grocery runs, meal coordination, and the stress of living with two other people who suddenly saw me as a mother figure. Ellie still didn’t even seem sure that she liked me, which made it hard to force her to sweep and do her laundry. Two weeks of living with them had made it abundantly clear that neither of them had really been taught how to clean.
Putting together this stupid operations manual had forced me to see exactly what was going on in the shop. To intimately face the failure of Dad’s attention to detail. To stare down every speck and spot to which I’d been turning a blind, overwhelmed eye.
For every process I knew about the shop, more questions popped up that I was clueless about. Maverick combed through Dad’s paperwork to get clues when we didn’t know answers. Called vendors. Even contacted Dad’s most loyal customers. And he constantly had decisions for me to make. All of that meant the operations manual had inched forward like a broken slug.
But now it loomed in front of me.
Everything I wanted seemed to lie on the other side of this. We couldn’t truly improve until we’d swept our way through every part of this store, put in an efficient process, and documented it.
My brain hurt just thinking about it.
Jim’s expression ran through my mind, tugging at an already-weak system. The wariness of his gaze. The utter lack of caring. I couldn’t decide which was worse: that he’d left the girls willingly for the summer, or that he’d figured me out so quickly.
This wasn’t just a goal. This was their lives. This was Ellie and Lizbeth facing down the ugly Jim monster.
Court rooms.
Custody battles.
It was about more than just winning. We had to destroy his ability to ever get them back. And I had to do it before the end of the summer, a mere two months away.
With Ellie and Lizbeth upstairs reading Ellie’s favorite horror story out loud, I opened my computer. The shop was closed and quiet. I’d changed into a loose pair of sweatpants, flip-flops, and an old college T-shirt. My hair perched on top of my head in a messy bun. I liked the feel of Dad’s stuff around me as I pulled up the operations manual documents. With one last, determined look at the machines behind the counter, I pulled up my first document.
Time to get truly serious.
When I started to type, a desperate punch of energy hit me. All the things I needed to figure out came together slowly. Emptying my thoughts onto the page made it much easier to think this operations manual through.
Organized procedures
Efficient decisions
Don’t crowd the workspace if more than one person is working.
Need a cleaning section.
Ooh, can’t mix two of those chemicals—BAD BAD.
Work culture
Smile with every new customer?
We’re here to bring the joy and the caffeine. (Could be a T-shirt logo.)
How to deal with an angry client
Validate
Team has each other’s backs
Do not accuse or throw coffee no matter what happens, FULL STOP.
What to do when the Wi-Fi goes down
Or the power
Who to call if the furnace dies
Make a list of all contacts for maintenance? A maintenance flow chart!
Maintenance flow chart
Espresso guy
Wi-Fi company
Furnace guy
T-shirt person
Coffee bean company
Things to write procedures for:
Length of brewing time
How to restock the creamer
What kinds of milk to buy and when
Cleaning out the fridge
For the next two hours, the systems of running a coffee shop poured out of me. Night descended fully. Traffic outside slowed. I scrounged in the fridge for a diet pop, then sipped it to make it last while I typed, and typed, and typed.
Sometime around midnight, I hopped myself up on two servings of iced chai. At one point, I made a cup of coffee, taking notes on every single step. Snapped pictures of the espresso machine and uploaded them. Created a chart with details on different types of roasts and how they tasted based on what Dad used to say. (No way was I going to drink them.)
One o’clock in the morning closed in.
In the midst of everything, I drafted an even longer list of ways to clean the shop up and increase our profits. Stop stocking those gross scones, for one, and introduce cupcakes. Just because I didn’t like sugar didn’t mean I shouldn’t sell it. This was America. Everyone else liked sugar way too much.
Eventually, I moved to the biggest table at the front of the store to allow myself space to stretch out. My fingers ached. A cup of green tea kept