Hi friends! Well, as far as I know I only have ONE subscriber (I am grateful for you, C!) so it should just be Hi Friend!

Anyway greetings from my cheap apartment in a smelly building in flatbush. It’s called Prospect Lefferts Gardens but that’s bogus. It’s flatbush and I’m proud of it.

This morning I had the pleasure of speaking with a few dear friends from the food business. Before I quit Free Bread I had some really cool colleagues who dealt with a lot of my horseshit and vise-versa but mostly the other way throughout the years. One friend, let’s call him Harry, is a manufacturer of high end olive oil. We spoke about the food business and what is going to happen to the world given this pandemic.

I can’t believe how much has changed over the past three weeks. First it was the cancellation of Expo West, which put many already vulnerable NYC-based participants in deep scary waters. After spending tens of thousands for their booths, insurance, giveaways, flair and travel, etc., panic is high. Most of these companies barely survive in an industry where expectations by marketing companies, distributors and retailers are great and expectations by landlords and insurance companies are greater. The city’s recent increase in the minimum wage has further thinned what was once a small profit, if any. Many food manufacturing businesses’ labor expenditures went from 19-30% within days of the wage hike. One could and should argue that pre-15$/hr profits were exploitative, earned off the backs of their employees. And that one would be correct. However our government mandates a number, not human decency, so you can’t fault business owners for following the rules.

Now the restaurants are shutting down so the distributors are fucked. And the bakeries- it’s everyone. And I am happy that I don’t have a business right now. And I am happy that I don’t feel fire in my belly and fear in my soul.

But here’s my favorite part about this. I know it’s terrible. No one is unaffected, it’s a catastrophe, ok. But let’s play who is more fucked than anyone. In my game, it’s

CORPORATE REAL ESTATE. The rent seekers. It’s a glorious story arch.

Plain and simple, businesses of all stripes burn trillions on rent every month. So as I write on this, my mom’s old mac from 2009, and everyone with office jobs is ‘working from home’, employers will hire or engage existing tech staff to build or perfect remote capability for every employee, winnowing the labor pool to the essential and rendering exclusive office space a luxury that most companies will no longer need or want to pay for. This, unfortunately, is a good opportunity for the douchebags at We Work and Knotel, etc. to drive business and increase their portfolios. That is if they survive this 21% loss in the stock market. It’s fun to think about the industries and how they rise and fall over the decades, like waves or or heartbeats.

I have no money in the stock market-well, I mean, I could have ended the sentence at the word money, but today I want to write about the buying, selling, and trading of stocks and bonds. Please accept my disclaimer that I know absolutely nothing about this world despite the fact that I worked in financial institutions as a very indolent administrative sorry executive assistant from 2005-2010. During those years I made a lot of money (in my world) in salary and bonus (over 100k in 2007) and collected a nice little nest egg in a 401K.

I think this nest egg was up to 16K by 2012, the year that I drained it so I could use it to grow Free Bread. I took big tax penalties for this and I probably used it unwisely because I had no financial support system to teach me how to access or spend affordable money for my business but nevertheless, ever since I drained my 401K I obviously have no money in the stock market.

And here’s what I have learned about the stock market since having and losing a small business. I have learned that I don’t believe in capitalism if capitalism means having a stock market. I fundamentally disagree with the premise that we are allowed to invest financially in a business that we have no otherwise connection to. It doesn’t make sense to me from a very practical standpoint.

I give 800$ to Namecorp but I don’t know anything about the 2-1000 people who are at the top of the org chart, much less the bottom. Who is actually making the calls. I have no idea what people and other businesses those people have fucked over to get there, how many women have been sexually assaulted or how many immigrants have been stolen from? How many rules have been broken? How much money is overseas? How many sex offenders? How do I know that the person spending my $800 isn’t using it to pay uninsured sex workers? Or to build a future fiasco product that will bankrupt the business? And why does Namecorp want money from me, who could just as easily be Charlie Sheen as not be Charlie Sheen? Because they don’t care. Nobody gives a shit about anything anymore.

These public companies who are traded on the stock market are only releasing 20% ownership in exchange for cash. This is a governed minimum and was in fact raised in 2017 from 10% which is just astounding. So the vast majority, 80%, is still private, and its public will never have any say in what the actual companies are deciding to move forward with. They are allowed to know exactly 20% of the stuff that’s really going on in that business. What is that, quarterly earnings, if they or their financial advisors bother to look, which likely won’t happen unless there’s a giant dip in the market. So nobody cares what the company is learning or collateralizing or failing in unless there’s a giant dip in the market because its all about the share price but the shares have become so liquidated by people who genuinely don’t care because they have too much stress in their private lives or in their own businesses. Most of these companies are decades if not centuries old and the people involved in the day-to-day operations have not learned from the mistakes that the founders and then their successors inevitably made because their egos are too big.

Americans let people get away with far too much nonsense. As long as you get a big enough pile of money together, people turn their heads. And when people turn their heads, the street sweepers stop coming. And those piles of dirt become not unlike that enormous trash glob in the middle of the ocean. So thank you very much, I’ll keep my $800, if i ever make it, and spend it on my vices.

Now I’m not one to complain and not offer a solution lest I become part of the problem. My own experience with a business was that I did not want financial partners (investors) who were not involved in the day to day operations because it seems like a conflict of interest, and way too much pressure to put on the operators (me). So in some ways I opted out of investment for fear that the expectations that came along with that investment would crush me. So you see its a paradox because I got crushed the other way, by not taking an investor. And we are back at “I quit everything.”

And all of this comes back to the 15 minutes that the NYSE gets- the Dow Jones, The S & P 500 and Nasdaq all got their cute little 15 minute halts and the banks get an enormous infusion of liquid to keep the economy running, which is great, because thankfully we have it? Or do we? Isn’t the US in massive debt? And the banks, the rich, are getting the infusion. The rich ran out of money. It’s like, these are crisis measures, erected to fix problems for the rich, made by the rich. And nobody else, no other businesses, are protected. My landlord doesn’t get 15 minutes nor does he get an infusion. Neither does my librarian or my neighbor. Doesn’t anyone else see what is happening here?

I received a direct message on my free bread Instagram account which I largely ignore and don’t receive notifications. It was from a woman named Sarah – which brings to mind another Sarah from my past, but there a lots of Sarahs out there and let’s move 👏🏻on. She has a gf bread product business and wanted some advice.

I just got off the phone from her and found out some bits and biddies that I am very happy about.

• She’s not that much younger than me AND has already had a business that ended so we had a lot to talk about
• She HIRED L AND V AND Y WHO ARE MY FORMER BAKERY LADIES AND WHO ARE EXPERTS AND ARE AMAZING
• She is giving this a go and I am happy and excited for her genuinely and do not feel threatened or envious or negative

I’m very surprised by all of this. I am not accustomed to feeling joy in my life, and especially foreign is the feeling of hope for other people in the same field as me. Maybe I have coronavirus?!

Maybe it’s because she told me that L AND F and Y collectively said nice things about me and encouraged her to call me, and that made me feel good. Whatever the case I’m going to clock this feeling bc it’s a good one.

A few weeks ago I was sort of offered an opportunity to develop a gluten free bread for a restaurant group’s four current and two upcoming locations. It was kind of a lark, the old me would have probably said to this company : “Hey you know what, baking gluten free bread is a royal pain in the tits and in my opinion your 13$ loaves are less expensive than all the bullshit you will start to face once you take over gluten free bread production in your cramped basement” but the new me is saying ” oh my gosh I will totally do that for you and earn the money that you have agreed to pay me.” Problem was, I wasn’t sure how to much to ask. I figured, how do I get these people to pay me to do this? Isn’t this how people make money consulting?

I ran a manufacturing business for 8 years and never made any money, everyone’s always talking about how great it is. So I called my best friend and asked to speak with her husband Tim, who is a consultant, whatever that means. I asked him if he would send me/I could copy a recent proposal that he had written for one of his prospective customers.

In this proposal he sent me, and that I later copied with his permission, he offered a specific company a complex service in exchange for a very substantial amount of money (all relative- to him it’s fair market value). I couldn’t believe how much money this dude made. Had it been me, I would have blacked out the figure, but I’m certain that’s only because my actual number would have been 1/12 of the the number that was on HIS proposal. The number would be lower because I am a woman or because my services aren’t as specialized or important OR because I was never taught/never properly learned the value of money or how much value I can earn in terms of financial dollars.

His services were being offered to a midwestern multi-unit steel manufacturing business with tens of millions in annual profit. My industry (food and bev/ CPG/ Hospitality? I guess? It’s hard to know your industry after you’ve closed a failing business) is not as liquid, but it made me question my industry further as I realize now that if I want to make the dollaz then maybe this is not the way to do it. As a person with recently diagnosed AdHd, this is dangerous. I could VERY easily find myself saying I NEED TO GO TO BUSINESS SCHOOL! I am such a sponge for learning that I really need to limit my attention to things so I don’t veer off.

Anyway I as I mentioned above, I messed around with Tim’s proposal for about 15 minutes (it was very well written) and turned it into a proposal for bread making. I sent it back, asked for some feedback and he said it was good. I also asked a few people: colleagues, friends and family, how much they thought I should ask the restaurant to pay me. The figure people gave me was very low. Someone said $2K. Someone said $2500. Those were good suggestions and The old me would have put next to the line that says “professional fee” $2225.

But this is the new me. So I added 4K to that and sent it off. A few days later, they came back and asked me to remove 2K from the larger fee, I said “sure” and we were off to the races. And now, I’m working there in the afternoons, trying to develop a gluten free bread for them, one that they can use in their restaurants as opposed to buying from a local vendor. Let me tell you something else– I thought making this bread would take me like 5 days max. I was wrong. Very wrong. Baking gf bread is every bit the pain in the tits that I remember.

And yet, despite the fact that this company has crappy old equipment, it’s in a scary basement, everyone’s freaking about Corona and nobody speaks english, I am 100% more comfortable here, working with people who don’t listen to Rod Stewart.

Today the Media’s NYT Daily podcast broadcasted a piece about quitters in current events: Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, etc. I feel like I’m in good company. All of us realizing the the odds are stacked against us and packin’ it in.

I am reminded this morning about the other job I just quit- well actually it was February 15th or something and the driver to actually starting this blog. I quit a consulting gig that I was hired for that obviously, as they nicely say these days ‘didn’t work out.’

I was hired by a billionaire-owned restaurant group to do sales for their adjacent, many millions of dollar state-of-the-art gluten free bakery. Despite the fact that i hate rich people and this billionaire is a well known disgusting pig I thought, well maybe I should try out working for rich people again. Sure, I’ll try that! I’ll work for a billionaire pig’s restaurant group’s exclusive gluten free bakery. I have LOTS OF DEBT. The money they offered was pretty fantastic. It reminds me of brittany kaiser’s situation in the netflix movie ‘the great hack” https://www.netflix.com/title/80117542 which I think is an underreported problem for a lot of people and another blog post. So I signed a contract that stated a bunch of items.

I understand that this is the way the world works. I understand that there are contracts that state a lot of items. These items are meant to protect both parties. but the language in the contract is written before embarking on said gig and so therefore it’s all fortune telling. Also you sign at the bottom to show that you’ve read the items but you haven’t started the project yet so how can you know what hidden conflicts will arise? You can try to anticipate and put them on the next contract you sign after this current contract is sure to fail and and you can try to learn from your mistakes but in this case I had no mistakes to learn from. I’m not even a consultant!

This company, let’s call them Abbey’s Station, hired me to sell their ‘exclusive’ and actually quite delicious gluten free product(s) and in the process help them increase their volume, among other things, according to this contract. It was all marked down on there! All the things they wanted. and I did them. I actually even wrote a fucking marketing plan for them. I never even did that for my own business. Well, I did, but it’s amazing what you can forget you did in heats of productivity. I have so many files from the early days. Anyways three things happened.

1. I found out that profitability was not a concern for this Abbey’s Station’s Adjacent GF Bakery as products were intended to be sold to the restaurant group’s locations at (definitely incorrectly calculated) ‘cost’, then sold for above market price at restaurant location to inflate profit margin at the restaurant level to increase company’s perceived valuation.
2. I actually presented Abbey’s Boulevard’s Adjacent GF Bakery with four food businesses (former customers of mine at Free Bread) that wanted to buy their products. They refused three of the companies because they didn’t want to sell the bread product unsliced (which would have cut on their labor expenses)
3. While at on site at a former customer restaurant location, sampling Abbey’s Boulevard’s Adjacent GF Bakery bread product, I was asked to create a bread for the former free bread customer whose restaurant I was in.

This was a very odd situation to me. Yet I’m sure this kind of thing happens a lot. I’m starting to understand that a lot of things happen a lot and that my experiences are not unusual and yet every fucking day my mind is blown. Anyway ONE of the things on this contract said that I could not do business with any company within 1000 feet of one of the locations of Abbey’s Station locations. Of course, the restaurant group who I was sampling has one location on within 1000 feet of a location of Abbey’s Station. Of course. So I said, you know, I hate this billionaire pig, I hate his adjacent bakery, I hate the people who go to Abbey’s station and I hate the people who like Abbey’s station. So I quit.

Over the past few years I have started to become more and more focused on my lack of children and how it effects my decision making on a day to day basis. While I owned and operated Free Bread I truly felt as though it were my child. My bread baby. I pushed and slept and breathed that business for 24 hours a day. I made decisions on behalf of the business that weren’t even rational, just for a sale or a new customer or another month’s preservation. I took out quickie loans, signed terrible leases, worked packing bread at night, popped bread in the oven, made a delivery, came back to the bakery to take out the bread and pray it hadn’t burned. I’d run to 8 different stores to buy ridiculously obscure ingredients at 3am, baked while drunk AND high. One time I left my delivery vehicle idling in a gas station overnight and forgot it was there. I went on medicaid and qualified for foodstamps but couldn’t navigate the paperwork and wait times so just opted out. During the delivery years I got arrested for vehicular cell phone and illegal left hand turns and spent 2 hours in jail. It all zipped by in a flash of desperation. These are some of the beacon moments of my life in fact- because it showed what I was willing to do for something. It showed me a full economic picture of life for the people with resources vs the people without.

When I stopped free bread I realized that nothing can protect me from loss. Part of me feels like I started the business in lieu of having a child. makes sense, I was 36 or 37…. like, here’s a safe thing that you can bring into the world that won’t crush you, like I know a daughter would. Like I know a man can, and has. Like my friends have. Like my own family has before. Crushed me.

But then after your crushed you’re still alive. I mean I am. right now. I was crushed and yet I’m still here. So now how do I fill this time?

I vacillate between feeling really lucky and really scared. I hope I’m not being grandiose (I can be) but I feel like I can cherry pick. I have no chains. no dependents. no mortgage. No encumbrances. I’m looking for a single or multiple positive moving distraction(s) that can participate or totally fund my living expenses. My living expenses change depending on what that moving distraction is.

I have no money but money has never been a motivator. So one question is: Should I cherry pick making money a motivator? Is that a goal here? Do I want to learn to make money motivate my decisions?

I have all these ideas. Now that I’m not really employed by anyone I figure the best way to spend my time is figure out a new business. While also working on this. COuld this be a business? It’s difficult to keep one eye on the present and future while conjuring up the past and all its foibles. I need to be able to do both somehow.

I’ve hired an attorney because I feel like that was my big mistake before is that I didn’t have an attorney, Well one of the many reasons that I quit Free Bread is that most of the mistakes I made over the years were onces that could have been avoided if only I had paid a lawyer. But I didn’t have time for a lawyer, or the money for the lawyer. Not that I have the money for it now, but fuck it, I am paying this lawyer to help me learn to make and manage my rights. Because you see when i had the business i felt like i had no rights. Can you believe that? How can anyone who owns a business not have rights?

I didn’t have rights because I had no control. I had no control over the business. No ability to stop it. Other than completely stopping it. It was its own insane machine. The employees, the payroll nightmares, the countless hours of terror of not being able to afford my ingredients: the ingredients! paying those ingredient expenses, paying the rent, paying the this, paying the that. I was constantly paying people, left and right. It was a mess. I couldn’t afford to take care of it properly. And I didn’t ask for help. and the reason I had no money was like actually like 100 reasons.

The first obvious question is – you cant be making a profit. Thing is I was making enough of a profit to keep it going for 7 years. I did have a profitable business but I didn’t have anyone to manage it. Manage the ingredients, manage the costs, manage the rent bill, manage the contracts (see lawyer here) manage the paperwork. I did it all. And I did a HORRRRRRRRRIBLE job. Because each section of the business had its own problems. It was my first business, maybe, maybe my last one. It left me feeling bloodied. I’m tired of feeling bloodied.

I have been hired by a restaurant group to make a bread that they can then go ahead and make themselves. I thought it would be easy. Why do I always think things are going to be easier than they are? I am having a really hard time. To make matters worse, when i told my mom that someone was actually paying me to do something I could not successfully earn money from in my 8 year run with Free Bread, she said “don’t you think you’re moving backwards?”

My first thought was, “Well even if I was, would you love me any less?” but I just got pissed off and told her I had to get off the phone. And wouldn’t you know it, the next day I felt so much like I was moving backward. Especially because the bread has NOT been going well. I owned a gluten free bread business for 8 years and I can’t even make a decent loaf of bread in my home kitchen. I am, shall we say rusty. very rusty.

It feels very unpleasant. But I did read something that said “do what makes you stop eating and sleeping” and for some reason it is gluten free bread. is that crazy?

I do a lot of googling, trying to find answers to how to live this life. I am constantly questioning my decisions. I am constantly doubting my abilities, doubting my strengths. How do I learn to stop doing this?

Everyone is living in their unique experiences. Right now my mom is at the hospital with her boyfriend and his son. Right now Jordan is at his 9-5. Right now I’m contemplating my adulthood, my life choices, the way i behave and how I got to be that way. So I’m 44- I’ll be 45 in a month. I guess this is a midlife crisis. I am FINALLY understanding, seriously for the first time in my life, that there is cash flow, there is overhead expenses and there is time. This took me 8 and a half years to figure out and now that I am armed with this knowledge, how the heck do I use it to benefit my latter half of life (assuming I get one or a fraction of one)?! How do I want to spend my time in the this future? Baking bread? Writing a blog? Earning cash how?

I listen to a lot of podcasts because I can move my body while learning. One of the things that quitting the business has made me learn is that I can try to navigate my life in a more healthful way. For me, this doesn’t mean eating better or exercising more. This means listening to my thoughts and going slowly and trying to be patient with myself. I think that I require a good deal of physical movement of my body. I need to be able to stand or walk around during my productive hours. I quit smoking after I closed the business. I was smoking to keep the machine going. I still smoke too much marijuana but I feel like that will be easier to quit since I can knock out an addiction once every 4 years at this point. Don’t worry, I’m not taking up any more addictions.

I know how to do this is just to do it, get it down, in spurts. I have problems getting things down on paper because I am scared of myself- yet I have no fear sharing anything I actually do get down. It’s a weird way to exist. I tried using social but its not a good media for me. Right now I’m living in a really cheap apartment with my boyfriend Jordan. We have nothing- no things. no babies. We aren’t social or cool. We don’t get paid a lot of money. I kind of feel like a lot of people don’t like me. but that would mean that people are thinking about me in any way shape or form which is also a not-given. All of this is ego driven but also what got me to quitting / failure so I gotta look at all of it.

After the fact, 20/20, I think that I was addicted to my business. I had a product that people wanted and that people liked but I was in debt and I didn’t know how to handle it. I couldn’t handle the debt and it wasn’t even that much. I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to suffer anymore. Imagine that, a lady who makes bread, suffering? Why would a lady with a bread business with a cute name suffer?