Your Value Doesn’t Go Unnoticed
My fingers feel raw, thirsting for moisturizer after spending hours upon hours this weekend shredding 8.5” x 11” memories. The statute of limitations recently ended that required me to keep all my business records from my days as a Which Wich Superior Sandwiches franchisee. Having owned two stores over several years, that pile of paperwork added up to a gargantuan chore.
The task began as merely a mechanical one of “shredding and forgetting” now that the threat of an audit had passed. However, it quickly turned into a walk down memory lane. I inspected employee applications, team member contact information sheets, employee counseling forms (those were interesting to review once again!) and I-9s and W-4s of the hundreds who worked for Ebling Restaurants, LLC. I even found some photos of employees. (Staff used to decorate the sandwich bags with photos and fun facts about the person. We hung these in the restaurant for customers to read.)
As my fingers flipped through the disheveled piles of paper, I couldn’t help but become emotional. Bosses have favorites, and just seeing some of the names again put a smile on my face. For some it was an infectious attitude or demeanor. For others, their work ethic or sense of responsibility. And then there were those names that gave me heartburn. (Haha!)
Roughly 90 percent of my staff was under the age of 21. For many it was their first job ever. (I recall having to teach someone how to sweep a floor!) Occasionally, someone left an oven on overnight. Sometimes an inattentive worker left an exterior door unlocked or a cooler accidentally unplugged. In a world of paper-thin margins, those could be heartbreakers to an owner, but we also live in a world where mistakes happen.
Overall, my two stores ran successfully. We had some of the highest sales in the market. The decision to sell them wasn’t done lightly, and what I thought at the time was the best decision may or may not have turned out to be. But that’s life. Every day we roll the dice, and every day they land differently.
People have told me that those stores ran well because of my character, leadership, and approach. In reality, I made good and bad decisions. But I always tried to make hiring/retention my best decision, and give those I did hire the opportunity to grow, succeed, and feel like they had value, because they did. Those two stores shined because successful employees ran them. I just set the table.
As I came across each name, I stopped for a moment to remember that person: their face, their personality, their contribution. Without that individual person, Ebling Restaurants and Which Wich wouldn’t have been what it was.
So what’s that have to do with trauma journeys? For survivors, I think it can be easy to forget our value. We can feel consumed by trauma’s after-effects. We can feel like we don’t matter because we carry the misperception that life isn’t giving us the opportunity to participate in it. Life is shutting us out, leaving us feeling numb and frozen—persona non grata. But that’s just not true at all. Whether we feel it or not, we all are part of a fabric, a network, and each plays a role that, removed, has both tangible and intangible effects.
Ebling Restaurants would never have been what it was minus one of its employees. The same holds true for the network you’re in, be it your family, friends, job, organization, etc.
I intended the shredding of those documents to be my last unofficial act as a Which Which franchisee. But that’ wouldn’t be right. Instead, it is this: I want to thank each one of my former employees for everything they did to make Ebling Restaurants and Which Which in Blaine and Maple Grove, Minnesota, such a success. Whether you were there for years or a day, whether you were an “A-team member” or a liability, you made us what we ultimately became.
Special thanks goes out to: these all-stars:
Colette Vincent
Jeremy Bruce
Sara (Vining) Bambraugh
Paige (Luft) Myers
Jess Boelter
Isaac Brist
Chris Capistrant
John Mathern
Megan Boyer
Brandy Hedalen
Dylan Kasseth
Erik Samletzka
Samantha Jo Hanson
Melody Brown
The O.G. Blaine and Maple Grove crews
