Diary of a Mad Small Businessman: Part 1(ish)

By Ben Calica

A small retail business guy tries to figure out what to do when the world fundamentally changes around him.

Yesterday was officially one month since the shelter in order came in place and we had the mad scramble to do as much business as we could(safely) before midnight came and the last customer entered D20 Game’s doors. I’ve written previously about the 7(ish) Stages of Shelter in place I went though, as well as the moment when I let the quiet of the world sink in and started to feel a strange peace and even some quiet hope about the breaking of the world and the reformation that might come from those pieces. This morning I woke up at crack of light to the less then lovely sounds of what I later figured out was the pooch regurgitating the somewhat straightened wire that had previously been split ring holding on his dog tag. I’ll admit that there was part of me that was admiring of the dangerous cleverness that he must have employed to get that sucker off. (Damn Border Collie half of his genetics….not entirely sure what to do with a dog that is may well be smarter then I am.)

I guess that I am some blend of those two things. My little world, my business has been blown to shards, and I’m now the old dog who needs to figure out some new tricks. I was pretty panicked and I probably should be more so, but instead, that strange calm seems to be sticking around, so might as well use it for as long as it sticks around. The truth is that I really don’t know if we will be able to survive this. The #%*ing insurance companies have apparently specifically exempted our business interruption insurance from covering for pandemics since the SARS outbreak in 2006 tipped them that this kind of thing can happen. (They didn’t do the flood or earthquake approach of specifically exempting those things and charging bunches extra if you wanted that as high risk coverage. Instead, they crafted the language of the coverage so it happened to exempt this particular thing, but you wouldn’t know it by reading the policy. In other words, if there is a hurricane or massive fire, and the government says, “Yo, idiot, you are in the path of the fire, get out” as long as their is physical damage in the area, you are good. But without physical damage to any buildings in the area, no joy in mudville. Now what type of thing gets the government to say, “hey…gotta shut down, Now!” but does not hurt and physical property? Hmm.)

We also filed to get in line for the SBA loans. Imagine getting in line for something important, but not being able to find out not only if you are in the right line, but if you are in a line at all? And before you even find that out, you find out that they are all ready sold out of what you were in line to get. That was pretty much our experiences with that process. So it is pretty clear that we are on our own here and need to figure this out ourselves.

Three things keep swirling around in the back of my brain, trying to find the way to assemble themselves into the tools I need here: what is the world gonna look like next, what are our assets, and, well, who am I, really? (Nothing major…just a few little things.)

So randomly, let’s start with the easiest one, how will the world change over the next year. (Didn’t know that I had a second job as an Oracle, did you? Ok…historically I’ve been more of a Cassandra than Nostradamus, but this time the only one who I need to get to listen to me is, well, me.) So what has been tickling at the back of my brain for a couple of weeks now, and is becoming much more obvious is that until a vaccine comes out and does for basic human contact what the Pill did for the sexual revolution (Free Hugs, Baby!), that the “reopening” of business is gonna leave a lot of them (us) in the dirt. I adore our local movie theater in Alameda, but they are screwed in the pre-vacine time, and maybe a while beyond. People are just gonna look at breathing in proximity to another person with the same mathematical calculus about sleeping with someone for the first time. Only this time it’ll be, “have you had unprotected breathing with someone else”. Can you imaging being with someone who had had hundreds of potential partners in the last week? That is what is gonna be sitting in the back of everyone’s minds for a long time. The problem is that a big part of who we are as a business is dedicated to getting people face to face, not face to screen. Our best way to exist in the darkness of Amazon’s shadow is to focus on what they can’t do, and that is building and nurturing community. It was the soul of who we are, so now what?

That seems as good a transition as any to get into number two, who the hell am I, really? We do the best work when it is aligned with who we are and what makes our souls dance. Yeah I’m a bit of a smarty pants (yes, you under 30 pups…a little well earned gray does not mean the end of intelligence or imagination. It just evolves and we realize we can actually get stuff done without working 16 hours, including 4 playing multiplayer shoot outs with our coworkers). But I’ve realized over the years that while I have nothing against earning big $$, that I’m happiest when I’m doing some good, particularly for other people. I love the challenge of a good juicy problem, and adore having people to play brain ball with and try and build thing together. But while I know I need enough money to provide shelter for my kids, ideally a little to do some interesting or healing travel, and to be able to help out when the family and or friends need it in emergencies. But that isn’t the bigger metric for the worth of my life. I started in the store to help with some real challenges for my kids. Along the way, I’ve been able to create a space to help a lot of people, to help encourage them as they aim to their best selves and to connect people in ways that I think has them drop more stones of fierce kindness in the world. If I discovered enough buried treasure under the shop to take care of those $ needs from above, I’d spend the rest of my life finding the ways to help as many of those fierce kindness stones to drop in the world as I could. I had been actually considering going back into tech after my 8 years of doing the store, so I could use different parts of my brain and build some things, and as importantly, get a job that actually paid me something. I had, much to my own surprise, planned to keep the store going through that. The landlord crisis we had a couple of years ago put us on the edge of shutting down, and our community made it pretty clear how important we were to them, in ways that put a permanent mark on my soul. At this point, it is pretty clear that my likelihood of going back into tech right now is none to none, and finding a way to evolve the store is the only thing that is currently under my control to try and steer through all this.

So given that our old plans were to expand in person events, D&D etc, and that ain’t gonna work now, as they say in the Princess Bride (I know I’ve used this line before, but it is what keeps whacking around the inside of my brain), what are our assets?

We have a really good community of people who both love us and trust us. This includes a lot of adults and a lot of kids and parents of kids. And they have shown willingness and have stepped up to help both in the past and now. We have a great group of people who both love D&D and can run it for others, though we need more, and the challenge of running things like that for the younger kids can burn through those folks like match sticks. That group is also good for vetting new people so we make sure that anyone doing those kinds of events under our auspices will be people we feel good about. We have a decent pile of inventory, particularly Magic cards, that could transition online if we need to. We have space in the store to run events that can be separated from the front counter area if we want to do so. I have a good collection of current and past employees, including some that could do great things, if distance weren’t an issue. And we have me, a crotchety old sea captain, who spends too much time muttering in the corner table because he feels like limbs are missing because he’s not at the helm of a ship. But I am a stupidly honest/honorable guy who tends to react to adversity by pouring all he gets into fierce kindness. And I take the time to get to know people and understand what we can do or recommend to them that will help them connect and laugh with the people around them.

So in the short term, we will keep doing our mystery loot bags, brown paper morsels of fun that we can deliver to the curb. Expanding from that we start to do D&D online, and as importantly, doing classes/resources to help parents who want to figure out how to do it for their local group of kids. It is more then just a thing to do, it is a chance to get connected with their kids and their kids friends that simply will not happen like this again. If we can figure out a way to create a good collection of really great DM’s, we can help people who need/love the work, and give parents a good, stimulating place to be on an ongoing basis, and a break for them. I also realized this morning that we could hijack the whole online virtual stuff thing for serious good. We can set up a way for the kids to earn currency in real life by doing their homework, etc. that can be used to purchase magic gear that makes you more powerful in the game. I know as a parent, anything that could both turn that into a positive instead of a nag, and take that burden off of them was a serious bonus. And just to be sneaky with my own bit of social engineering, I’ll probably add something in there about reductions in what I see as the digital nicotine in cellphones/screens.

In the longer term, we will need to close off the play area for the store, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t look at opening it on a much more limited basis as a “safe” space for a limited number of kids who are vetted/tested. Whatever we do, it needs to not feel safe, but actually be safe. I’m just not gonna put $$ over someone’s life. One of the few upsides of moments like this is that you get to figure out who you really are, not who you imagine you will be. I’m gonna do what I can to survive and succeed as a business, up to the point where is might put anyone at risk. There, the line is drawn, and if we have to go down, we will do so with as much grace as we can and the power of knowing who we are.