Robust Toy Bridge

Toy Bridge: This has become my favorite part of the store!
Grateful-J put up this metal strip for me to display books,
but it's too narrow, so little goodies go there now.

 

 

Bear ^ is from a hot-plastic mold machine at the zoo.

ABOVE: Macho Baby rattle, made in Hong Kong. Waddya guess? 1970s?
Baby Miss Piggy. (I think she looks a little like Linda Sue's baby friend Flora.)
Puppet is King Friday XIII, from Mister Rogers.

Only problem--people snatch up most of the items, and I don't have enough little tchotchkes to keep it continually filled.
Only cool ones go here--of course we have lots of the usual Precious Moments figurines and stuff.

Revision: Be Robust

I deleted much of what I posted yesterday about Big Boss (BB) and Ass't Man (AM).
I keep having to decide/revise what I want to go on the permanent record.
(I've started labeling it Thriftstore Diary rather than Bookstore Diary, because it's hardly ever about just the books.)

In this case, it's not just that what I wrote was negative and analytical (rather than a story example, which I'd prefer), it was also incomplete, one-sided, and, so, inaccurate.

See, I talked to AM for an hour in the parking lot last night and was reminded of the other side of the story.

AM never "manages" me anymore, so I rarely see this side of him, but it was what we'd had conflict over from the start.
You know how I so appreciate the phrase, "You aren't the savior"?
AM kinda thinks he is.

It's a burden for a person to carry that expectation of their self, and it's an affliction to others! But he thinks they (our coworkers, and BB) should thank him for imposing his "salvation" on them (us)!
Oh, dear.
No.

Here's the thing: AM said he grew up with the teaching that you should always leave things better for the person after you. And that efficiency is the goal.
Well, that's fine.
But efficiency and improvement are simply NOT everyone's main goal, and he judges them harshly, personally, if it's not--like they're stupid and wrong.

I can see that efficiency is not BB's main motivation.
Whether I like that or not isn't the point--it's what I have to work with.

BB does drive me crazy with his inefficient retail management, as I am always saying, but I also give him full credit that he's GREAT at people. And I value that more.
He is unflappable (usually) and sees mad, sad, and bad behavior as ... hm... coming from woundedness, not stupidity.

AM seems to think people are stupid or something if they act badly.
That's just wrong. I mean, incorrect. (Well, usually. But intelligence levels are beside the point.)

The other day, a squirrely woman came in looking for help choosing out furniture--she had a voucher for a free bed and stuff. (Different organizations give these vouchers to people in need.)

She talked indiscriminately, at a mile a minute, but she was friendly and coherent and open.

"I've been clean for a year," she told me. "I've got a place of my own now, so I'm getting furniture."

"That's great," I said. "Congratulations! Mr Furniture can help you."

"Thanks", she said. "Yeah, last year I was one of those people out on the sidewalk here."

"How did you get out?" I asked.

"I guess it was God," she said.

OMG. That reminds me of what BJ, my store-friend who died of lung cancer this spring, said--coming from her own, intimate experience of drugs and prostitution:

"The people on the street acting crazy
hate it as much as you do."

I do wish, wish, wish that BB were as fluent in the nuts-and-bolts of retail as he in people skills--in things like shelving, and displays, and price tags--and all the side of retail he doesn't seem to care about--or gets wrong.
(He bought a new price-tagging system for the store a couple weeks ago, and I could tell immediately that it was way too complex, and too flimsy, for our rough-and-ready store, and that it was going to be a Big Problem. Sure enough, someone already jammed --broke?--the printer part of it.
We need ROBUST, not efficient systems.
We've gone back to hand-writing tags, which is pretty much foolproof.)

HOWEVER...
I am at the store because I LOVE the philosophy of BB, and others.
Which is: efficiency isn't the goal. Saving people isn't the goal.
Lumpy and backward and misguided as it may come out,
Love is.

 _______________
De-Odorizing

I bought a batch of dolls cheap ($11) on Mercari.
When I opened the package, I could tell why they were cheap: the odor of Musty Plastic. I soaked them in vinegar water, then they spent a couple days in a bag with baking soda. This morning they smell slightly better. Next effort: a day in direct sunshine.

Below, short-haired Spike welcomes the new 'Madeline'--her name is Stripe--who'll be staying here. "We're sisters!" (Most of the girlettes are cousins, they tell me, but some few are sisters.)
The other dolls (including the standing Bratz doll, from the store) are all birthday presents for IG friend Fiona.

Stripe, below, drying her dress on a pumpkin.
Her plastic still smells a bit, but the dress is fresh.