05/10/2026
Something happened today that has been weighing on me. It’s the weekend, we’re always busy on the weekends, especially Saturday and Sunday mornings/early afternoons. Well today our POS operating system, Dripos, went down. It happened a couple weeks ago also so most of our employees transitioned to manual order taking and an off server order taking workaround pretty quickly, having just had to do it so recently. It was obviously slower and frustrating and most people were understanding. We have a few new people so it was harder for them but even our veterans were getting frazzled trying to keep everyone happy and orders going out smoothly. This outage affected all three of our shops, both Main’s Treat locations and Downtown Pretzel Co. Poor Jon was just about at his breaking point all day trying to get it resolved. Now mind you, our workers are absolute rock stars. They always are but under stress they really shine. We are extremely proud of them and also very protective. They sometimes have to deal with people who are short tempered, unreasonably demanding and downright cranky, or they have to fend off unwanted overly flirtatious people, late night intoxicated people, etc. We are very protective and have had to step in several times on their behalf. Today while Jon was busy dealing with Dripos we had someone who came in and was less than happy about the system being down. He threw several temper tantrums, absolutely berated and yelled at the poor girl on the register and left and returned again only to start bullying her again, yelling about “what kind of an operation is this? Do you even know what you’re doing??” The poor girl was almost in tears. Please understand, THESE ARE YOUNG KIDS!! They are good kids and absolutely the hardest workers. They do not deserve to be bullied and verbally abused like this! And this was all over a gift card! He was angry that he couldn’t get, or it was taking too long to get, a gift card for a Mother’s Day gift. “WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW??”
Now, while this was happening the next customer in line behind him left and went to Village Florist and purchased flowers which she then brought back to give to the cashier. She told her “I hope you can start your day over and make it a good one” That’s it. Two people were dealing with the exact same situation and one chose to deal with it in one extreme and the other chose the opposite extreme. One probably stomped around all day on a beautiful Saturday afternoon with a black cloud over his head and the other chose to do a simple act of kindness and probably felt the sunshine and heard the birds and was happy just knowing she chose kindness.
We are getting ready to celebrate a friend’s 100th birthday this week. She is one of my favorite people (I love you Shirley May!❤️💐) and when she is asked what’s the secret to living a long happy life? She always answers “Always be positive. Be kind. Choose happiness” and that is exactly how she is. She has had to deal with some things that would make anyone unhappy, including a pretty bad fall last year that involved a broken leg and in patient therapy for weeks. While she was there she got Covid. She never once complained. She chooses to be positive and happy and when she is around you she makes you feel that way too. Be like Shirley May and the kind customer with the flowers (Thank you! I really wish I knew your name!) Be like them. CHOOSE KINDNESS!
