From the Desk of Tony…

We’re just back from a long trip to pick up machines and equipment. It was a 2500 mile or so journey in a 26 foot truck taking about 65 hours through some pretty bad weather. I always
vow to stop doing this as the time away from work and the effort involved in is not often worth the trip.

This time, there was a more strategic reason for doing it and even though it wasn’t fun, it served its purpose. We also get the chance to meet with some store owners. It’s not always nice to see owners who are closing their stores, but both had valid reasons for doing so and a lack of sales wasn’t the main issue.

That was about the end of the similarities. At one pick up, the owner left after meeting us – leaving us to move his extremely dirty custard machine and assorted equipment down a 120 foot cement ramp and into the truck. We actually threw away gloves after touching the custard machine! The other owner met us, helped move equipment down the road to truck and load it. Also bought us a cup of coffee.

I couldn’t help but think about how each owner probably treated their employees. I know operators face huge challenges finding and keeping labor at the moment but have to think that some of their actions may make things much, much harder.

One side benefit of the trip is time with employees with not much to do but chat about our plans for 2026. As I said, I vow not to do these trips anymore (a failed New Year’s resolution already) but the trip does help with employee engagement that has to be worth a lot too.