If I tried to run a restaurant, it’s the dishes and daily cleaning that would do me in. If I ran a restaurant it would have to be a questionable dive in the middle of nowhere. Never look in the kitchen and don’t ask what that is staining the table top.

In my current low volume, low margin side hobby/business, it’s boxes, packing and forms that get to me.

What I hope is the last batch of ink a client has ordered arrived today and I now have the job of once again performing packing magic. I’m not looking forward to this.

To get the box to its currently packed state I performed advanced Tetris level packing that I now have to undo.  I also will probably have to find a new box as the current one is at its volume limit. Luckily, I won’t be able to ship anything out until Monday so I’ll have a lot of time to work things out.

At that point, when I go to the post office, I’m looking forward to seeing the looks on the faces of the post office staff when I hand over boxes of different shapes and sizes and envelopes of different shapes and sizes all going to different countries and all with different shipping methods.

They, however, will get to enjoy the look on my face as I fill out several different types of forms, some of which I’ll never have seen before and at least one I’ll have to fill out twice.

This kind of minutiae is why I suspect that many young business fail. Owners like handling the stuff, and some like selling, but very few like keeping track of inventory, boxes, packing materials and money. Similarly, it’s probably more fun to be a cook at at restaurant than to be the restaurant’s owner. At least as long as dishes aren’t involved.