Due to Mr. Turtle’s Extended Deployments in Fall 2022 and Spring 2023, Tinking Turtle will be halting Repair and Finishing submissions.
What does this mean if I already have a piece with you?
- If you have already mailed a piece to me or I have issued you a codeword and you have submitted your Customer Intake form and plan to put your piece in the mail promptly, your return date for your piece will not be affected.
- If you have been issued a codeword and have not submitted your Customer Intake form, please check in with me to ensure you can get your piece to me in a timely manner.
- This announcement only affects outstanding estimates or new inquiries for repair or finishing services.
I’d still like to have you work on a piece for me!
Great! I’d love to work with you! We are currently booked out through the holidays, and I’m unsure of what my bandwidth will look like with both our children in school and Mr. Turtle being gone. Instead of accepting any more repair submissions and booking myself out through the summer of next year, we will be creating a waitlist like we did both times I went on maternity leave. I’m also working to arrange to have a few other businesses to point clients toward for more time-sensitive needs.
I’d like to know more about how you came to the decision to do this with your business.
Great! I’d like to explain to you more! Please read below the cut.
And now for the story part of this decision!
When I was first getting started with the business, and I had this… calling to be in the fiberarts, the person who pushed me and enabled me to do this was Michael (Mr. Turtle). Many of you have seen him when I’ve been teaching at fiberarts shows hauling my materials for me, taking care of the children so I can teach, and in the background of my business issuing invoices and taking care of the books. Michael is a foundational part of the reason I was able to do Tinking Turtle – from telling me this hobby could become a business, to pushing me to do further learning, to encouraging me to track my time and know what I am worth.
During all of this 13-year journey, Michael has also had a calling to serve his community and country. He’s been active in Scouts BSA since I’ve known him, working in administrative and supportive roles. Believing strongly in everyone’s right to vote, he’s worked nearly every election, big and small, for the past 7 years. He’s been a part of the Coast Guard Auxiliary the whole time we lived in Metro DC, and then continuing in the Richmond area, serving as Flotilla Commander multiple times. He helped found a nonprofit, The Chris Sousa Foundation, to help with families and service members dealing with suicide. And a few years back he came to me, telling me that he had a strong drive and desire to use his computer security background and management talents he’d gained from working at Capitol One, to serve his country and community.
Michael started the process of applying as a Navy Reserve Officer about a year before the pandemic started. After several rounds of interviews and speaking to a number of professionals, he decided that the path that would work for him was as an Information Warfare Officer. The normal progression of training for his specialty got thrown off during the pandemic, but he’s been slowly working in his unit to make the onboarding process for other’s easier, make connections with other units, and progress his own qualification as he’s been able.
However, as he has had more trainings come down the pipeline that have been travel ones (as opposed to online trainings), it’s become clear to me that running my business, managing a household and parenting two young children is too much. It’s been hard on my mental health and it’s been hard from a time perspective. I don’t want to let clients down, but it’s also discouraging to have to tell people that I wouldn’t even be able to work on their piece until 9 months out from the day they contact me.
It’s been hard staying on top of deadlines even as Michael has had shorter stints away – there’s been a few times in the past year I’ve had to get in contact with clients to shift around deadlines. While everyone has been understanding, flexible and accommodating (thank you for being great clients!), there’s still been a real mental load on me managing the workflow without my main administrator helping with half the work on running our small business.
This last week Michael came to me and pointed out that when employees are having a hard time they have options for FMLA or extended leave to deal with stressful situations. Good businesses want to keep great employees and realize that everyone is only human. But as a small business of 2, we are the HR department.
So this bring us to now, as we try to arrange for me to have a leave policy in place with the upcoming travel that Michael will be doing. I want to thank you, both past and current clients, for your support and understanding. I and to thank you for understanding when emails take a lot longer to answer, and when turnaround times have to be adjusted. And I look forward to working with you all in the future, again!
