I Cried Over An English Muffin
A story of burnout.
I cried over an english muffin once.
I worked as the Front Desk / Concierge at Hotel Yountville in Napa eons ago.
This was, and still is, a fancy hotel. I helped make 10-15 weekly French Laundry reservations for guests staying with us (Napa concierge had a special number to call back then). I got guests into highly sought after wineries for private tastings, wine tours, cave dinners, and unique Napa Valley experiences. I thrived off of providing excellent customer service and helping our guests create memorable experiences. I was there early, I left late, I took on overtime work, I covered shifts last minute. And I was what I thought was an exemplary employee.
At that time, we were proud of having these amazing, famous, Oprah’s list english muffins in our restaurant, sourced by none other than Napa’s Model Bakery.
My manager raved about them mentioning that he’d had a few (for free) from our restaurant the last several weeks, and that they were incredible. So I asked him to get us some. There were only two of us on my team, and both of us worked ridiculously hard, surely we could get 2 free english muffins. He scoffed and said no and said that we could go buy our own from the restaurant during our break. Yes, buy.
As he was leaving, big, full tears dropped from my eyes uncontrollably. They didn’t even slowly roll down little by little and get absorbed into my skin as I cried. At least then I could do some sort of casual swiping maneuver with my sleeve to mask my crying. No, these tears? They were full and they dropped… onto my thighs (picture blood dripping from a blade onto the floor, low velocity impact spatter style, kudos to crime show education! lol).
He saw this and 10 minutes later showed up with the english muffin, along with clotted cream and strawberry jam in the cute little jars you’d only find at fancy hotels.
I didn’t get to enjoy it the way I should have. My pride had stepped in at that point and was like “No, Janet, excuse you, we are NOT eating this right now.” But 30 minutes later, hunger overcame pride, and I ate that god damn cold ass english muffin. It was aiite. Certainly nothing to rave about.
When I reflect back on my life, there have been multiple times where something like this has happened, and it’s usually when I hit a breaking point and burn out. I would cry these big, heavy, wet droplets of tears over someone simply asking “how are you doing?”.
I realize now though, that it is never about the actual thing or situation at hand. It wasn’t about the english muffin. It’s everything that leads up to it. All the hard work, the long hours, covering for coworkers, bending over backwards to make the impossible possible, the draining customers and guests, my executive who thought my job was easy, being the yes-man, being what I thought was a model employee, the time it took away from my family and my personal life, the regret for missing my best friend’s wedding so that I could meet a deadline my exec asked me to meet only to realize they didn’t even look at my work until a week later, etc.
Here’s what I learned:
Expectations - Don’t expect certain things or expect things to go a certain way because you work hard. Work hard because you want to work hard. Not because you expect something to come your way. Having expectations of others can set you up for disappointment.
Good vs. Bad - There IS a difference between a good manager and a bad one. A good manager knows how to treat you like a human being.
Put yourself first - Go to your best friend’s wedding. Don’t miss out on important events for yourself or your friends and family. Your job and your executive won’t always be with you, but your friends and family will.
Acknowledgement - I’m not someone who needs to be thanked all the time. I enjoy being behind the scenes. But at the end of the day, all EAs, including me, like being acknowledged and thanked every now and then, especially when we work so hard to help make our execs and their team and company successful and happy.
Have Empathy - Understand that an exec’s or a peer’s anger or frustration almost always is NOT about the situation at hand. It’s probably stemming from other things that led up to that point.
Model Bakery’s english muffin (which I’ve had more of since then) is actually very delicious, but only when it comes straight out of the toaster!