nothings..

Today I was thinking, isn't it funny that when I watch the Movie Show I rarely feel the need to see the movie anymore, but when I watch First Tuesday Bookclub I still want to read the books?

And when I watched Masterchef I yelled at the television all the time, but now it's gone, I miss it.

my Lou

I finally found a moment to take Lucien to the Health Nurse for his 6-8 month check up. At nine months old (yikes!). Obviously I wasn't worried about his development in any way. Have a look at the photo, he's a baby, plus, plus.

We it's actually official now. He is a champion baby. Because we hadn't spent much time around other babies, I'd totally lost my judgement about his size and heft. But the nurse confirmed my suspicions today. His weight is average for a 12 month old and his height and head circumference is average for a 15 month old! At nine months! Go Lou!

People had commented on how big he is, and my line was usually something about him having taken an evolutionary leap, and with us being tall and all....Now I have some stats to thrill them with.

This week he has mastered crawling and zooms over to me whenever I appear. The new mobility has borne new attitude too and he's constantly tussling with Gabriel and growling at him when he can't get what he wants. Good on you Lou, my nugget champion.

a medal

Very early this morning I had one of those parenting experiences that should earn you a badge of honour for service to the infant community.

Lucien has a cold- blocked nose, phlegmy cough, generally annoyed. No temperature, so he's not dopey or too unhappy. But he is unwell, and this cold has his throat on a hair trigger. When he woke for his usual 5am bottle he guzzled it down, then sat up, coughed and threw it all up, all over me and himself and the couch.

No matter, I changed him, wiped the couch and got new pyjamas on myself. Then he sat up on my knee, burped and followed through with a huge vomit, again. So I changed him, wiped off the couch, changed me and I brought him into my bed to snuggle down and snooze until dawn.

In my bed, he coughed, it caught in his throat and heave ho, away we go again. Yep, threw up all on my bed, the doona, my last clean pyjama/t-shirt and himself. Again. Bugger. I never knew 240mls could stretch so far.

So I stripped the bed, made it fresh, found the last clean item he had to wear, dug out my year 12 school t-shirt (like, the bottom, bottom of the wardrobe pile) and at 6.05 we finally snuggled in. I had been awake and changing clothes for an hour. At 6.25 Gabriel woke and could not be tricked into going back to sleep, Lucien could not be settled either and so we began the day. It's a tough morning, let me tell you. For a start the washing pile is already half a metre high!

Only when I'm flagging at 8pm in the evening and berating myself for not getting on top of everything I need to do before the next day do I remember. 'Oh yeah, you have been awake since 5am. Time for bed, brainiac."

It wasn't a particularly gross ordeal, nor stressful, Louie wasn't screaming or distressed. Last night was not really badge of honour stuff like midnight rushes to casualty or like when 3am gastro strikes. It's just sometimes I wish I wasn't doing this alone. Right now, in particular, this morning, I wanted a helper. A husband who was home to share part of this burden with me, just someone else to help. But we always want what we can't have, right? This is the lot of the baker's wife.

the gen y problem

We are currently hiring staff for the bakery. The key position we are trialling for is a second baker. It's really, really hard to find the right person. Our bakery is a very small family business and this is our first big appointment. It's really personal to us. This new employee will be eating from our food bowl, if you get me. They are a significant part of us. No drongos, no drug addicts, no baggage please. You can see we are going to have a problem.

So far we have had responses from bakers with significant amounts of experience (15-20 years), or international students with a baking training qualification (the course runs one month) and a masters degree in IT. The first group is over qualified. They can do everything and so want more than $1000 a week. We cannot afford them. Apparently no one can, they're looking for work. The second group are working for their residency visa and I suspect they may lack the conviction necessary to work at our bakery. We are serious bakers. We think our bread is very important.

We actually need a young, unattached, qualified baker with about 5 years experience. Someone ready to climb the ladder to success, have a shot at the title. But we have had this person in too, and they also did not work out. Why? Two words. Gen Y.

It wasn't until I started bleating on to my friends about what a disaster this gen Y kid was that I discovered I was up against a cultural phenomenon. My experience is a shared one. There are HR and management essays, whole courses devoted to the hiring and handling of gen Y! The further I have delved, the more I understand them. No that's not true, I absolutely do not understand gen Y. But I can recognise the symptoms of being one.

Here's some tips on spotting a gen y, and this is not a spoof..
-intense focus on their feelings, need to discuss how they feel about stuff
-exaggerated sense of the importance of their opinion, lack of sense of when it is appropriate to express it.
-exaggerated sense of entitlement, they want the best position for the best money.
-Gen Y are the 'training' generation, so they have little regard for the importance of demonstrated skills and experience. Afterall they did pay to do the course. Also remember, they are the generation who have never heard the word fail, never got a graded (A-F) school report, were always let down gently by their educators, given extensions, re-sits, special consideration. Attendance at school was enough for gen y to pass. Sorry, not pass. To obtain a grade of 'satisfactory'.
-they lack 'persona'. This is a bit of management training jargon from a friend of mine. It means gen Y's don't get that you wouldn't speak to your boss the same way you speak to your friends. As an employer you will hear about their full on weekend, what they are planning for their next 'sick' weekend and probably why they'll need a sickie in the near future.

That's a few pointers. However, now I can recognise them, I have absolutely no idea about what to do with these people. I want to hire them, they could be the future of my business. But they all seem to be so unwilling to commit to anything, they can't tell me what they want to be doing in six weeks, let alone longer term (for god's sake people, when an employer asks you a long term goal question, lie! Develop your persona! I'm not going to hire you if I think you're just going to work until you can afford your next trip too Byron Bay.) One foot out the door, always looking over their shoulder for the better opportunity that they all think is coming. The attitude sucks.

Hiring in the current day- oldies, internationals or gen y. And they say it's an employers market!

time is everything

Since our life changed so dramatically recently, there have been some big adjustments to be made.
I was the most exhausted I have ever, ever been, living in a funk but still expecting to be able to make difficult decisions and maintain our former life while in the first months of running a busy but struggling small business, with no experience and limited access to resources. Many, many things gave way under the pressure. Cooking and cleaning were the first to go.

Now we are six months on and I have had a chance to get my head back. Every aspect of how we live has been examined and evaluated. Mainly because the baker is flat chat baking at the moment, so everything else falls to me, and I am but one person. Home and garden, children, paperwork, phone calls, extended family contact, managing the bakery shop, banking, meetings, sales calls......there is only so much one can do, whilst trying to maintain a breastfeeding regime and get a teeny bit of broken sleep.

Thankfully I have equally as busy friends who can offer some great advice. Recently on this blog, some terrific time/food/family management ideas were posted and actually managed to implement some of them. As my kids get older and the baker is home a bit more, other tips will come in real handy (like getting the baker to cook or clean!)

Then another wonderful web cruiser sent me this link and life became easier still.

So this post is for those who need a but of help. Everyone actually.

Blogging recommenced!

Oh my goodness. Yes, I'm back. Well, it's only been what, 9 or so months since I last posted. Surely some of you out there are still checking in with me?! Thanks if you are!!

I see from the last post that you are waiting patiently to find out all about my baby. Well he did arrive, and so much more I'm going to give you the abridged version so we can get on with the real business of blogging.

So, on the 29th October last year Lucien Robert arrived. A beautiful, huge baby rushed into the world (truly, waters broke at 9:50 pm, he was born at 11:30pm. Phew!) and commenced his delightful reign over our lives.

Two weeks later we learned that the business the baker works in was for sale. Interesting. And if it could not be sold by Christmas, the owner would close and everyone would be out of a job. Hmmm. Alarming.

So we tootled off to the bank, baby tucked under one arm, financial history under the other, and by January we were business owners. Yes! A bakery of our very own.

I'm hoping you can see now where the last nine months have disappeared to. Three months of new baby and harrowing business purchase negotiations then without a pause the running of our own business, with two children and seriously mortgaged. Things got real interesting...

I've decided that the focus of my blog is going to be about the business. Previously it was about saving money as a home maker. Now I'm going to talk about business making as a home maker. What we have learnt in the past six months I never, ever read in any small business books, nor was there any mentor who could help us with the serious decisions we faced everyday, and still do face.

This is of course the first lesson of owning your own business- no one is going to tell you how to run it. There's no management manual, no book of accounting, no decision making checklist.

The point is, I talk to my hospitality friends who run businesses, I talk to accountants and lawyers, to people who advise big business, but a guide about owning a hospitality business is difficult to find. Perhaps we can build one together.

I'll also be posting about my family and stuff I cook, since that's really what I'm comfortable talking about. So keep checking in. I'll do my utmost to reward your interest!