Bosses are said to be Supervisors Handling Important Tasks 24/7. They are perceived as Dedicated Individuals Creating (valuable) Knowledge. They could also be regarded as Profitable Individuals Generating (so much) Success.
But if bosses can only have 30 hours per day, they would choose to use it all up. If only they won’t need sleep to function well, they would choose to stay up just to be able to work.
Let me give you a typical day of a boss: By 5:00 am, he wakes up; 5:10 am, he makes coffee; 5:15 am, he goes through emails, bank accounts, messages.
He receives an email about a collaboration or about unpaid debts; or an employee requesting for an emergency leave; a message from a government agency about something he needs to comply with; another message from the accountant about cashflow imbalances; one message from an employee again requesting for a change of shift; a message about an employee requesting for a meeting; another message from a customer complaining about a horrible experience.
By 5:45 am, the boss has just finished attending to everyone’s concerns; 5:50 am, he has forgotten he had made coffee which is now cold, and throws it in the sink; 6:00 am, he proceeds to make breakfast for his family; 6:30 am, he gets the kids to school;
By 7:00 am, he drives to the restaurant, and by 7:30 am, gets to the location, and discovers a clogged floor drain in the kitchen, electrical power not functioning, leaking roof from last night’s rain; he also learns that one employee took an emergency day-off because he has fever; and customers start to flock in, so the boss has no choice but to be the reliever;
Due to a busy morning shift by 8:30am, the boss decides that he will be the market guy for the day to speed things up (mainly because he has a car), and the usual market guy will have to work as the cook;
Until 10:30 am, the boss does the marketing and grocery for the restaurant, and returns to the restaurant; 11:00 am, the boss is able to leave for the gym for a quick session;
While the boss is busy lifting weights etc., he receives several messages one after the next: another employee is requesting for cash advance; the landlords from the branches are reminding about the unpaid rent; the kids sound disappointed that you forgot to pick them up;
By 11:15 am, the boss decides to ditch his gym goals for the day, picks up the kids, has a quick lunch with the family, takes a 20-minute power nap;
Until 12:30 pm, the boss considers it his break time, and goes online to research for business trends on social media;
Upto 2:30 pm, the boss attends to all the problems he encountered in the morning, and gives temporary solutions because he can’t afford permanent solutions yet. Then he makes site visits on all three branches;
Until 5:30 pm, the boss works on some creative content for his social media followers; then talks to his staff about their concerns, and tries to solve their problems; then he gets a call from a supplier reminding that his payment is overdue;
He also notes there has been no one customer since 10:30 am! No sales generated during lunch; nothing during snack time even; by 5:30 pm, the boss decides to go home because of the “silent service”;
By 6:00 pm, an employee sends a message that suddenly, business has gone really busy, and now almost every customer is upset because of the delays in their orders;
By 6:30 pm, the boss rushes back to his restaurant to help out, nearly running over a dog, with a truck almost colliding with him! Half of the time he was driving, he was chewing his dinner, missing the usual family time;
By 7:00 pm, the boss gets to the business, attends to all customers, offers complimentary drinks to the upset customers;
And at dinner time, people from BIR come by for “tax mapping”; then they discover that the assigned employee forgot to log in the previous day’s sales; the boss gets slapped with a fine of P1,500;
Customers keep coming in non-stop; the boss continues to work like a dog;
By 10:00 pm, it’s the end of the shift; but by 10:15 pm, the cashbox is not balanced yet; 10:45 pm, finally it is figured out, and cashbox is balanced; 11:30 pm, the boss just waits for the staff to clean up the restaurant then he double- checks on every nook and cranny, and does some quality control of the stocks;
By midnight, the boss closes the store, and heads home;
12:30 am, he is finally in bed ready to sleep; but he can’t sleep even until 2:00 am because he keeps on thinking how he can pay off the bills; on top of that, it’s the wife’s birthday next week, and they also have personal bills to pay; and wait… employee wages are due tomorrow!
By 2:30 am, the boss receives a text message: “Sir, resign na ko, sorry, pakalit!”
At 3:00 am, the boss doesn’t bother to get any sleep anymore; 4:00 am, he is still contemplating on his life’s decisions thus far;
By 5:00 am (of the next day), the boss will do the same thing again he did the day previous.
Maybe now you know why “Sige ra suko si Sir; kapoy storya kay Sir.” (Sorry, maybe I’m just attending to too many problems, and thinking of too many solutions.)
“Why not hire people, and don’t micro-manage your business?” (Believe me, most of us bosses really do but the people we hire can’t seem to be trusted.)
“Ing-ana man jud ng business, ayaw sige reklamo okay?” (I’m just sharing here the travails of a boss.)
“Tawo ra pud baya ng employees, sabta nalang; luoy baya na sila, pobre kaayo!” (Bitaw, that is why I am looking for solutions.)
“Be more creative in marketing.” (If only I can find the right person to do it.)
“Basi dili consistent imong food taste.” (That may be true because I cannot anymore check it all the time as I have to do everything else as well.)
“Ayaw na mag gym-gym pa kay naa kay negosyo!” (Bitaw, patambok nalang ko no?!)
*****
Whether or not you see these as realistic scenarios, believe me, every entrepreneur out there has experienced this (or even worse) at some point in their business. And it is brutal.
And believe me, there are many other entrepreneurs who have been contemplating on folding up their businesses due to burnout, maybe thinking it could give them peace.
Well, one thing’s for sure: folding up somehow gave me peace of mind.
________________________________________
Author’s email: [email protected]
