This week J man’s brother heads back to school. Here are his reflections on our first months in the business. I’ll add I am super proud of the men my boys are becoming!!!
I know that my mom turns away a lot of people who offer to volunteer at No Label at the Table. For me, I was voluntold to do my part. I’ve worked both at the markets and in the kitchen to help this business grow, and there are a lot of lessons I think I will take away from this experience.
The first is to make sure to set a good example. The other day we had a bit of a mix-up with one of the recipes, and I got a little bit frustrated. All I did was sigh and put my head in my hands for a few seconds, but one of our employees could see my frustration and followed my example by becoming frustrated with their work. I had accidentally hurt our work environment and productivity. We managed to get through this one, but I can say that it did teach me a lesson about trying to set a good example. Counter to this, the employees have provided me with a good example. Plenty of times when I’ve been washing dishes, I look over to them and see their enthusiasm for what they’re doing, and it imbues me with a new energy for my work.
I also learned that there is a great deal of truth behind the saying, “don’t judge a book by its cover.” One of our employees didn’t really speak or talk to the others. However, despite this they have proven to be probably our most productive employee. They take on an entire stage in our production process by themselves, and manage to do it with ease and efficiency. It’s amazingly impressive. Despite facing incredible challenges they manage to be one of our best and greatest employees. It’s most certainly been a great lesson in not underestimating anyone.
I could go on and on with different things I’ve learned from this experience, but this blog entry would be a thousand pages long. Suffice to say that it’s been an incredible experience. Our employees are some of the most amazing people I have ever met, and I know they will go on to do incredible things. I’m proud to be a part of this enterprise that will provide a dream-fulfilling future for my brother, and help so many other people like him. I thank all of you for your support, and I hope to see some of you at the markets one Saturday.