Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Becoming an Owner


Last Spring when Dev hired me, I became the newest member of the Patty Pan team. I felt lucky to find a group of people who shared my values about food and work and who were so much fun to be around. In late Fall, when Dev proposed turning the business into an employee-owned cooperative, I felt honored that I was asked to be a part of it. I would be able to dedicate a percentage of my working hours each week toward owning shares in the business. No monetary investment up front. All sweat equity. It seemed too good to be true.

On January 1, 2013, when Patty Pan Grill officially became Patty Pan Grill Cooperative, it didn't seem right that there was no fanfare. No unveiling ceremony. No document in the mail. No ribbon cutting. It is a strange feeling to change from being the employee of a business to becoming a partial owner. Gradually, along with the excitement and starry-eyed dreams, I started to feel the weight of responsibility. Having spent most of my working life as an employee, I realized how different it was going to feel to be a part of owning and directing my place of employment - exciting, empowering, but scary.

The transition from sole proprietorship to a cooperative is bound to be interesting and challenging at times. We have all depended on Dev as our fearless leader and she has been incredibly fair, open and accessible. However, now we will have the opportunity and responsibility of weighing in on decisions. Voicing our opinions must not only reflect our own self-interest, but the health of the Cooperative as a whole. Thinking of the all the aspects of our business, from relationships with vendors to annual reports to rolling tamales is overwhelming. Fears creep in about my own inadequacies and what my new role will demand.

It is a big experiment. The only way I'm going to have enough courage to take the necessary steps is to make the transition real by celebrating it. If fanfare feels needed, I’m going to have to make it happen! Accordingly, later this month we will have a party for ourselves. Probably won’t be spending a lot of company funds on booze, though. When you start to be personally responsible for the bottom line, your perspective shifts a bit.



"i must become the action of my fate"  must become the action of my fate" --June Jordan

Friday, January 11, 2013

Becoming a Cooperative

Six years ago I came up with a five-year plan for my future,  right around the time my lovely landlords in Ballard sold the building I was leasing to some not-so-lovely landlords. I was going to take five years to learn some marketable skills and then sell the Patty Pan and do something less physically demanding.

A few years went by and I realized that I didn't want to sell my business. I love what I do: working outdoors, hanging out with farmers,  bartering for amazing ingredients, and getting folks excited about eating vegetables. I love market culture and I love being self employed. I've also seen businesses under new ownership go downhill and I didn't want to see that happen to Patty Pan. I care about it too much.

But the summer season can be grueling and I'm not getting any younger.

Patty Pan has fabulous employees, folks who come back year after year even though the work is seasonal and tiring. I don't know if you've ever been served by them, but folks are always telling me how pleasant and committed they are.

A few years ago I started talking to a couple of key employees about sharing ownership of the business but the time just wasn't right. This year, the time felt right. The business is making a profit and it's become grown above and beyond anything I could have created myself, in part because we've built a shared knowledge base and we have enough collective experience to keep getting better at what we do.

So we've become an employee-owned cooperative, as of the first of the year. It's been quite a journey. Every cooperative is different: most cooperatives start out as cooperatives, with a group coming together and deciding they want to build something together. Patty Pan started out as a sole proprietorship, and we've had to figure out how to share responsibility and revenue in ways that were fair to everyone. The arrangement had to offer enough to members to make them want to join, and it had to offer me enough to make me want to share.

We crafted a set of bylaws that cover everything from how we'll share equity, to how we'll distribute profits, to how we'll make different types of decisions, to how we'll kick out someone who is stealing. It's been quite a journey. I'm feeling happy, but a bit disoriented. I know I'm disoriented when I can't figure out what I want to eat.