You kinda smell like coffee..musings from a small business owner
I think there was a point that my kids thought I was a barista at Starbucks. I would come home and smell of coffee, really excellent and delicious coffee, but coffee none the less. No Lancome did not come out with a new perfume eau de coffee. My perfume was compliments of keeping office hours at the local Starbucks, or the Starbucks up the street, or the Starbucks down the road from the client appointment. If you ask me "where is your office?" I will answer, straight faced and completely serious "whatever Starbucks I happen to land at that day"
God bless you Starbucks (note to self: ask accountant if I can tax deduct all those blessed cups of Joe).
There are many, many, many reasons I am a small business owner and it isn't just for my office hours at Starbucks. They include (in no particular order)
1. I don't like to be told what to do.
2. I am bad with rules and the whole follow the rules expectation that comes when working for others.
3. If I want to go on my kid's field trip to the Dallas Acquarium I will and I don't have to ask (beg) for permission.
4. I don't believe in the 40 hour work week or the 50 hour work week or the 60 hour work week. I believe in about a 30 hour work week--one where I work smarter not harder.
5. I want to be able to have big ideas and not have to get them blessed by the Pope, Tom, Dick, Harry and fourteen committees to run with it.
6. I like to bask in the glory from my success and take 100% responsibility for failures.
7. I like to take a long lunch sometimes. Or get a pedicure in the middle of a work day. I can open my lap top and situate in my lap while my toes get purty.
8. I get to define who I want to work with and what I want to work on. If I don't like someone I don't work with them.
9. I don't want to sign a 167 page employee manual written in an 8 point font.
10. I want to drink coffee at Starbucks with my laptop in front of me on a regular basis (doing it right now in fact).
But don't get me wrong. SB is not without it's own limitations and frustrations. Just as there are people you work with every day that test your resolve to maintain your calm, I too am challenged by people at SB as well. Here are a few of those people:
1 The couple in their 50's who insist on making out whilst she sits in his lap in the leather chair and I am next to them and cannot command my peripheral vision to tune them out.
2. The idiot who thinks it is perfectly acceptable to SKYPE with someone on their computer in the middle of Starbucks. Are you freaking kidding me? No really--you are kidding me right?
3. Akin to #2--the person who has SUPER IMPORTANT WORLD CHANGING phone conversations in SB. Look--SB is not the place to have these conversations. And pssstttt....you aren't that important.
4. People who discuss delicate and conflict laden topics at their table not realizing (or perhaps they realize and don't care) that everyone can hear their business. We don't want to know your business. We don't care. We have our own business to attend to. Go away.
5. Teenagers. Really no need for explanation on that one. I just don't like teenagers.
There are trade offs in everything we do. Being a small business owner can be a lonely journey. I don't have the comfort of working with a group of people in close proximity on a common and shared purpose. Yes--I have created around me a group of like minded business people who share my same values and mission and we support one another but I don't have the benefit of working in an office with people day in and out. These people become family--for better or worse--and I get the appeal of that.
So the next time we see one another, please don't sniff me to verify that I smell like coffee, just take my word for it. And I promise--you will never see me making out with my husband in the leather chair next to you at Starbucks (unless of course you want us to).
God bless you Starbucks (note to self: ask accountant if I can tax deduct all those blessed cups of Joe).
There are many, many, many reasons I am a small business owner and it isn't just for my office hours at Starbucks. They include (in no particular order)
1. I don't like to be told what to do.
2. I am bad with rules and the whole follow the rules expectation that comes when working for others.
3. If I want to go on my kid's field trip to the Dallas Acquarium I will and I don't have to ask (beg) for permission.
4. I don't believe in the 40 hour work week or the 50 hour work week or the 60 hour work week. I believe in about a 30 hour work week--one where I work smarter not harder.
5. I want to be able to have big ideas and not have to get them blessed by the Pope, Tom, Dick, Harry and fourteen committees to run with it.
6. I like to bask in the glory from my success and take 100% responsibility for failures.
7. I like to take a long lunch sometimes. Or get a pedicure in the middle of a work day. I can open my lap top and situate in my lap while my toes get purty.
8. I get to define who I want to work with and what I want to work on. If I don't like someone I don't work with them.
9. I don't want to sign a 167 page employee manual written in an 8 point font.
10. I want to drink coffee at Starbucks with my laptop in front of me on a regular basis (doing it right now in fact).
But don't get me wrong. SB is not without it's own limitations and frustrations. Just as there are people you work with every day that test your resolve to maintain your calm, I too am challenged by people at SB as well. Here are a few of those people:
1 The couple in their 50's who insist on making out whilst she sits in his lap in the leather chair and I am next to them and cannot command my peripheral vision to tune them out.
2. The idiot who thinks it is perfectly acceptable to SKYPE with someone on their computer in the middle of Starbucks. Are you freaking kidding me? No really--you are kidding me right?
3. Akin to #2--the person who has SUPER IMPORTANT WORLD CHANGING phone conversations in SB. Look--SB is not the place to have these conversations. And pssstttt....you aren't that important.
4. People who discuss delicate and conflict laden topics at their table not realizing (or perhaps they realize and don't care) that everyone can hear their business. We don't want to know your business. We don't care. We have our own business to attend to. Go away.
5. Teenagers. Really no need for explanation on that one. I just don't like teenagers.
There are trade offs in everything we do. Being a small business owner can be a lonely journey. I don't have the comfort of working with a group of people in close proximity on a common and shared purpose. Yes--I have created around me a group of like minded business people who share my same values and mission and we support one another but I don't have the benefit of working in an office with people day in and out. These people become family--for better or worse--and I get the appeal of that.
So the next time we see one another, please don't sniff me to verify that I smell like coffee, just take my word for it. And I promise--you will never see me making out with my husband in the leather chair next to you at Starbucks (unless of course you want us to).
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