Hello, Sir

So this amazing person came in the store. He had wispy shoulder-length silver/grey hair under his hat and these small round old-time glasses with dark lenses attached. He came in wanting to know if this was the museum where he could talk to the Indians. As I tried to tell him about Tamastslikt, I realized that he was quite high. He could not focus on one thing for longer than a span of a sentence or two before catching onto a tangent. Apparently he is a photographer and a writer. He told me about his travels in the Congo, with corrupt border guards that enslave people and pygmy elephants that leave trails deep into the jungle. It was quite interesting stuff and I believe that he would have talked to me for longer, but we were about to close when he came in so I had to encourage his departure after a while. He apparently wanted to talk to the Indian elders and get them to build a "real" sweatlodge in his backyard and teach him how to net fish for salmon. Good luck, Sir, and thank you for filling my evening with such interesting tales. :)

Sidebar: A tour just came in (finally!) and there was only 16 of them, but they bought 9 of my tin whistles and a handful of twig pencils. Yay the things I've introduced to the store are sellers! Especially when we don't sell much else. ^_^

The Slow Time

So things have been really dead around here. No one's traveling and it's cold. Supposedly, I should be getting a lot of things done but I'm kind of at a loss at what to do. It's worrying. I know that in a few short months, things will pick up and I'll barely have time to keep up...but right now, I can't order things because there's no money coming in. I can't price and put things on the shelves because I haven't ordered anything. I can't attend to people and sell things because there's no one coming in.

So........I rearranged the whole store. xD I decided that the Civil War stuff, as that is our main *new* exhibit right now, should be easily seen from the doorway. And...it kind of cascaded from there. I'm not entirely sure the new configuration works, but there's not enough people coming in to really tell. You see, there are two main audiences that I'm trying to appeal to:
Families with kids and school groups, prominently displaying bright and shiny and interesting toys & souvenirs.
Adults and boat tour groups, prominently displaying touristy items and higher-end merchandise.

I think my configuration is too weighted towards the kids. I've seen a few people glance in to the store, see all the kids stuff, and not feel the need to come in. I'm not sure how to fix this just yet. Though, I'm sure having the merchandise so spread out doesn't help. My shelves are looking a little skimpy since I haven't been able to order things yet. The task I keep coming back to is making a list of all the things I'd like to buy. When the time comes, I'll have it ready to go!

Achievement!

So the Director came in and promoted me to Store Manager officially! *does a little dance* My "supervisor" hasn't been in much at all recently and I think he's hoping to allow her to focus more on her own stuff. Not that the store could have been that much of a distraction. xP He was apparently going to tell her first (to follow the chain of command so to speak) but he said that if he didn't do it now, it would never get done. I also got a $1 raise! Which I'm supposed to keep quiet because no one else does? I dunno what he meant by that but yay a promotion and a raise! I've never gotten either of these things. Life achievement, check. AND it's retroactive. So all of my hours since the 1st of the year all of a sudden more money. Life is good. ^_^

Squee!

This morning, a box came full of books and other things. The director had mentioned it to me several times, but I wasn't sure if it was his stuff and mine to sample for the store or just mine for the store. So I nabbed him as he came back from rubbing elbows with a member. We talked about that and some other schemes that I've been assigned to work on. As he was leaving, I thanked him for giving me his time (he was listing all the things he needed to be doing today). He responded by thanking me for doing a good job.
"I'm trying."
"Well, you're succeeding."

8D Squee! The director is happy with me and what I've been doing!
He also talked about how perhaps they should just put me fully in charge of the store so I can know what's going on (I was gone yesterday, and my "supervisor" made some odd changes). So I might be made official full manager soon instead of just acting manager with an assistant title! ^_^ This would be exciting, as I've never worked in a position where I could get a promotion.

New Year Success

It was a couple of late nights, but I got the inventory done before the new year! *Success* I said I would, but I hadn't realized how hard counting can be; some of the merchandise is here, but some of it is over there and also in the back room. Our numbers were very off, so hopefully this helps straighten things out. Apparently one of the past store managers was "receiving" orders twice, once when she ordered them and again when they arrived. And another did everything in adjustments so there's no paperwork trail. Then there's the problem of some items having multiple numbers. >.< Hopefully I didn't make too many mistakes and it all works out. I've been looking forward to doing inventory since I was hired. Counting and organizing things? So fun. ^_^ Now I'll have to go back to making up my own projects as it's the slow season until April. However, our slow season hours have us closed weekends, so I get the same weekends off as my boyfriend and everyone else for 3 months!

Also, milestone: one of the days right before Christmas, I totally had a day of profit over $1000! Though, some of that was memberships and donations, so not actual sales.....but it still counts for me!

Sometime in the next month or so, I hear we have evaluations. The director does a bunch of paperwork and then takes us into a room and talks to each of us for an hour. Yikes! I know he's fairly happy with me, but there's also a lot to my job that I'm still learning. I don't want to disappoint anyone, especially since I wasn't hired for previous expertise. And there's so much, I'm sure some stuff has fallen through the cracks...so I'm a bit nervous. Also, starting fresh this year also means that it's all up to me now. I can't blame things on past people because all of this year's numbers and choices will be mine. So much pressure to do it right! I'm sure everything will go alright. Right?

It Could Only Happen Here...

Do you ever get in those conversations where if anyone heard you out of context, they would be completely confused? I get this happening a lot when talking about gameplay (videogames). But today, it happened at work.

A man came into the museum. Not in a rush, but very purposeful. He stopped long enough to ask me if the museum director was in "Yes," before walking right back out. A few minutes later he came in holding some sort of old beat-up gun. He walked right past me and on towards (presumably) the offices. I get on the phone and page the director.
He answers (which almost never happens).
"There's a guy headed your way with a gun."
His voice all of a sudden is very cheerfully excited, "I love when that happens. Thank you!" And he hangs up.
I stare at the phone for a minute. Was he being sarcastic and is now alarmed? Should I have specified? Or is he genuinely happy? I shrug and go back to work.

He was genuinely happy. We have since had a conversation about how I should indeed specify if a man with a gun comes in angrily looking for him. Otherwise, I'll just enjoy the ridiculousness.

Trouble in Paradise

I've been having some trouble with my "supervisor." That is in quotes because she doesn't really do much supervising. Once they hired me, she wanted nothing to do with the store. I've been getting most of my support and help from the bookkeeper. Which is fine, though a little annoying when she pulls her rank on me when she happens to want to be gone the same week I do. Though I can't complain too much because she hired me without doing an interview or looking at my resume or anything, simply because I've been around volunteering and she knew me and knew people liked me (which is how I hear the world works). So yay for that.

My problem comes from the fact that she basically stole three finger puppets from my store. We just recently got them in and they've been a huge hit. (Points for me because they are the first company I've gone after to bring in a new product!) First, she wanted me to sell them to her at our cost instead of the actual price (divide by .6 to get the price with a 40% profit). I told her she had to talk to the bookkeeper about that because I wouldn't even know how to make that right on the computer books. So she took them to talk to the bookkeeper....and apparently merely showed them to her before taking them home.

It has been a while and she still hasn't payed for them. I've asked her about paying a couple times and she comes up with excuses and jokes it off....and what can I do because she's technically my superior? I've mentioned it to the bookkeeper, who's talked about waiting a bit more and then she could always take it out of her paycheck. But I don't want to make enemies...it's a rough situation.

Then one of the days she was subbing in for me, another finger puppet goes missing. The computer thinks we have two when physical inventory is only one. I can't prove it was her. It's right around Christmas, so there are actually a lot of people coming in. Maybe it was one of them. But with that past problem, what else can I think?

Hopefully this is resolved soon. I don't like office drama.