What I WOULD Say to My Employees, if They Bothered to Read the Things I Write

It is a fact of life in this business that there are going to be busy, hard days.  Some of those days are unpredictable, some we can see in advance. We do our best to plan but you know how it goes, best laid plans, and all.  No matter the case,  the stress, pressure, and constant movement can take their toll both physically and emotionally. I know, I’ve had nervous breakdowns from them. On more than one occasion I was tempted to walk out and never look back.  It was overwhelming, and I wanted someone to come help.  In fact, I would get furiously angry that no one was helping me.  

I felt like someone had to be at fault, that there had to be a simple solution, and someone out there was responsible for that idea and was clearly withholding it from me because they hated me and hoped I failed.  Of course, those were all lies my mind was telling me.  I was tired, my body was on the verge of falling apart, and no one was coming to my rescue. Then I became bitter and resentful.  I’d start down this mental path thinking, “My boss isn’t helping me.  My assistant manager isn’t helping me. The other store isn’t helping me. No one is helping me and I have to do all of this by myself and I work harder than anyone else and it isn’t fair!”

Then I heard something that changed my way of thinking forever:

If it’s everyone else’s fault, it’s probably just me.

I realized the truth of that statement when I looked up, and saw that I had been dragging my whole team down as a spiraled down.  The more I blamed other people, the less I felt responsible for changing things.  The less responsible I felt, the more likely I was to just not do anything (except complain. I complained a lot).  Then I’d get angry that nothing had been done.  It was a vicious cycle, one which I was inflicting on everyone around me.  I know part of it was simply the fear of being yelled at for making the “wrong” decision or for doing something differently from how my boss expected me to do it.  Then I decided that she had a right to yell at me, and I had still had a right to make decisions about my workday.  I’d rather get yelled at once for action, than be in a perpetual state of resentment and misery out of fear of getting yelled at.  

Besides, I had to accept responsibility and hold myself accountable for my own performance and attitude.

So, I started shifting my thought process.  The first thing that helped almost immediately was simply accepting that some days are really hard. The end, period.  We can’t see into the future, and traffic can be unpredictable.  It’s no one’s fault. If you are polite, acknowledge your customers, apologize for the wait and then give them eye contact and your full attention when you DO serve them, people are usually pretty cool about it. It's important to have someone in the back making donuts no matter how long the line, otherwise you're just selling out of your product twice as fast and not getting anything new into the case. Dealing with customers is stressful, but you can do it. This leads into my second point.

The second thing that helped was realizing how many hard, busy days had come and gone.  More importantly, gone.  They’d happened, and I’d made it through.  We all had.  So I armed myself with the knowledge that we’re going to get through this. It’s just donuts and coffee. We have successfully survived more than one hard day, so we can do it again.  And we did, and continue to, again, and again, and again.  It’s pretty bad ass when you think about it.

The third, and probably most important realization, is that I had to trust the people I work with. My boss, peers, and those who worked under me.  I had to believe that they were going to work as hard as me so that we can all succeed.  I have found this to be generally true, with only a few exceptions.  We have a tendency to hire bad ass, quick thinking donut geniuses. I didn’t actually have to feel all the pressure I was putting myself under.  I could accept the support of my fellow Rebels, as well as commiserating over our shared exhaustion and general feeling of being overworked.  I wasn’t alone in this struggle.  What’s more, when I stopped blaming everyone around me for my own feelings of overwhelm, I realized that there were actually solutions out there.  My boss was more than happy to help me find more balance, and my peers and employees were aching to relieve me of some of my stress (they knew it would make their lives easier, because being around angry people sucks).  In addition, I realized that making some changes to the way I cared for myself outside of work made a big difference.  That’s a whole different story though.  

The point is, we’re all in this together. We can help each other.  Blame can’t be part of the discussion though, it’s unhelpful.  We need creative solutions and honest conversation. We need to trust each other, and we need to work as a team. You're all bad ass, and honestly I believe in you. You can make bad days easier on each other by accepting responsibility for your attitude, by asking for help and giving it in return. You'll get through it, it's all going to be ok.