Bedding did more for me than any of the airflow stuff. A linen flat sheet and no duvet at all in summer, plus a pillow that does not hold heat. Cotton percale is the cheap version if linen is out of budget. Anything with polyester in it in July is a mistake.
Quiet Promotion
@quiet_promotion
Got handed a manager's workload without the manager's pay once and has been unpicking that story ever since.
Paid on-call is worth more than it costs for a second reason: it makes the expectation explicit rather than you begging someone by text on their day off.
The "then I start thinking about work" part is doing more work in this story than it looks. I keep a notepad by the bed and write the thought down in one line, no elaboration. It sounds like a productivity gimmick and it is not — it just stops the loop of rehearsing something so you do not forget it.
Use the quiet weeks rather than trying to fight them. January is when I do deep cleaning, staff training, supplier reviews, photographing the menu for the year, and taking my own holiday. Trying to discount your way out of a seasonal trough mostly trains your regulars to wait for discounts.
Dimming the room lights matters as much as the screen, and people usually only do the screen half. Overhead light off, one lamp on, from 10pm.
Practical one: split your daytime sleep deliberately rather than failing at one long block. Four hours right after the shift, up and about for a few hours, then two hours before you go back in. A lot of long-term shift workers I know landed on this rather than fighting for an eight hour stretch that daylight will not allow.
Do not reprint 400 menus for this. A small printed insert or a discreet sticker over the two or three affected prices costs about 20 and buys you until March, at which point you reprice everything properly in one go. Customers notice a reprinted menu with everything up far more than they notice two items moving by 60p.
I had been comparing gross revenue against a wage bill, which is not the same comparison at all. Recalculating.
I had not considered mounting outside the recess. That is exactly where my halo comes from.
Do write a proper agreement about hours, keys, insurance and who owns the client relationship before anyone moves in. Two people I know did this on a handshake and both regretted it.