wil and kris (and gracie and ava)

well, it’s been a crazy week to say the least, and unfortunately due to the circumstances i can’t really talk about it. work has been the most upside down it’s ever been, with all of us throwing all clients aside and working on a single project…luckily it’s the summer and none of our regular clients are in town anyways to notice they’ve been thrown aside.

but since i can’t go into too much detail, there is a new positive change that i can talk about instead…wil and i decided we needed to be more healthy so we got a membership at the ymca…although there are a couple y’s closer to our house, we’ve got one about 5 minutes from my work, next to whole foods and the future trader joes (saw a sign posted at the empty building so that’s a good thing!), and a few friends already frequent that one.

we just got it two weeks ago, and haven’t had a regular week yet, but wil and i usually meet there when i get off work mon, wed and fri…wil’s very excited about the ability to swim again (he’s been watching the olympic swim trials nonstop right now btw), and we are happy about the prospect of working out together and being more active. they offer a health scan thing to show you your overall health based on the fit averages of your gender/age by measuring a few things, so we thought it’d be good to get that first off to see what areas to work on. while both of our flexibility was in the ‘needs work’ category, we were both pleasantly surprised to see we had fairly good overall scores to begin with…i told the tester girl when i saw my results ‘i should not work out more often!’ (ha ha, i know i’m such a clever comedian). i also was excited to brag to wil that my bicep strength was beyond the excellent category. ha! it’s probably from all the antique tables and chests and chairs we are constantly moving around our office and at clients’ homes.

so, it’s a good thing we’ve started and it seems like we’ll keep it up.

oh, and the excitement we got ourselves into this weekend? it ended up we planted a tree on saturday (i hope it lives because i saw this morning that ava thought it was a good idea to dig it last night)…and we saw wall-e on sunday. everyone must see wall-e…it was so great. and like all the reviews i had read prior…it’s not just a great animated film, it’s truly a great film, period.

As a Starbucks manager, we are required to order business cards so that upon command we can whip one of these babies out and confirm that we, indeed, make coffee for a living.

So, most everyone knows by now that I was promoted to Store Manager. Right now I am in a sort of … limbo. The old manager is still there, and I get to spend all week observing, meeting employees and customers and sort of ‘taking it all in’. Some of my fellow managers say that this is a great time to create ‘the plan’ (what I want to do with the store.. start mapping things out in regards to partner development, marketing to draw new customers and store cleanliness and organization). I’m doing pretty good with all that and am just sort of hanging out for now.

Tonight I closed with a few partners, one of which is possibly going to be my new ASM. She gets to have a meeting with Te’sh, my boss, and they talk about her development and when and if she’ll be promoted. Tonight we were talking a little bit about that and I think she will be great! She’s got what it takes and I would love to have her as my ASM. Also, her work ethic and personality are very similar to mine, so her management style is also similar.

I also worked with a lady (Pam) who has been at that store for about 7 years!! She knows pretty much everyone and despite the fact that she’s seen manager after manager move through the store, she’s excited to work with me!

Another guy I worked with (Sam) got into a fight with a bum last weekend… he told a pretty funny story and now he can barely walk. He’s a nice guy and has also been at the store for a while.

So far, it’s a great group of people that all know their stuff pretty well! Looks like I’ve got to be on top of my game.

All afternoon, people were coming to me with questions about orgainization, scheduling, ordering, cleanliness… you name it. The funny thing is (and what really excites me) is that it felt so natural for me to answer for them. It was like I could really see my transition into my new role really well, right before my eyes. I am so excited to start planning things and see what we can accomplish at this store. I’m ready, and I know my new partners are ready to elevate the game and bring it to the next level!

Wish me luck!

p.s. I’ve got a picture of my new store somewhere around here… I’ll take some of my own and post them, so you can get a feel of what my new home looks like.

***i was just on, so i thought i’d add the picture that we have on our desktop on here for wil. but of course, i know you would all like to see some more shots… -kris

well…i’ve sat here for about 10 minutes trying to figure out how to intro into this with some witty one liner or clever joke…but meh…this week at work has exhausted me; my brain’s a bit fried. so:

wil was promoted to manager of his own store! a few days ago his district manager offered a store to wil, and he accepted the following morning. he’ll be transitioning to an existing store just straight west from us (technically the nashville district but the city is called bellevue)…not an area we frequent, but it’s about the same driving time that we do for work, going to franklin, etc. he says its a good store in a nice young area- next to a kroger and shopping i believe. and although he’s had fun being in a store with a drive thru at his current ‘royal oaks’ store, he’s excited about changing back to a cafe-only style location. we’ve grown some great friendships over the past few months at royal oaks…i truly hope the relationships continue even without the daily interaction and communication. i think they will… we met some pretty cool people.

yay! i’m so proud of him. the girls are excited for him too…

its been just me at work the past couple days…kind of hard to come back to an empty office, not be refreshed on everything that happened while you were gone and then attempt to run it by yourself… luckily being the first of the year, i don’t think many of our clients have gotten out of the holiday mode and back into normalcy, so the phones have been pretty quiet.

it’s really stormy out right now…i think there are some tornadoes north of nashville and our area is on tornado watch (not warning, which means there’s an actual tornado spotted…watch just means they could potentially form). not too scary, but it’s been very lightning-y with massive downpours and i don’t feel like losing all of our files from the past few weeks with a power outage, so i am backing up all of our client plans, spreadsheets, photos, etc.

the only bummer is that when we back up our main computer, we have to close all the open files on any other computer on the network (we are lowtech i guess), so we are out of commission until it copies everything. it’s usually not too big of a deal since it lasts only about 10 minutes or so, and no one’s here but me so i am not interferring with anyone’s work. but for some reason…either the computer is royally slow today, or we’ve had a huge influx of new files and information since i have been gone…this process is taking forever.

i am pretty much stuck at the moment with no access to anything, except for our work email and the wide open internet. it’s making me realize that if we aren’t pulling paint colors or fabric schemes (which is about 20% of the time), we are on the computer…ordering, researching, pricing, calculating, spreadsheet-ing, drawing in cad, printing, typing faxes etc.

i think a lot of people don’t realize that design is sooo much more than just picking out a sofa that you like. you pick the frame, decide what cushion upgrades the client may need, verify the exterior dimensions fit in their plan, and verify the interior dimensions will be something their comfortable with, and then price. you pick the fabric (assuming they like it and it works well with the rest of the scheme), call for a price, determine the repeat of the pattern and necessary yards, decide if it needs to be backed for durability, and then call the backing company for pricing. decide on an added detail of a decorative braid around the bottom edge? select and price the trim, find out the yardage needed for such customization. make an estimate of all the little pieces so the client sees one price. they give you a deposit? awesome- go ahead and make purchase orders for all 4 of those companies (don’t forget it will be shipped and delivered by another company). they decide they don’t want to give you a deposit? that sucks…all your pricing labor just went down the drain and you’ll probably do it again.

plus…design is so much more than just buying furniture. it’s more than color, it’s more than lighting, or draperies or accessories. hardwood, tile, stone, carpet, casework, reupholstery, antiques, cabinetry, space planning…not to mention any custom details that we design from scratch. when people ask me what i’ve been working on it’s so hard to answer because projects may last for a few weeks or a year (or more), but i am still working on something different every day. and that something, usually requires a computer about 80% of the time. which, *ding* happens to be done backing up (finally!)…

i have absolutely nothing to write about, but i realized it’s been a few days.

today has been a really good day…at the end of lunch carolyn said to me and cassie, “why don’t you two go out and go shopping for an hour or so?” and then proceeded to hand us some unexpected christmas bonuses. we were both floored and not quite sure what to do…go shopping in the middle of the work day???? once we knew she was serious it didn’t take much convincing. : )

so i’ve had a great afternoon to say the least. it might take me a bit to get back into the working mode though…

and another thing: i LOVE hot chocolate like i’ve never loved it before. and i really wish it would snow here but it’s 76 degrees right now.

So, all day today i have been working on my ‘PIAT.’ That stands for ‘Putting It All Together.’ This is a presentation that i have to create that is somewhat like a business plan for my store. The idea is that I have to create a plan that will work to fix a business need that my store has… then i will present it to my District Manager and we will discuss it. It is sort of like my final exam of my training period. My DM will count me as ‘finished with training’ and will mark me as being ready for a store.

I know that I will pass without any problems; and I hope to have my own store by February… the only thing is that I still have to work on this thing today, tonight after work and tomorrow morning. My meeting is at 9am in the morning and I am nowhere near completed. I decided to take a break and took a few pics of the dogs.