In September of 2021, my restaurant staff was more tired than words will ever convey. The team had lived through the onset of Covid together. All of them stayed with me and the restaurant, through closures and re-openings, through masking and pivoting into a market, through distanced seating and outdoor seating.
And they needed a break.
That September, the mask requirement was lifted. And so I made a call: we closed the restaurant, and we all went on vacation together. We called it “Staffcation.” We jumped in Lake Superior and hiked mountains and white-water-kayaked. We cooked meals, took hot tubs, and played music. And we all came home a lot closer and ready to face the holidays.
Staffcation has now become a September tradition. The team just got back on Friday from four days of quality time in a cabin on Lake Delavan in Wisconsin. It always feels so good to escape our roles and see each other as ordinary people.
It makes me wish everyone, everywhere, could go on a Staffcation.
Reader, the world feels increasingly angry to me. But being an optimist, I still like to imagine that people want to be good to each other. They still want to be loved and accepted. They still have families and lives and interests and qualities that would endear us to them if we looked beyond the roles they fill. So this week, I’m going to continue to try to look beyond positions and into the person, and I invite you to do the same. Let’s try to see each other better, I’ll see you next Monday. -Em
