Weathered Emotions

At the end of the day, all your emotional experiences "original," as they may be are as objectively significant as the daily variation in the weather on our planet. Do you want to spend your life dwelling on these? Most people do. Some do not.

I have a map in my head of most of the sensations from my body ... heat, pressure, pain, sound, sight etc. are monitored at the time of their stimulus and mapped to a spatial model... emotional reactions are monitored as well and I am trained to have minimal reaction to more external stimulus than the mod person I know. For better or for worse... I have decided not to care about some of the things which many people plan their lives around. We all plan our lives around different things :)

Shifting Focus from Ops to Profits

A brief reflection on organisational development thus far:

I'm not sure if other eateries go through this sort of organisational development, but here's what we've been poking at so far. Day counts are approximate.

We opened for specialty coffee service on 13 October (day 1) after obtaining a license from the city council. We started with one staff running the bar for 40 hours per week, and as local talent jumped onboard we were able to run 168 hours per week by 4 December (day 53).

The team that started doing this obviously hadn't done this before (we're probably the first company in Asia to do it), so a few iterations of practice were required. From day 53 to the the day 95 (15 January) the bar has tried to get itself sorted, and it continues to do so with varying inputs and varying degrees of success.

Meanwhile, the kitchen got itself off the ground by around day 99 (19 January). And by day 130 (19 February) it's been running a hot 56 hours per week. By next weekend (day 144), brunch service should be running till 2am on Friday and Saturday nights.

All this while, we have run on temps. The longest staff commitments are 12 months from a bar trainee, and 12 months from the chef. So circling back to address this, we've set development targets for bar temps for the period of March to May (day 141 to day 232), and we've communicated that "up, down, or out," developments must occur. We've also started looking for 1-year commitments from bar and administrative staff from June onwards (day 233 to day 598).

During the 141-232/Mar-May period we should see further evidence on the viability of running 24-7-365. This should result in either the extension of kitchen and bakery operations into the 24-7-365 space, or the reduction of operating hours and a retreat from that position in the market. It will be interesting in any event, as we still want to know if there will eventually be a market for specialty coffee served with brunch all around the clock.

Etcetera:

I have a hiring policy of "scare the fuck out of prospectives." If people still want to play, at least you know it's for the right reasons. It also applies to dating - which is probably why I don't get to date much :D
/
Cafe dude A: Heard you've got problems finding a girlfriend?
Cafe dude B: *pause* Which year?
Cafe chick C: *laughs*
Cafe dude B: "Finding girlfriend," is a recurring problem... like staff.
Cafe chick C: Huh? Oi.
(C, is our Chief of Staff.)

Etcetera:

Chef: "The way you say, "hi", to people, is like robot lah..."
Me: "But it's an accurate representation of who I am, what? I sometimes just tell them... "oh, didn't I just say "hi," to you yesterday?"

Etcetera:

Some people are afraid of growing old and poor. I don't believe in worrying about things like that. One should be comfortable with growing old and poor, and doing it with a straight face.

Optimism is Disgusting

In the same way that empty carbs are disgusting. The purified corn syrupy sweetness of its flatulence wafting up in one's face like the tremors of a diarrheaic colon. The fact of any business is that the risks outnumber the opportunites innumerably. Opportunities, like ideas, are trivial. It adds value to discuss the enemies around us - one million acts of nature; it adds value to discuss our strengths, but not to repeat ourselves if the same strength is the counterpoint to multiple adversaries. If anyone survives anything, it is because they took pains to avoid disaster. Sometimes disasters come in the shape of people. The point of gloom and doom is to smoke out the timid people who weaken an organisation. We want losers to quit, as quickly as possible. The funnel of talent must churn. And it must turn out any babes that cannot survive forces of nature.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen...

You see this clam? It is closed. That means it is not ready. Like a virgin, if it is not ready, do not serve it.