2024-03-17 16:19:16
Three weeks following opening, we faced the holiday season. It was a very important period of the year for rice cake workshops that sold rice cakes, bean paste, and jeonggwa to increase sales by selling gift sets. However, I am not one of those who consume handmade gift sets, and my mother was also a consumer who only gave fruit as gifts before starting the workshop, so we faced the Lunar New Year together as if we were heading to the ground.
While preparing to start a workshop, my mother had learned a few recipes that might be sold as Lunar New Year gifts. While looking for Lunar New Year gift sets from other workshops, I tried to put together a gift set that was available at our workshop using the recipes my mother had learned. We decided to start a business together, and our roles were naturally divided into my mother’s role in production, accounting, and mine’s marketing and planning.
My mom said she would be lucky if she might sell just a few to her friends. Of course she doesn’t expect to receive large orders following just three weeks of being open, but even so, she mightn’t agree with the attitude that she would simply sell a few and be done with it. As the number of acquaintances who came to celebrate the opening stopped, there were days when there were no customers visiting the store. She decided to join a business, thinking it was a visionary venture, but she was worried that she had painted a too romantic picture of the future. However, I soon came to my senses by remembering that I was not an employee, but a CEO who worked with my mother. It’s okay for employees to just wait for the company to move toward a romantic future, but CEOs must act until that romantic future is drawn. With the idea of selling at least one more item, we posted a promotional photo of the gift set on a platform accessible to our workshop and even set up our first paid advertisement. As I began spending more on advertising, I was worried regarding whether I would be able to recoup my investment and became more desperate for sales. The time waiting for my order to come was very anxious.
My mother’s anxiety was a little different. When a custom order came in, she was solely responsible for keeping the deadline and creating a menu that would satisfy customers, as well as for the production area of creating a menu with consistent quality yesterday and today. We needed time to persevere even when we were anxious, for my mother to get the hang of the job and for me until the store promotion was recognized by many people.
In the end, only a few orders came in for the gift set promoted during the Lunar New Year period, and thanks to an acquaintance’s chance, I received an order for 20 mooncake sets and was able to experience mass production like any other workshop for the first time. And for three days before the holiday break, my mom and I faced an emergency every hour or so. After tying up all the gift wrapping, I realized that I didn’t put in the ingredients, and when I put the recipe I learned into practice, the dough became too thick and the cookies split, my hands were slow, but the amount was too much, so I mightn’t get off work until the night, until the customer came to pick it up. The dizzying situation of tying a wrapping cloth unfolded.
As I was busy producing, I received a call from another acquaintance who wanted to order a Lunar New Year gift set. Her mother immediately rejected her guest, saying, “You need to order the gift set in advance. It’s a day before the Lunar New Year holiday, so we don’t have any ingredients. I have a lot to do with the order now.” At that moment, her greed was so overwhelming that she asked her mother if she should receive at least one more.
“We should get at least one more person. If this doesn’t work, we can at least suggest that.”
“We’re too busy doing this right now. And the holidays are right around the corner, so I can’t make it right away.”
Of course, I was very busy, but I was still disappointed because I felt like I might definitely get an order if I just finished it right now. But she had already baked more than 300 mooncakes, and as she watched her mother’s face gradually turn white, she quietly swallowed anything else she wanted to say.
After safely completing the bulk order, it was time to take a breather with my mom as we cleaned up in the dark workshop.
“Should I have taken that order earlier?” Her mother said with a much refreshed expression.
“No mom? She asked, “Where is the person who just said no?” “You only have half a day to spare?”
My mom laughed because she was embarrassed, I laughed because she was funny, and most of all, we burst into laughter out of the feeling of refreshment following completing a task that was very burdensome.
“I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to sell a lot during the Lunar New Year, but we got some sales thanks to a friend’s chance? Mom seems like a real workshop boss now. “You’ve also placed bulk orders.”
“Okay, I think I can do it now. Skip the rice too. “From the very beginning of opening until now, chewing a grain of rice was like a grain of sand.”
With a much lighter heart, we quietly let out the anxiety we had been swallowing. We found out later that there was a time when we tried not to express our concerns so as not to make each other more sensitive.
“Mom, you had a hard time.”
“You worked hard too.”
We will definitely remember the first big hill we climbed together for a long time.
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#Episode #swallow #anxiety #wont #visible
