Here is an update on me and the Business

Thank you all for your hard effort through these testing times, you are all greatly appreciated.

Firstly, I have been diagnosed with clinical burnout. I am being told this will take months, many months to recover from but weeks like last week unfortunately push the process of recovery back miles right now. What burnout means is that my body is extremely prone to fatigue. A few hours of work makes my body become exhausted and overly sore. Last week's 10-12 hours days I was doing to help us catch up while we were short-staffed really did a number on my body. What this accumulated to was me going to bed at 7 pm Sunday night and physically not waking up till 3 pm Monday. This is why you did not see me in the shed at Baringa on Monday, I apologize for this.

The road to recovery is led by me not pushing my body to exhaustion anymore and avoiding stress, two things that are extremely hard to do right now. With burnout and the next point, I will touch on, even stress and communication really drain the energy that my body has. So dealing with people and issues really has a negative effect on my body right now. So yes, I am trying to avoid overworking, stress, and communication at this present time. This accounts for the "I don't care" attitude I am giving to most problems that arise in the shed right now.

Secondly, I have also been diagnosed with depression. I am on meds to help with this and we are still trying to get the dosage right to help me get out of the bad moods I seem to always be in right now. The burnout has led to me having no energy to deal with things emotionally right now which is feeding into the cycle. However, something that I didn't make people aware of was over the last two weeks, in fact, while I was at the Baringa shed Wednesday, 2 weeks ago, I received a phone call that my best friend's sister had died of a heart attack at the age of 51.

Her funeral was last Friday, so in the lead up to the funeral and trying to help my best friend cope with the sudden loss of her sister, combined with my burnout and depression I probably wasn't the best person to be around, and I am sorry for that. What didn't help it all was getting to Friday and realizing I would not even be able to watch the funeral on the stream live, as I was too busy delivering parcels to help us clear for the week. It was just not a good week last week for me or many others, unfortunately.

Third and finally, for now, the business has never made a profit, at all. We are busy at the moment restructuring the business and working through new contracts with Australia Post to get it to the position where one day it will actually make a profit. Both Alexis and I take a wage from the business, but it is really just enough to make ends meet. In fact, over the peak Christmas period, I cut my wage to next to nothing just so we could get through the Christmas period and make sure everyone got paid each and every week.

Your position with us is safe, please do not panic or worry. We are taking the brunt of it all so we can help each of you keep working and living your best life. This post is not to worry or panic you, its to simply shed some light.

The company has a lot of debt right now, which adds to my stress and the depression talked about above but we are working through this with our new accountants and we have a plan to get it out of the serious debt position it is in over the coming couple of years. We do not make massive amounts of money from this business and just enjoy the money while you all work hard. The main reason we started paying Superannuation weekly was to make sure all staff got what they deserved straight away and were never left missing out in the case of something happening to the business.

Well, I hope that sheds some light on my current situation and where I am currently at. You might not care or even ask why am I sharing this, but I have heard the whispers and once again we try and be open and honest along with forthcoming as much as possible.

Thank you again for all the hard work you have been putting in over the past few months, we see you, we hear you and we truly appreciate each and every one of you, we pray we can hopefully get some downtime soon to help everyone, not just me relax a little bit and avoid further burnout issues. If you have any further questions, please reach out but I will catch up with you all over the coming weeks and see how you all are then.