Pivot- piv·ot/ˈpivət/
~ The central point, pin, or shaft on which a mechanism turns or oscillates. (noun)
~ To turn on or as if on a pivot. (verb)
The word pivot has a lot of meaning in my day-to-day life, more than you would think.
In belly dance, we do pivot bumps, which is turning a dance move called a bump in a circle, and we use one foot to pivot on while doing calibrated spins which is four spins in a row.
Chefs have to pivot on a dime in the culinary world and even in my kitchen. This has two meanings. The first is to turn in their cooking stations from one to another quickly. For example, they pivot from the work table station to the stove or oven then back again.
The second pivot in a kitchen is to change the food preparation or menu from one idea to the next for various reasons. I’ve seen many chefs on Top Chef use this word during one of the cooking competitions.
A chef must adjust if a sauce “breaks” during service by fixing the problem or removing the sauce altogether. A chef may also have to pivot if an ingredient has an issue or availability. Being able to think on your feet is essential in any kitchen.
When the pandemic hit, it became a pivotal point for many businesses. Restaurants needed to pivot by changing their dine-in status to take-out only or to make family-style dinners instead of individual meals. Some restaurants had to close entirely. This is still so sad to think and write about.
Many other types of businesses needed to pivot quickly during the pandemic or risk going out of business. For example, by offering zoom classes for dance, yoga, or exercise. Some switched to zoom for business meetings and employees working from home.
Some people had no options to work, such as landscapers and hairstylists, until mandates were lifted. This was such a scary, terrible time for all of us.
This week we needed to pivot our business plans for the rest of the week. It happens quite often, so we are good at it now. Our production schedule can change daily depending on orders that come in or deliveries that need to go out.
During the pandemic, the biggest pivot or curveball for us was not getting the packaging we used to pack our spätzle in for retail stores. We had to use three different kinds we didn’t necessarily like, even though we knew the difference, they cost three times as much.
This week’s productional pivot came about because of Mother Nature. Getting orders to our wholesale customers needed to happen, snowstorm or not.
When Marty got up on Thursday, he saw the weather forecast for Friday night through Saturday night with the possibility of dumping 12-15 more inches of snow.
The original plan was for Marty to drop me off at the farmers market on Saturday, and then he would make our deliveries in Albany and Schenectady, NY.
Typically, we would make these deliveries after production one day during the week. Still, with the rise of gasoline prices, we decided we couldn’t afford to make that extra trip anymore and make our deliveries on Saturdays.
That plan changed quickly because we couldn’t risk the weather forecast and could not make the deliveries on Saturday. The stores in Albany waiting for our delivery would still be open and busy with customers coming in for food even if it storms, especially if it storms.
So after a shorter than scheduled production week, we loaded up Skye (my pickup truck) on Thursday and headed down to Albany. We were glad we did since one of our best customers was completely sold out. Now we knew their customers could get our product for the weekend.
We also decided not to go to our farmer’s market today on Thursday. I am glad we made the call because the storm did precisely what was predicted for a change and started dumping snow during the market hours. As a company that makes a fresh, perishable product, we have to decide early since we make spätzle specifically for the market a day or two ahead.
It’s always a little depressing getting these late winter snowstorms. Hopefully, today will be Mother Nature’s last hurrah for the season. The difference with these kinds of storms is they don’t last long like they do in January. Vermonters call these storms “natures fertilizer.”
It felt strange yesterday not being in production on a Friday and staying home today. We can’t wait to get back to normal next week.
Lastly, why all this made me think of the word pivot is beyond me, but I decided to write about it anyway to describe my week.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, guys, and don’t forget to spring ahead by one hour tonight! It’s always been worth it for me, even when the kids were small, losing an hour of sleep to have it stay lighter later. Now, spring is literally right around the corner.🙂