What a Week

Startling Transformation
I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Big time. I felt sluggish, tired, annoyed… and then I got to work and discovered that we were down two staff members. (One has been sick all week; the other resigned.) Then Albert had a go at me for my slack marketing efforts. (Slack? HELLO? I’ve already pre-sold more than half our initial order of Knit Picks and made sure that every knitter in Australia associates them with our store!) Argh. So I said “Stuff it” and decided to work in the shop all day. Pretty masochistic, really. But get this: I had nothing but wonderful customers! There was the older lady who was thrilled to find out that we could match the wool she got in Tasmania last year to allow her to finish her jumper. There was the businesswoman who wanted yarn to sew up a blanket that had been intended for first her friend and then her mother, but both had died of cancer before she’d finished it. (“Eh, it’s not the blanket’s fault,” she said.) There were the three Asian design students who oohed and aahed over everything I showed them. There was the American lady who needed something to knit on vacation and found the perfect Australian wool. I even had someone who wanted to return yarn without a receipt, but she was so nice about it that I happily helped her out. Even the presence of my Knitting Nemesis couldn’t deter me. I’m on fire! So my crap Friday turned out to be a good end to the week after all. Sometimes I think I get caught up in the idea that I’m somehow too important to be serving customers… but it’s nice to be brought back down to earth every now and then. This is why I got into this business in the first place.