Beware: The very traits that drew you to entrepreneurship just may trigger your demise.
Could you wait fifteen minutes for a life-changing outcome? As I stood beside my friend — a fellow entrepreneur — at the packed deli, the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd pushed us up against the glass and the clanking of silverware drowned out the sea of competing voices clamoring to get their orders heard.
No, we hadn’t a clue it would be this much of a zoo late on a Sunday night at the least picturesque, far-from-Instagramable spot in the desert. Apparently, Sunday night is when delis come alive (at least this one), so the minimum wait for a table was 20 minutes, and take-out orders were 10 to 15. Nonetheless, we came in with a plan, so we put our names down and joined the huddle of famished patrons.
Here’s the problem with sit-down delis: You’re right there, sandwiched up against the display case of ready-made dishes, the entire time you’re awaiting your table. In other words, the temptation for a hungry patron to dive into the to-go case and call it a day is not insignificant. However, that’s why we have self-restraint…or a plan. Unfortunately, my friend decided around the 4th minute of a 20-minute wait that the temptation was too strong and the sit-down wait too long.
Thus, he committed the cardinal sin (of life, food ordering, and entrepreneurship): He impulsively changed the plan last minute, scrapping the French Toast and Blintzes (sit-down only) we’d been looking forward to and opted for a mish-mash sampling of random deserts.
11 minutes later, he dug into the chocolate silk pie (after a few bites of a severely dry carrot cake and a very disappointing cannoli). With a furrowed brow over his insatiable eyes, he asked me: “Do you think this is as good as the French Toast?”
It should have been a rhetorical question, as the answer was obvious: No, of course the stale to-go sampler deserts weren’t a fraction as high-quality or satisfying as the warm, gooey French Toast and Blintzes the deli was famous for (that brought us here in the first place).