A little stressed
Ok so back in the fall I got a call out of the blue from my brother who owns brio wanting to know if I wanted to tend bar for him this Saturday night. I was shocked and speechless for about a second until I caught on that he wasn't talking about bar tending at the restaurant on the busiest night of the week when I'd never done it before. No, he was talking about me tending "bar" at the Coronado (really awesome virtual 360 of the theatre at this site btw). See, he had just gotten the contract with the Coronado to do all the concessions at the Coronado events. The Coronado is an old movie theatre built in the 20's that the city recently spent millions of dollars to restore to it's grand beauty. Now the Rockford symphony plays there, touring Broadway shows play there (we got to see Jesus Christ Superstar there) and other concerts. So anyway....Paul got the contract and that's what he wanted my help on. Running the concessions there.
That started out to be quite fun and a great way to earn a little play money. I say play money because mostly I would have him put my "pay" into my house account at brio which just made it really easy to stop by there for a drink or a bite to eat without it really coming out of our budget. It was only a few nights a month and it was fun to do.
About a month ago he decided to let go the gal that was kind of running the show for him at the Coronado. It wasn't a "bad" firing, it was just that he had her doing the Coronado and the catering stuff and I think it was just too much and too confusing as to what she was doing. Anyway...so, he put me in charge of the Coronado.
In charge. Take a minute to think about what those words mean. In charge.
Well....I'm still not entirely sure what they mean. I do know that it means that I have to make sure the events are staffed properly which is not as easy or stress free as it sounds. If I staff too heavily then Paul has to pay people an hourly wage that might be over what he actually EARNED on the sales from the show. Not to mention if the show is not busy the tips are meager and end up getting split more ways than is useful.
If I staff too lightly, we get swamped and the customers get irritated and Paul doesn't make as much money as he could have otherwise.
Then there is the stress of having to call and staff the event when everyone's busy and I end up using my friends who've never done this before because I don't know who else to call.
So that's that part of it.
Then there is the accounting. The money. Now I am really good at money stuff. I take care of the bills at home and I use a fairly complicated excel spread sheet to keep track of our monthly income and outgo. I love that kind of stuff actually. I should probably have been an accountant. I think that's why I love my job at the hospital so much and why I've been there for 12 years. I like the organization of it. I love that there is a certain way things are supposed to go and it's my job to get them that way. There are very few gray areas in medical records. There is a particular chart order and certain things that every chart needs to have. That's it.
And with accounting, it's pretty much the same. I am one of those rare people that actually LOVE to balance my check book. I love to find the little error that's causing it to be off and make it balance to the penny. I'm like a hound dog, I'll keep calculating and keep looking till I find the error and make it right.
Now, getting back to the Coronado. One of my responsibilities with this job is running the cash register reports and accounting for the money in the bag as compared to what the tape says should be in the bag. Oi! There is so much that can go wrong. But.....I love to sus out the transposed numbers or the odd amount that doesn't add up and make it all match. Sometimes that's just not possible though because the error is one that occured because the server handed out a $1 change when it should have been 2 or didn't charge for one glass of wine or something like that. Then, that info won't be on the tape and I have no way to figure it out.
This drives me nuts!! I want it all to match up, to come out even.
Then there's the stock and making sure that everyone has it. There are three bars on two floors that we use at the coronado and boy do I get a work out some nights. Up and down...you need what? more water, ok, I'll get some for you from the other bar....what...you're running low on napkins, ok, I'll get you some from upstairs....does this display look ok? WEll....it's not the way I would have done it but it's 15 minutes till the house opens and I don't have the money counted into the registers yet so yeah...it looks great!
It's a thrill in some ways. It's so frantic, but frantic in a fun way. Frantic in a let's see how quickly I can get this done way. It's this rush that when it's over, it's just over and you're just tired.
Now in the old days when I was just a common worker bee, I'd get done working, get stuff put away, take inventory and then head over to brio for an after work drink and maybe a bite to eat. It was nice. Now...I get done, but I'm not done. I have to come back to brio and sit up in the smelly musty office and enter numbers into the computer for about an hour while everyone else has fun downstairs. By the time I'm done with that, all I really want to do is go home and go to bed. It kind of takes the fun out of it.
Now.....you would think after reading this that I really don't like working for my brother. But that's where you'd be wrong. Yeah...there are some drawbacks, but I do like it. It's challenging and I have the potential to really be good at this. It's gonna take some time though.....time to get into a rhythm that fits me. Time to figure out the little things and get a better system in place. But that's what I do best. Show me a broken process and my mind starts figuring out a better way.
Work smarter, not harder.
I've actually already started this process. I sat at the office one day last week and set up the excel spread sheets to keep better track of the stock. When I showed it to Paul and how it works he was impressed. It was something that took a bit of time to set up, but will make it easier to track things and easier to enter from now on.
And there will be other things that I will get done. Things that will change. And...I need to get better at being "the boss" and telling people what to do. I'm too much of a "I'll just do it myself" kind of person. Most of the time I feel like I can do it faster if I just do it myself and then I know it's getting done right. I have to let that go and learn how to delegate more.
I'm not really expecting anyone to read this whole long musing about my little corner of the world. But if you did and you care to comment, I'll appreciate it. If not....well....you're probably as busy as I am and dont' have time to read it. I get that. I sooo get that.
That started out to be quite fun and a great way to earn a little play money. I say play money because mostly I would have him put my "pay" into my house account at brio which just made it really easy to stop by there for a drink or a bite to eat without it really coming out of our budget. It was only a few nights a month and it was fun to do.
About a month ago he decided to let go the gal that was kind of running the show for him at the Coronado. It wasn't a "bad" firing, it was just that he had her doing the Coronado and the catering stuff and I think it was just too much and too confusing as to what she was doing. Anyway...so, he put me in charge of the Coronado.
In charge. Take a minute to think about what those words mean. In charge.
Well....I'm still not entirely sure what they mean. I do know that it means that I have to make sure the events are staffed properly which is not as easy or stress free as it sounds. If I staff too heavily then Paul has to pay people an hourly wage that might be over what he actually EARNED on the sales from the show. Not to mention if the show is not busy the tips are meager and end up getting split more ways than is useful.
If I staff too lightly, we get swamped and the customers get irritated and Paul doesn't make as much money as he could have otherwise.
Then there is the stress of having to call and staff the event when everyone's busy and I end up using my friends who've never done this before because I don't know who else to call.
So that's that part of it.
Then there is the accounting. The money. Now I am really good at money stuff. I take care of the bills at home and I use a fairly complicated excel spread sheet to keep track of our monthly income and outgo. I love that kind of stuff actually. I should probably have been an accountant. I think that's why I love my job at the hospital so much and why I've been there for 12 years. I like the organization of it. I love that there is a certain way things are supposed to go and it's my job to get them that way. There are very few gray areas in medical records. There is a particular chart order and certain things that every chart needs to have. That's it.
And with accounting, it's pretty much the same. I am one of those rare people that actually LOVE to balance my check book. I love to find the little error that's causing it to be off and make it balance to the penny. I'm like a hound dog, I'll keep calculating and keep looking till I find the error and make it right.
Now, getting back to the Coronado. One of my responsibilities with this job is running the cash register reports and accounting for the money in the bag as compared to what the tape says should be in the bag. Oi! There is so much that can go wrong. But.....I love to sus out the transposed numbers or the odd amount that doesn't add up and make it all match. Sometimes that's just not possible though because the error is one that occured because the server handed out a $1 change when it should have been 2 or didn't charge for one glass of wine or something like that. Then, that info won't be on the tape and I have no way to figure it out.
This drives me nuts!! I want it all to match up, to come out even.
Then there's the stock and making sure that everyone has it. There are three bars on two floors that we use at the coronado and boy do I get a work out some nights. Up and down...you need what? more water, ok, I'll get some for you from the other bar....what...you're running low on napkins, ok, I'll get you some from upstairs....does this display look ok? WEll....it's not the way I would have done it but it's 15 minutes till the house opens and I don't have the money counted into the registers yet so yeah...it looks great!
It's a thrill in some ways. It's so frantic, but frantic in a fun way. Frantic in a let's see how quickly I can get this done way. It's this rush that when it's over, it's just over and you're just tired.
Now in the old days when I was just a common worker bee, I'd get done working, get stuff put away, take inventory and then head over to brio for an after work drink and maybe a bite to eat. It was nice. Now...I get done, but I'm not done. I have to come back to brio and sit up in the smelly musty office and enter numbers into the computer for about an hour while everyone else has fun downstairs. By the time I'm done with that, all I really want to do is go home and go to bed. It kind of takes the fun out of it.
Now.....you would think after reading this that I really don't like working for my brother. But that's where you'd be wrong. Yeah...there are some drawbacks, but I do like it. It's challenging and I have the potential to really be good at this. It's gonna take some time though.....time to get into a rhythm that fits me. Time to figure out the little things and get a better system in place. But that's what I do best. Show me a broken process and my mind starts figuring out a better way.
Work smarter, not harder.
I've actually already started this process. I sat at the office one day last week and set up the excel spread sheets to keep better track of the stock. When I showed it to Paul and how it works he was impressed. It was something that took a bit of time to set up, but will make it easier to track things and easier to enter from now on.
And there will be other things that I will get done. Things that will change. And...I need to get better at being "the boss" and telling people what to do. I'm too much of a "I'll just do it myself" kind of person. Most of the time I feel like I can do it faster if I just do it myself and then I know it's getting done right. I have to let that go and learn how to delegate more.
I'm not really expecting anyone to read this whole long musing about my little corner of the world. But if you did and you care to comment, I'll appreciate it. If not....well....you're probably as busy as I am and dont' have time to read it. I get that. I sooo get that.