"Common Sense does not apply"

Apparently, it is not neccessarily a given that if an employee doesn't show up for a shift or abandons a shift, that said employee will lose his/her job.  In fact, from an employer's point of view that employee just quit their job.  Yet, the State of Oregon does't allow common sense to get in the way of good old fashion coddling and beauracracy. 

According to the State, 1 - employee must have had a warning (in other words, they have had to have done this at least once before so I could warn them that it is wrong not to show up for work), 2 - did the individual know their job was in jeoparday? This is where common sense does not apply - because unless I have an employee manual specifically stating that if an employee is AWOL they will lose their job - they either get to keep their job or they will actually receive unemployment benefits.  3 - What were the circumstances of why the employee didn't tell you they wouldn't be working their shift? Unless they were hit by a car or had a heart attack - I'm sorry, but there is no reason to not take a few seconds and make a phone call.  I have never in my life just walked off a shift.  Finally - an employee is eligilbe for 2 years after walking away from a job in this manner for benefits, even if he/she has had a job since then.  This is perhaps the most galling aspect of all this as it's been almost a year and a half since the situation to which I am referring occured and suddenly is now an issue.  Why after all this time, and holding a job in between, should I be held liable for this person's financial well-being?

Employees have rights, and I do my best to make work environments as good as possible as well as not being a dickhead boss (I've worked for them in the past).  Employers should have rights too.  I should have the right to fire an employee that abandons a shift without fear that it will have an adverse financial affect on me.   Employees at my bar are a close knit family and we all depend on each other to do our jobs.  Those who cannot handle that need not apply.

The cost of doing business.

The price of running your bar can be high, on many levels.  Of course, the most obvious costs are financial.  Running a bar is not cheap.  Every time you think you’ve got some bills paid off and maybe you’ll have a couple months to let some money just build up in your bank account something happens.  Something always happens.  Whether its equipment that needs repaired or replaced, an employee quits and you have to train someone new, a new music licensing org finally catches up to you and starts threatening you, someone or something will always have their hand out. 

When the occasional starry eyed romantic walks through my doors and dreamily wishes to have their own place someday I do my best to stomp on their dreams and tell them what a terrible idea it is.  I feel a twinge of guilt when I see I’m ruining their fantasy (most people never make it out of the fantasy stage anyway) but mostly I’m doing them a favor, especially the ones who have never even waited tables or served a drink in their life.

Hand in hand with the financial sacrifices come the personal sacrifices in time spent doing just about anything else.  Your days “off” are spent paying bills, planning events, marketing, etc… For someone in my position it is difficult to leave town for more than a night or two so long extended vacations are few to none.  And that’s ok for now, 3 year olds are easy to entertain and you don’t need to do much to impress.

I think the biggest price comes in the relationships that get mangled along the way.  My marriage – yeah, that was a big one.  But friendships too.  You make friends with employees and with customers.  But there’s a funny line that gets crossed from time to time and suddenly you are just the owner.  You have to be the asshole – or maybe you act like one.  But you are the owner and you pay dearly when those times come around.

At the end of the day, you are the boss.  It is your job to listen to everyone complain when things didn’t do their way in your bar.  It is your job to glue together the strands of information from hazy, drunk memories and turn it into something you can trust. It is your job to have a ‘talk’ with an employee about something you just wish to God wasn’t an issue. It is your job to make a decision and act upon it.  Once that has happened there can be no apologies.  Stick to your guns! It’s definitely a recipe for pissing people off and maybe that’s just part of your job too.  

Don’t get me wrong, I have formed some tremendous friendships with people I would have never known were it not for The One Horse.  It is one of the things I love most about the bar ownership thing.  It’s just tricky business when things go awry because you don’t have the luxury of just being someone’s friend, when they get upset with you it is suddenly a matter of customer/owner and that often brings some pretty severe consequences with it. 

Out of all the costs -  money and time - those I can handle and manage.  Their normal and I don't love them but I understand them and accept them.  The cost of just being the boss is probably the one I didn't figure on or know about getting into this whole business. It's the most difficult to quantify and yet at times the most costly of all.

Awake.

When you are running your own business , especially a bar/restaurant, you really need to keep tabs on who is running who.  For most of 2010 I’d say The One Horse Tavern was doing the driving and I was just along for the ride, and I hated it.  I was working 5-6 days a week behind the bar and in the ‘off times’ trying to get the bills paid, keep up with the ridiculous amounts of paper work, navigate a divorce that was dragging on and on, sell my house that was headed towards foreclosure, look for a new home, and, oh yeah, be mommy. 

2010 was one long night that seemed to have no dawn and the stress was and has taken its toll.  But when your trapped in that never ending darkness you learn a few things, like, what you are capable of, what is important to you, who are your real friends and who is just plain your enemy.  For all the times I just wanted to drop everything and run the other direction I never could because I have a little boy that is depending on me to provide him with a home and a future. 

And just about one short month ago I finally did it.  I woke up.  I’d been coasting, not caring, not putting much effort into The One Horse aside from the mechanical motions of doing what needed to be done. I awoke to the realization that as awesome as my bar is – it needed help bringing in customers, pushing it upwards to a new level of success that it wasn’t attaining just by being there with its doors unlocked and the open sign on.  

After four years of being open, four years of new people coming in and exclaiming what a great little place this is, or how great the food is, I have to ask myself ‘why aren’t we doing better than this?’  The economy? Maybe. The Ace? (that’s the old-school watering hole at the other end of town, literally) But The Ace really is the old school Gaston crowd and they aren’t really our target market so I can’t blame them.  The food?  Not possible – our food is great! The service?  The temperature regulation in the bar while people are eating? Is the music too loud? Are the tables too rickety? And on and on I pick and pick in my mind ‘what is it?’

And one day, after my emotional side was done venting and I was feeling personally slighted for another slow afternoon, I decided it was time to stop whining and do something.  Take charge. Be in control.  Do not let the beast control you.  DRIVE.

The Beginning.

If there is one thing I retained from my Anthropology degree from the University of Oregon, you can’t understand  where you are, or where you are going, if you don’t know where you’ve been.  So it seems only necessary that in order to discuss the present, and especially the future, that there be a  brief exploration of The One Horse’s past.

In 2006 my then husband Vince Taggart and myself decided to buy a commercial property in the town of Gaston, Oregon.  The building was old and run down and was the home of a tavern called Crickett’s.  At the time we assumed that we would own the property and rent to the present tenants and eventually we would renovate the property and open our own restaurant/ bar.  As it happened, the occupants of this property were looking to retire and once they realized  we were not interested in purchasing their business as well as the property they decided to close shop.

It soon became clear that we may have bitten off a little more than we could chew at the time but we didn’t hesitate.  We jumped right in and began stripping the place from ceiling to floor. Not only was Vince  a skilled bartender but it turned out that he was a pretty handy carpenter. My mom and I cleaned and painted while Vince did a lot of the heavy lifting – he installed new windows (all the old ones were broken or boarded up), built a new bar, a kitchen and mop room and more.  When needed the professionals stepped in and upgraded the plumbing, electrical, and installed new kitchen and bar equipment.  Six long months later and many trips to the dump, the place really looked good, the business licenses were in place, the food and bar were stocked and on January 8, 2007 The One Horse Tavern opened its doors.

 Among the first of many mistakes we made was NOT making a big deal about our opening.  Countless others include things like not reaching our more to the local community to introduce ourselves, in fact, doing little to no marketing at all for the first year or so.  Needless to say, it was a lean year and the only reason The One Horse is still here is to the countless hours that Vince and myself logged in behind the bar to keep employee costs down.  By 2008 our reputation was spreading as a place where you could get good food and a cocktail – not just beer and wine anymore.  The biggest battle that we had to overcome was convincing the community that this tired old building could actually be cleaned up to feel comfortable and safe.  To this day I still see customers who have not been in our bar yet with a story of how they hadn’t been in here for 15 years and they can’t believe it is so different.

My son Austin was born in June 2007, six months after we opened.  The stress on our family was tremendous and the realization that Vince and I had taken on too much too fast in our short marriage came too late and the options for alleviating any of our responsibilities seemed limited and few.  We divorced last year and now I am running the bar alone.  It hasn’t been easy, especially with a crappy economy.  2009 and 2010 were fairly lean years but The One Horse has positive, forward momentum and we all (employees, customers, and myself) have high hopes that 2011 is going to see this little bar on its feet and live up to  its full potential.

Show off your expertise.

In helpful hints Merchant Circle tells me to show off my expertise with a blog!  It's a great way to connect with potential customers.  Yes, I dearly want to expand my customer base and reach out more to people on the internet.   But who is really going to read this?  And what real expertise do I have?  I own a bar and restaurant.  It's in a small town.  I have no formal training in cooking or drink service.  I just happen to be really, really good at customer service and at managing a business.  All the other stuff, expertise?  It makes me feel a bit like a fraud.

And this, my inaugural blog - is a momentous occasion and excuse to begin re-exercising my writing skills.  So I am not going to start spouting off a bunch of crap that I don't know anything about.  I am a single mother with just barely enough time to do the basics for my business plus be a mother to a very capricious 3 year old.  I don't run out to the local farms every morning to grab farm fresh eggs to serve to my customers that morning.  I don't have fresh strawberries to blend into my daiquiris.  And, I'm sorry, but I don't have equal parts vegan options on my bar's menu for every hamburger we sell. (the kitchen is just too small - we do great things back there, but it is small).

What I will write about is what I know.  I know people.  I know what it is too struggle in this relentlessly lousy economy.  I know what it is like to be a single mother and try to do all this on my own and still be a good parent.  I know that I have created a tremendous product and experience and once people walk through The One Horse Tavern's doors they will instantly see that it is much more than a simple, small town tavern.  There is art, there are cocktails, a wonderful staff, great food - when you are out on Highway 47 sampling Oregon's wine's I hope you will stop in for lunch or dinner and give us a try.
http://www.theonehorsetavern.com/