And the shark, it has teeth,
And it wears them in its face.
And Macheath, he has a knife,
But the knife cannot be seen.
"Die Moritat von Mackier Messer", full text, English translation
Contigencies
Owning your own business is frightening when you think about. Which most likely happens after you embark upon it. It is not just ‘being your own boss’; it assumes responsibility and risk with reward. And you need a contingency plan. What happens if you get sick or hurt? What if you get injured and can’t work for weeks? If that happened to me it could really scupper our business. What would happen to Food Nanny if we had to shut down 6 weeks for bone to heal?
For the prior let me say this: cooks are physically self deprecating when it comes to working while hurt: it always hurts. I once worked over three, 250K BTU flat top ranges that made my earring hurt my ear and probably helped to age my vision while melting my knees to gelatin – which is probably only fair (see demiglace). Cooks have assembled a persona to protect them from the irrationality of this behavior, and it amounts to a code of honor that drives them to get the food out no matter what. Simply put: If you can’t get dinner out the door each night then you have no business in this business. So we work when hurt, or worse, when ill. This is also done because most cooks make about $12/ hour and none are insured. I now have the luxury of a partner whose growing skill can allow me to bow out of a week or two each year when sick, as well as a schedule that offers recovery time, so I don’t cough and wheeze over your soup.
This past week Kate suffered from an evil spirit of some sort in her lower back. She was utterly incapacitated and is just walking again, and we realized that we need a contingency plan. I was solo parenting. I performed miserably I might add. Would she be OK? Was this a serious injury? Who should we consult? How will we work? Who can help us? But we never questioned cancelling the meals. Dinner would go on.
Mercifully, Kate’s mother Jane was willing to come down from Wisconsin (4 hours!) to hold the walls up for us. Friends volunteered extra day care and Jane expedited the shuttling, whipped our pathetic attempts at laundry into shape, and even jumped behind the line to manage container set up and meal pack out. I wish there was a gold star big enough.
The Razors Edge
But if not this then what? Kate and I both have extensive experience as environmental educators and workshop leaders. I am a baccalaureate geologist with experience at the state survey level. I have produced grant winning agricultural research. Kate is a professional manager with experience in budgets, personnel, and public programming. But you know what? FN is the first job I’ve held that has held me for more than 18 months, as far as I can remember. We’re tacking on year 3 and I love it. If not this then what? There is really no other option because there is nothing we would rather choose.
There is a risk to owning our own business, but for us the risk of NOT owning it substantially outweighs its antecedent. We are of the philosophy that what divides your life from your work, divides you from your life’s work. And for us, each week is a work (but food is NOT art – topic for another day.) We are synergists who strive to bring, for better and worse, all the disparate sections of our lives into tapestry with each other. To do this we walk a ‘razors edge.’ The razor separates success and failure, doing and ignoring, apathy and determination, independence and devotion. The price for this can cut deep, but the reward is happiness and contentment, and satisfaction with ourselves: of having lived up to our own expectations.
Do you know what a vision is? To me, it is a reason to be, and strive, and live, really. Even if your vision is not clear, or continues to change and evolve, just knowing you have one, feeling it there inside you is often enough. A vision is a personal formulation of what you desire and what you believe is your responsibility to achieve. Herein we each strike our individual balance and, pursuing it, grow as people. There are those who skew their visions, or lose it, or worst of all, are robbed of theirs. I believe that one of the greatest ‘environmental’ crises of our age is low self esteem. You see, for us to have lost the caring for ourselves, how can we be expected to care for an other? As a result we suffer from many lost visions. And, a great shame upon those who exploit our self images for their own profit!
That Nutty Noah
I would like to thank my parents for their unquestionably unconditional love. They also lavished us with support and opportunity. They are largely responsible for all the good in me.
But, they may not have always understood me, though not to any discredit on their part. What exactly does one make with an idealistic childhood, a 100K+ education in rocks, a penchant for fishing on Mondays, and a great affection for working for chump change in scullerys? Now add an advanced degree in chicken wrangling and the respectability of a home to maintain. Really, you can hardly blame them. I’m sure at times my life looked about as planned out as a Jackson Pollock.
So what is the CSK to us? It is a great summation of all we have been working on to this point. It is a manifestation of a vision. It is our edifice and our salvation; our providence. Our Ark. I knew about 18 months ago that if the CSK idea flopped due to my own simple letting it slip away, that I would have truly failed. Moreover, I knew that if we were fortunate enough to succeed, then we would have a real opportunity to make a fully legitimate venture of this thing, and to work on a model of operation that is both flexible for us and perhaps useful for others; and, the opportunity to create something potentially greater than ourselves is a great gift. Thank you again for the opportunity to cook.
I am happy to say that the situation seems to have pared out for the best. We showed resiliency to the recent economic shakeups and realized significant growth over the past year hitting the membership target that we set at our inception. Our summer numbers – usually less than the school year for obvious reasons - have held above the indicator level that I picked as a success criteria last spring. We are preparing to grow beyond our initial goal this coming fall and will make available up to 20 more shares. This is our life. This is our business. We walk the razor’s edge.
