The Grind

Every Monday through Friday I make a very silent march alongside a few dozen faces I've memorized. It's 5:30am. There are 40 to 50 people waiting for the train. And footsteps are the only sound. You'll never hear a populated subway platform quieter.

It's a moving mural, really, of working class faces, mostly grim and sleepy. A sea of Timberland boots, hushed conversations, uniforms and union hats that signal electricians, carpenters, construction workers, nurses, postal workers, delivery drivers, administrative assistants, hotel clerks and doormen. Seldom is there a stodgy suit with a briefcase -- maybe one or two every month, awake early for a big case or deal.  Generally it's the commuting crew we rarely appreciate or thank for being up and at the grind before dawn. While I'm quite honored to be in the ranks of this seemingly hardworking, reliable bunch that keeps our city and our world going, I also wonder what the hell a cheesemonger is doing commuting to work at 5:30 in the morning. For a farmers market? Of course, gladly. To milk the animals? Perhaps even earlier. For a cheese shop in the middle of Manhattan?...

"Eight a.m.! Why is a cheese shop open so early," I'm often asked. I have no answer for that question as I'm not the one making these types of decisions. All I can say is that, yes, it's bad for labor costs when all you're doing is selling $2 cups of coffee in a 8,000 square foot store with astronomical overhead. Nobody is buying $40 worth of cheese at that hour. C'est la vie. There's a lot you learn about what not to do in running your own business when you work for someone else's. That in itself is a worthy learning experience for me.

Yet, to be blunt, much of the reason I've been derelict in my blog postings (yes, I know I skipped all of November) is because I've been trying to recharge from a month or two of watching that shiny gleam wear off my latest cheese venture. I'm happy I came here and learned as much as I did; I'm glad to have met many of the wonderful people I've encountered. Still, I may have reached my growth limit here.

Since opening, I've taken on a more administrative role as the store's cheese purchaser. I do all of the ordering, receiving, and dealing with vendors. It's great experience for a future business and I love that I sometimes get to play cheese god to our cheese case. I'm very thankful to have been trusted with that responsibility, which I guess means I'm doing something right.

But, dealing with the administrative side, coupled with scheduling that puts me right in the middle of the weekday lunch rush, has spread me thin with little relief and left me little opportunity for one-on-one time with my real love: cheese. Instead, much of my my non-administrative time on the floor is occupied with cafe management, which can bleed even the strongest soul dry. You serve people food and they treat you like trash. Yet, you cut a piece of cheese and suddenly your words are gold. (Everyone should be forced to work the bottom rungs of the food service industry before they are allowed to speak to people.)  The cheese case is a much happier land.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the store well-staffed and all my ordering tasks wrapped up in advance, I was able to spend the entire day hawking cheese ideas to would-be dinner guests wanting to impress their Thanksgiving hosts. I didn't want to leave work that day. Last Saturday, due to a scheduling swap, again I was able to spend the entire day on the cheese case because weekends are particularly busy for cheese sales (unlike 8am on a Monday). For a person giving up their Saturday to work, I likely seemed obnoxiously eager. I suppose these were exactly the spirit re-ups I needed to reconnect with Cheesy Street. Cheese, I still love you, I'm just learning there are ways to taint you.

There are also all the mounting frustrations inherent in a larger business or company: the red tape, the staffing decisions, the equipment breakdowns -- and in the midst, feeling like you have no control over any of it and your concerns are being ignored. A lot of things are starting to smell and feel like the law firm again. Grilling paninis for two hours feels a lot like doc review. Organizing the mess that's been left behind in the backstock areas I've so diligently tried to keep looking sane feels a lot like fixing partners' Bluebook citations

When I started to spend every lunch break, as I did at the firm, looking at Daily Puppy just to keep my spirits up, I knew I had reached my "cheese" low. No longer was I in the midst of happy cheese people and consumers who really cared about the product and the business. I had fully entered the twilight zone where cheese meets an overly greedy bottom line in an environment that encourages dehumanized drudgery.

Wow, this is harsh. But there's good news. Lots of it. A bad day at the store is 1,000 times better than a bad day at the firm. I choose the bustle of running around on my feet over office work, even if it's on the cafe side. A smiling customer always lifts my spirits, as much as, if not more than, the Daily Puppy's puppy of the day. I really cherish the few hours a day or week I can physically sell cheese to people. I've grown a lot in learning about cheese buying, which, when coupled with time on the cheese case, is a fuller, more enjoyable cheese experience.

Plus the grind, as it were, has ground me down to the point where I'm able to distill a clearer path for the future. Remember back when I was on road trips working on idyllic farms with happy cheese people and moving on to the next farm before things got too heavy? Yeah that was great. I also had no idea what I wanted to do. The cheddar brick road has led me to a vision for a career:  If I open a cheese food business, I don't want a food empire where I spend countless spirit-breaking hours as an over-educated panini griller while disgruntled office workers yell at me because they didn't get their sandwich in a timely manner. If I open a cheese shop, I want it it to be successful, bustling, and challenging, yes; but I also want it to be a cozy place where both customers and staff are appreciated, befriended, given value, and able to easily find a delicious piece of joy. If I start a cheese farm...well, it will be hard, but the baby animals will keep me happy.

Sure cheese empires are nice, but at what cost? You can grow, but your business ambitions should never get the best of the object of your love -- be that a personal or professional lesson. So in keeping with the cheese education I expected to embark upon, I discovered that the workplace issues I had at the firm can be recreated almost anywhere. Learning to dodge that bullet in the future is a gold-mine of happiness.

Plus, even though the 5am grind usually starts my day off in dejected and incoherent fashion, I sort of like my commute. I don't know anyone's names but I enjoy seeing the same faces every day and imagining what their work days and passions are like. In my subway platform dawn-dreams, I imagine us all getting together to talk about our ambitions...and then they all welcome me into their circle with an honorary pair of Timberlands. Hey, whatever it takes to keep me awake and motivated.