwed the pooch on that!

It's time to turn our backs on this unfortunate time.

Move on.

Don't look back.

Be smarter when the next so called crisis occurs.

And always be the best me I can be.

I'll have to circle back on that

"If you want to make your dreams come true, wake up. Wake up to your own strength. Wake up to the role you play in your own destiny. Wake up to the power you have to choose what you think, do, and say."

Keith Ellis

 I was hoping that today I might be able to write about something other than the the trials and tribulations of getting the new shop opened.

However, in the words of the current press secretary for the PotUS, I'll have to circle back on that.

For a Monday, today really felt more like a Thursday.

Stress levels and tensions were at a peak, mostly because we were scheduled for our final inspection again.

There was a lot to be done and a very small window to make that happen.

Bottom line is we were able to get enough accomplished to temporarily open our doors as we continue getting this place into tip top shape.

The building inspectors final words as he left today mimicked the immortal words of Arnold Schwarzenegger stating "I'll be back."

To be perfectly honest, I know what he wants from us and we're just not there yet. However with 17 dogs scheduled for grooming tomorrow, and having vacated our old location, we need to open!

So for the time being, we're good to go.

We have to keep pushing to get us to where we need to be.

Not just because the inspector wants it.

It is what needs to be done.

We'll get there.

Time, manpower, money.

Doesn't matter.

Just get it done.

Good-Bye Rochelle Park

 “It’s never too late to dream, to learn, or to change.”

ZIG ZIGLAR

It was just around 5:30 Saturday evening when Susan locked the door behind Cooper and his human.

Cooper was the last dog to be groomed at The Grooming Shoppe in our Rochelle Park location.

Rochelle Park was our home for 5 years,2 months, and 5 days.

It was a good home.

A very good home.

Now it's basically empty.

With the exception of our fish tank ,some cabinets and some small odds and ends, all that's left for us to do in our old space is a good cleaning before we say or final farewell.

The new space is almost ready to start doing business.

The plumber is due in here tomorrow to get one tub up and ready.

Our entire staff will be here for a setup luncheon sometime in the early afternoon.

We will spend the morning attending to a fairly extensive check list before the building inspector gets here to hopefully give us the go ahead to open Tuesday morning.

The Grooming Shoppe will be ready for that.

The Petcare Market still needs a bit of work.

There is a lot of product to get onto the shelves and uploaded into the POS system.

I am fairly confident that a week from now, we can soft open that side of the business as well.

Lots and lots to still get done.

Having everyone in here and being under one roof will go a long way in helping to get us moving along.

It's been one hell of a journey so far.

Certainly not done, however a whole lot further down the road.

Shavua Tov!

Value

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

 In the months prior to my leaving my bus driving job, the person who is the department head (I hate having a boss, but that's a discussion for another time) and I have had more than one conversation in which she she told me just how much she appreciated all that I brought to our program.

Invariably my response was that I did understand how appreciated I was , however, appreciation was not reflected in my paycheck. My paycheck speaks to value and I needed to be valued as much as I was appreciated.

More often that not, these conversations became supercharged and over heated.

Being appreciated is nice.

Bottom line, for me anyway, was in the words made famous in the film Jerry Maguire, show me the money!

Show me the money and show me the love are all too often the intertwined,

particularly in work situations.

Understandably, she had a budget to work with.

No matter how much she appreciated me, her hands were tied by budgetary constraints.

I may, and more likely was, deserving of better compensation.

Unfortunately, her charge was to hire a bus driver, more specifically a part time one.

It wasn't to employ someone with all of the strengths, experience, abilities and sechel*

that I brought to the table .

(* sechel- a Yiddish expression meaning ,knowledge, smarts or even wisdom )

This was made clearer to me while filling out paperwork to try and collect unemployment (don't even ask about this bureaucratic nightmare).

Once again. no matter how much good I brought to the program and department or for that matter the entire community, she needed a bus driver, and a part time one at that.

We're talking many thousands of dollars.

And while those many thousands of dollars were a mere rounding error in the grand scheme of the overall budget, cutting where possible means cutting wherever possible, including sacrificing appreciation as well as over all value.

In the end, the strain between the two, my value and how appreciated I was, became an unmanageable divide.

It certainly made living with the man I faced in the mirror each morning unbearable.

My humility has always led me to turn a blind eye to my self worth, including my value.

In this instance, humility be damned, the man in the mirror won out.

Take a deep breath

 “How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.”

Thomas Jefferson

Yesterday was a very disquieting day.

It's just something about Thursdays!

Today is Friday.

A new day.

A fresh start.

Well , maybe not as fresh as I might like. The residual effect from

Thursday has left me exhausted.

I had scheduled an 8:30 medical appointment for today. While preparing for the day today I realized that inadvertently I had left my phone here in the office last night.

My phone which has my drivers license and all of my credit cards.

There would not be enough time to go get my phone, drop Max at the bus and then get to my appointment.

It was in that moment that I understood that I needed to take a deep breath and just chill a bit.

It has been a very long journey.

And every now and then, I have to remember that it's okay to veer to the right and get out of the fast lane.

Nothing on today's agenda is mission critical.

Whatever gets accomplished today will just add to the win column.

Tomorrow will pretty much be the same.

Sunday and Monday will both be days where we will be pressed to accomplish a multitude of tasks with very little margin for error.

I will make the best of the day today.

There will be many pauses and deep breaths.

I dare say if the office here had an easy chair, I would consider closing my eyes for a bit.

Instead, I may put my feet up a bit later on in the day.

For now, long deep cleansing breaths.

Not the worst way to approach the day after Thursday!

Shabbat Shalom!

Something about Thursdays

 “Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

There's just something about Thursdays.

In my last job, delivering meals during the quarantine, our load went from the 60 meals we deliver daily to more than double.

It was always a bear of a day.

Over the last 3 weeks, my Thursdays have been notoriously stressful and fairly unproductive.

An example: last Thursday my day started with a text from my daughter informing me about an unanticipated withdrawal for over $5000.

Thursday.

It was also the day when we wasted 4 hours to get up one section of shelving, something that now takes us about 10-15 minutes.

Thursday.

Today is no exception.

We had final inspection set for today.

We failed.

Not just failed but failed in what one might consider spectacular fashion.

I can make the changes needed.

How quickly?

That I can't say for sure.

Hopefully by Monday the date I've rescheduled the inspection for.

There is a torrential rain falling here.

We now have multiple roof leaks.

Why?

Because it's Thursday!

When I checked the weather app on my phone this morning there was no mention of rain, so yes, I left the window open in the car.

Thursday!

Becca called Verizon t straighten out a billing problem.

1 hour 37 minutes later after speaking to 11 different agents, all was resolved

Thursday (okay and also because Verizon just sucks!)

Invariably on Thursdays, we end up going out for pizza or something because by the time I get home, it's way too late to start making anything.

As I said at the top, there's just something about Thursdays.

Position: Data Entry

 "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Maya Angelou

The ad would have read "immediate opening: Data entry, no experience necessary".

That's the job I find myself tackling today and probably for some time ahead of me.

Late in the day yesterday, Becca and I decided it was time to deal with the ominous cloud that was hanging above our heads, how to use the POS system.

By late afternoon yesterday, both of us found that we were in a quiet place.

This certainly was an unfamiliar feeling.

However, it seemed like an opportune time to tackle this next project.

We started around 5 p.m.

4 hours later, we kind of figured out the ins and outs of importing and uploading data into the system.

4 hours!

And no blood shed!

I am actually a little astonished and dare I say proud that we accomplished this.

We also realized that it is a cumbersome process and a good part of that process is manual data entry.

So here I sit going through the first 121 items we uploaded late last night.

121 out of approximately 2000 items that we will have to repeat this process over and over again before we can open our doors.

I will have this first batch finished by late afternoon.

Hopefully , our vendors can get us the spreadsheets with the basic information that we need to create step 1 of the upload and input process.

Then it's just simple data entry.

It's good to have a purpose in life!