We are the Boxcar Children at the thrift store:
"Look, I found a spoon! We can use it for displays!"
"Look, I found a spoon! We can use it for displays!"
Never Enough Room is the name of the game, nor supplies either:
we are scroungers.
This summer, Grateful-J took apart an old bookshelf for me.
He salvaged its three slat boards--they hold display fixtures––and we just mounted the last of the boards in Toys, to hang my Grab Bags.
The woman below is looking at puzzles––good sellers.
The guy is buying all the toy trucks we had in stock. (The two shoppers were not together.)
BELOW: Aren't I clever? I wrapped that yellow bungee cord around the green pillar last year, to dangle stuffed animals on hangers.
Pre–slat board, grab-bags squeezed onto that white pegboard.
(Shelves are around the corner from the slat board too.)
I'm so pleased to have wrangled more space. (The area was a rare bit of dead space before.) And so proud of me and Grateful-J:
we get no retail guidance, much less encouragement to do any of this.
Ass't Man is a supporter. In his home life, he makes lamps and things from scrap.
Big Boss tends to view innovation with suspicion. I didn't ask him for permission to hang the board, we just did it while he's out of state at a conference.
AM decided not to apply at Meetings-All-the-Time Thrift Store, but... now Salvation Army is hiring managers, he told me.
He's pondering.
I advised him to gather information, at least.
Some conflict will turn up wherever AM goes, because he brings it, but at least SalArmy would pay $6/hour more.
(I do have reservations about the organization--SA is a militaristic religion... But hey, we work for a Catholic organization, and it's not like they're champions of equality/)
It's a hard call when you're in a rocky place, but you're growing.
Do you tough it out? How long to stay? When to leave?
BB mostly leaves me alone, and I hope to stay at the store forever.
I'd said when I started that I'd like to work in BOOK's for the rest of my working life.
And now, in Toys.
Toys are a pain, because people often donate them broken and filthy. Broken, as in unfixable, finger-slicing, cracked plastic.
Filthy, as in unremovable marker scribbles and lipstick stains.
Nothing for it but to throw them out.
However, there's also the category of fixable and cleanable.
How much to bother? Given the very real limitations of time and energy and space... (and value).
I did take these two cuties home and threw them in the washing machine. They were both filthy, but endearing. The monkey is a Boyd, the beagle is a modern cloth (not mohair) Steiff, neither very valuable.
It applies to cool old thrift too. And bloggers. Thank yoU!
Thank you too ❤️
ReplyDeleteso telling about the employees coming together to make the store a better place. i'm betting that if BB went back and looked at the sales since the improvements started he would see an increase in sales.
ReplyDeletesometimes it's better not to ask but to go ahead and do! it's almost like a secret organization that gets together and makes things better.
i think AM will have an issue at the SalArmy-- they have become very corporate in their behaviour.
kirsten
ps the boyd monkey is absolutely darling. interesting that steiff is now going into less expensive materials. i wonder how does that affect that brand???
GZ: heart
ReplyDeleteKIRSTEN: Steiff still makes the expensive mohair toys too. I was surprised to see this one--not very well designed---the beagle tips forward...
Yes--sometimes it's "easier to ask for forgiveness afterward than permission beforehand"
INDEED---sales are way up! Since Ass't Man redsigned the back room so people can easily shop electronics and hardware. I give him a ton of credit with generally freshening and beautifying the store. (If only he were better at people too.)
SalArmy is problematic...