There are many aspects to running a successful business. You might be familiar with some of these- helpful employees, properly working register systems, advertising, maintenance upkeep, etc. But who knew that one little pitfall in this unique balancing act of running a business would turn our world upside down.
Late last year we were experiencing some problems with our plumbing system here at the store. We had a plumber come out and "fix" the problems that we were having and we thought that would be the end of our plumbing problems... boy were we wrong! After calling the plumbers back out to the store several times, we discovered that our pipe system was completely destroyed and had to be replaced. Now, around here "tenant improvements" is like a four letter word to us, so at the very mention of this, our hair started to stand on end. Not only was this "replacement" process going to take some time to complete, but we also had to worry about being without plumbing for several weeks, issues with running water, continued safety of our store, concerns about the smell, and having our back break room torn up and basically unusable during the repairs AND on top of all of that headache; we still had to continue to have our store open for business, complete customer orders, meet our book deadline for our publishers, and work on the next edition of Curry’s Chronicle. To sum it all up – a complete nightmare.
But being the most dedicated staff in the entire world such as we are, we successfully made it through almost pain free and even made our deadlines. We had some good laughs about the huge hole that was in our break room that exposed the broken pipeline. Jokes about "accidentally" falling in or "accidentally" pushing someone in, gave us a chance to make light of the matter at hand. And I am almost certain that if we didn’t have as many deadlines as we did during that time, that I would frequently find either Marie or Rusty or even Kelsey playing in the mud creating all kinds of sand castles and things. When customers asked what was going on in our store, I teasingly replied that we were mining for gold. And of course, not having a working break room makes for some mighty fine lunches courtesy of Rusty and Marie.
Now that the repairs are complete and all the workers are out of our hair, we are beginning to get back to that perfect balance of running a successful business. But then again, what is a successful business without a few hiccups along the way?
--Amy