so you think running a pizzeria is tough??

[waltertore]

Many of you here know I am a special education teacher at the high school level and have created a full time wholesale/retail bakery/pizzaria/bagel shop that serves upwards of 10,000 people a week.  My classroom is located in the high school and we are thus subject to all the things that go on in a school.    These include planned fire drills//lockdown drills, more than I want to count bomb threats, fire alarms pulled, continually changing bell schedules (affect my students lunch period) and on top of that my students by in large come to me with behavioral issues.  Put all this together and it is often a trainwreck.   I am typing this as we sit in darkness.   The police are going through the entire school with drug searching dogs.  All students  had to put their backpacks/coats out in the hall and we sit  here in silence.  This can take upwards of an hour or more.  Bomb threats  have taken upwards of a few hours and when there is a dangerous person loose in the area we have to hide in our pantry.   This  took all day once.  So,  we  have to stop in midstream with our production, turn off all cooking/baking activities.  Yet we have customers coming in to pick up or we need to deliver things by set times.  These places range from school districts, universities, cafes, and other such places that are selling our products to thier customers.  It is a tense scene when I have to say this days stuff is not happening..............   I wish we were on an off site location and free of all this stuff.   Today our bread production is suspened in mid mix, our cookies/brownies are turned off in the ovens 1/2 cooked.   Luckily our baguette order (70 loaves) are rising.................  Pizza doughs are not out of the fridge yet and luckily we shredded cheese, sliced pepperoni, and made sauce before the lockdown today.   We have to be self sustaining.  The school district pays our utilities and provides the space.   We  have to provide and maintain everything with our profits.  These events often result in a complete days work going in the dumpster.    Sometimes I want to quit this scene, open my own little shop, employ a couple of my former students, make pizzas, breads, bagels.    I can't count how many times in the middle of peak production a student goes off and I have to deal with it and still keep my mind on 2 blodgett 1000 ovens full of pizza, breads, bagels, 2 stacked convection ovens full of baked goods, other students putting together 3-10 recipes, and often an administrator calling me into the hall because a parent is upset with something.  Schools are becoming an ever increasing bummer to work in.  Pressures to put my students in all academic classes (taught at the 1-3 rd grad level and they are 18-21) most of the day are always trying to take over.  Yet there are no academic based jobs in our society for skills at this level and conversly there are endless entry level jobs my student can attain with the skills they learn in the bakery.  I have to jump endless hoops to legitimize what I do as well as do 30-100 pages of paperworkl on each student, deal with insane parents.    The list goes on but I will stop here.   SO YOU THINK RUNNING A PIZZA SHOP IS ROUGH?  TRY MY GIG SOMETIME   Luckily summer vacation starts next week and tomorrow is our last day of working in the bakery.  Walter


1 hour later we are back to "normal"
http://www.newarkcityschools.org/content_page2.aspx?cid=1032

[grathan]

Sounds like a great experience for the students though.

[Jackie Tran]

Walter, thanks for giving us a peak into your everyday life.  It sounds extremely busy and stressful.  Yes much harder than just running a pizzeria since there are all the hassles of working in a school.  When I have to coordinate and make pizzas for a family party, I am totally focused.  I couldn't imagine being distracted with bomb threats, lockdowns, firedrills, and a helper just wondering off.  That would drive me insane!!!   

[waltertore]

I had a rough morning and it felt good to type it out as we sat in silence.   Overall the program is running great and we are getting a lot of state and national attention.  My students are finding employment which is unheard of.  My population has close to a 100% unemployment rate as adults.  I have 3 working this summer out of 9 so I feel like I have already exceeded the wildest expectations.  Wearing a lot of hats has been my life.  I just have to take a breath and laugh alot    Walter

[norma427]

Walter,

I can't even imagine what is like to deal with all that you do.  Congrats for all that you do for your students!  I have a granddaughter that has learning problems, but she sure wasn't the challenge that you have to go though almost everyday.  The hat is off to you! 

Norma 

[slybarman]

Keep on keeping on. I could not do what you do.

[Serpentelli]

I had a rough morning and it felt good to type it out as we sat in silence.   Overall the program is running great and we are getting a lot of state and national attention.  My students are finding employment which is unheard of.  My population has close to a 100% unemployment rate as adults.  I have 3 working this summer out of 9 so I feel like I have already exceeded the wildest expectations.  Wearing a lot of hats has been my life.  I just have to take a breath and laugh alot    Walter

Walter,

What you are doing is so much more involved, on so many different levels, than simply running a bakery with "off-the-street" employees. It is easy for people on the outside of your situation (such as me) to look at all the positives in your narrative and think, "Boy! What a great thing Walter is doing, and wouldn't it be great to do the same thing elsewhere! Such as here!"

And then when I hear you talking about all of the variables that you have to face in addition to humidity, product waste, supply chain issues, etc. it really gives me pause... "What would I do to help my employee with autism deal with a high stress situation? How would I tell an employee with Down syndrome that it was OK that they measured wrong and 100 lbs of dough was ruined?..."

You are all at once an educator, care-giver, baker, psychologist, and special-needs expert. Whether you have to wear those hats one at a time or simultaneously you have put yourself in a position of great trust, honor, and responsibility for many individuals.

I'm not sure I have any advice that I can give you other than to say make sure you have one OR MORE real human beings that you can talk with on a regular basis. I am a physician and I could not imagine practicing "solo". There are just too many days when things aren't going right, or an outcome fails to meet expectations, or things just suck where if I didn't have a partner to discuss things with I would probably go berserk! My staff can't comiserate with me; my wife can't really understand my concerns, etc, and so-on and so-forth.

Venting on this forum is an "OK" means of getting support, but although we are here with words and moral support,  at the end of the day none of us can sit down with you face-to-face and just chat about things. And those types of interactions are indispensable for a person in your position.

God Bless you and I hope you get some much needed rest during the summer!

John K

[waltertore]

I appreciate the support!   Being stuck in one of these lockdowns is a drag and I was lucky to be able to use my computer.  Usually they are for intruders/dangerous stuff going on in the neighborhood.  Luckily this was just a drug sweep.   Our school has one of the lowest graduation rates in Ohio so there is often a lot of negative stuff going on.   I love it.  Working with those that are born into multi generations of poverty is very rewarding.   

I do have people to talk to and  yes I would flip without that, my music which I do most everyday, riding my bicycle to work, and a lovely wife of 33 years.  I invite anyone on this forum to stop in anytime for a visit.   We love visitors at our bakery.    The day ended beautifully.  Lots of sadness with goodbyes to my graduating seniors.  Life is all about hellos and goodbyes.   Here is a link to over 5,000 of my songs.   If you dig it go to the widget link and it streams my most current 200 songs.  My  music has kept me alive and continues to be my source of rejuvination.   I have had a wonderful life so far.  Walter

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=157137

[jeffereynelson]

I agree that giving students an actual skill can be very helpful for the students. It would be neat if more school did this. I remember watching a restaurant impossible episode where a school high school in Ohio ran a restaurant and the students could apply the for class. That seemed really cool to me. I wonder how they dealt with all these same problems and having customers sitting down in the restaurant for lunch? Maybe they just had to close on days with some type of drill.