Prestige Mode: New Mexico Operators Start At Level One

Over the last week, operators big and small have come to terms with what this transition means for them.

It wasn’t disruptive simply because it changed the way people have to do business. It was an impromptu pop quiz—one that tested how well operators actually knew their businesses. Closed book, bare bones. No calculators, no phones.

Shakedown

How quickly could you identify the problem? How well did you understand your systems and processes? Could you get your entire team on the same page? And once you figured out what was broken, could you come up with a solution fast enough to keep the business moving?

It didn’t matter if you were a good noodle, how much money you had, or how prepared you thought you were. Like a house party getting raided, when CCD kicked in the door and yelled, “Pussies on the pavement,” the entire state hit the floor at the same time.

They say it’s not about how hard you fall. It’s about how quickly you can get back up.

And I don’t know about you, but one of the worst parts about falling is lifting my head and realizing some other motherf*ckers are already running ahead of me.

Cramming

That’s where operators found themselves starting last week, by 8am on the 8th, operators were up looking for answers, and sometimes the answer came from the oldest support network there is: asking a neighbor.

Like being stuck on a question in school and quietly asking a classmate what the hell they got for number seven, operators started comparing notes, sharing screenshots, testing workflows, calling one another, and collectively figuring out a system none of them had much time to prepare for.

NMS2S tested software knowledge, but it also exposed something considerably more important, not every classmate was experiencing the same tests.

Name Tags

One of the most frequent challenges hitting almost every operator right now is the labels.

Something that seems so simple at face value has the ability to literally cripple an operation. Because you don’t realize how much shit has to go right just to get a label out of a printer.

First, there’s the data.

What’s the product name? How much does it weigh? Can I scan it? Does it need a QR code? What’s the now NMS2S lot number? Is all of that information correct?

Then you have to ask where that data actually lives.

For most operators, it lives across different systems. Those systems feed different templates, automations, integrations, and printing workflows. When those systems are suddenly no longer connected to the same data, it doesn’t matter how well your process worked before. The chain is broken.

Then there’s the hardware.

Loadout

Everyone is running different printers, different models, different drivers, and different label sizes. Some operators are printing 2×1 labels. Others are running 3×2 or 2×2. A template built perfectly for one operation might be completely useless to the next.

And this isnt something you can do on the fly, all of this assumes you have a stable environment to begin with.

You need power. You need internet. You need the right printer connected to the right computer with the right software installed. If you’re using a system like Dutchie, you can add PrintNode and its printer configuration to the list of shit that has to work before that little piece of paper comes rolling out.

That label is more important than it looks.

It’s the physical bridge between distribution and the store. It connects the product in somebody’s hand to the information living inside all these systems. When the barcode doesn’t scan, the lot number doesn’t match, the data is wrong, or the label simply won’t print, that bridge starts falling apart.

And suddenly, something as stupidly simple as printing a fucking label becomes the thing holding up the entire business.

Ghetto Fabulous

The fact that some operators are figuring out how to get orders out the door without all these fancy systems is becoming an eye-opener of its own.

People are starting to realize they’ve been spending thousands of dollars a month to rent a Ferrari they’re never going to drive anywhere near its full capacity.

You’re paying for the motor, the decals, the seat heaters, the stereo system, the badges—the whole package. Meanwhile, you barely sit in the driver’s seat.

Hell, the only thing you’ve ever really used is the cigarette lighter.

This transition hasn’t just exposed how dependent operators are on technology. It’s forcing them to understand what that technology was actually doing for them in the first place.

And once you understand that, another possibility opens up, maybe you don’t need a Ferrari to babysit, you need a Mustang to horse beat on.

Cyberpunk

Technical prowess has become part of doing business. You need people who understand the systems well enough to know what they’re doing, where the data comes from, where it needs to go, and what actually needs to happen in between.

But we’ve also reached a point where building some of these tools yourself is no longer reserved for software companies and development teams.

The equivalent of being able to weld something together in your garage is here.

Operators can build their own micro-apps, automations, and internal tools designed to do exactly what they need them to do—and nothing else. No giant software suite. No pile of features nobody touches. No paying for twenty capabilities because you need three.

And you can do it for a fraction of the cost.

The real expense is increasingly becoming time; the time it takes to understand your process well enough to build around it.

Which brings us right back to the pop quiz.

Because you can’t build a tool around your business if you don’t actually understand how your business works.

Lowered Expectations

It’s natural to feel like you’ve worked too long and too hard to be struggling this much.

But Father Time remains undefeated.

What’s happening now is living proof of that. When the tricks thats worked yesterday stopped working, and the systems we depended on snapped like dry rubber bands. All that remains is your bare fundamental knowledge.

You will be tested. You will be judged. And eventually, you will be held accountable for how well you actually know your business.

Experience might get you to the exam. It doesn’t guarantee you’ll pass.

Shelter In Place

What’s been bestowed upon New Mexico operators is nothing short of chaotic, and may result in a herd thinning event for the industry.

And not just because of the symptoms, it because of the confusion. No one is on the same page, sometimes in within the business.

People don’t know what works, what doesn’t work, what they’re supposed to be doing, or when the tools they’ve spent years building their businesses around are coming back online. Every answer seems to create another question, and every workaround comes with the possibility that you’re creating another problem you’ll have to clean up later.

I’m not here to lie to you.

Some people are going to have a harder time bouncing back from this than others. Some people haven’t even logged into their NMS2S accounts yet.

For businesses already operating with one foot in the grave, and the other foot on a banana peel, It’s not losing 6-days from the blackout, its the not catching up fast enough since that’s going to be the issue.