ETSY and the Bowels of Retail Hell - Welcome To My World

I'm fairly certain that this will be my final "call out to vote" on LJ Idol this session. It's a write-off between me and another very talented author, and I'm simply in too deeply. No real time. I'll put the link for voting here, and I'd love to get more than the two votes I had already received as of this morning, but I'm not holding out a lot of hope on this one. My opponent wrote a lovely piece and, so that's how it can be and probably will be. Nonetheless, if you're up to voting for me, the link to vote is right here. Read my opponent's piece also, though. It's excellent. Here's the link: https://www.dreamwidth.org/poll/?id=32317

I have my write-off story up on LJ Idol (link is above 
in the paragraph). If you're so inclined after reading the 
two entries to place your vote for me, I'd REALLY 
appreciate it. If not, that's OK too. This is a really hard 
time of the year for me to take the time to write something 
excellent. And I've had a total BLAST participating 
in this challenge with so many talented people. 

Today I start out with swimming, then a quick breakfast, and then on to the shop. I have two mail orders to finalize so that I can mail them today. I'm stumbling over what Etsy is charging people for Priority Mail, my computer screen decided that I didn't need that information *sigh* and we were BUSY towards the end of the day, so I couldn't finalize the orders the way I usually would. Crap! Sometimes having product on Etsy is a total PITA. Every time I have one, I go onto their website and they've changed a BUNCH of things, making me re-learn stuff just to process the sale. ARGH! 

There are times when I really hate Etsy. I don't mind 
selling down product on it, but their format is becoming 
harder and harder for me to navigate easily. 

It's a "day off" today - a joke because days off are not in my wheelhouse. Today I need to make a soup for the next few days of dinners, and I also need to make my Ogre Juice - something I can usually reserve for my Fridays except I had my last one yesterday. Still, if possible, I'm going to try and take my Friday off and get it done then. I work on Sunday, so I can't really squeeze it in then, and that's too many days away from "Ogre Juice" anyway. I'll have to check my calendar quite carefully when I'm at the shop and make sure I also have Friday off this week. 

I might have to purchase this book and add 
it to my book list to read. I'm sure there's a 
lot in these pages that I would be able 
to associate with. 

So, from the bowels of retail hell, I'm striding out to drown those flames in the swimming pool. I think I really need a serious exercise session because my life right now is insane! Have an excellent Wednesday and please vote, if you're so inclined. I appreciate all of the support I've had from all of you over these past few months of LJ Idol. It's meant the world to me! Slava Ukraini. 

Retail Hell Starts Today - Be Kind to your Shopkeepers and Sales People

So, it's time for Retail Hell, aka Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. Actually, it's not horrid - we usually get an opportunity to see many of our long-time customers again and wish them a Happy Holiday season. But, it's the start of our holiday schedule also, which means this upcoming Sunday will be my last Sunday off until Christmas. *sigh*

I'll be waving good-bye to my Sundays off 
starting next week. I have a real love/hate 
relationship with the Holiday season. I 
used to adore it, then I started working retail. *sigh*

A guy from our security alarm company showed up at the shop on Wednesday afternoon to install the new equipment etc that will have our security system feed directly into their call/alarm center instead of having to dial out to them. It's the final cog in our going 100% digital. Except, of course, my system, being as old as it is, is not being cooperative. The tech finally figured out what was going on and what he needed to do, but it was already 6:30 pm, Jim was chomping to get home, and so was the tech. So, today is "Second Verse, Same as the First" with the change that at the end of it all, we'll totally be off copper wired phones and alarms and into the digital world. Of course we'll have to do the whole thing again next year at home, but at least this is one huge step. 

We'll probably have a much easier installation of 
digital equipment for our home next year than we've 
had for the shop. When we close the shop, I'm grabbing 
those new digital phones and they'll go home and replace 
my copper wired phone system. 

So, I told the tech that I would be at the shop by 7:00 am, resigned myself to getting up at 3:00 am today instead of my usual 4:00 am so that I could get my 45 minutes on the treadmill going before anything else, and I'll be on time. I still have to eat breakfast, but it's not even 6:00 am yet, so I'm right on time. 

I'm running tight on time today, but still have a bit 
of room to breathe. Barely - LOL. 

Still, I can't spend a lot of time chatting with all of you. I'll let you know tomorrow if I have functional phones or not. *sigh* The phones themselves are still coming up with "place holder" phone numbers from the 218 area code. At least I know why we have those odd numbers, it won't be permanent, and won't affect our being able to use/answer/call/etc our phones. At least, ideally. There's nothing like learning a new phone system on one of the busiest sales days of our year. *sigh*

I'm hoping we'll have a successful Black Friday and 
Small Business Saturday sale this year. We don't do 
sales - only these two days and then our after-Christmas 
end of the year sale. That's it. No constant bombardment 
of "buy this, it's on sale". Instead of sales, we have beads 
on clearance all the time - ones that we have too much 
stock of, and we want to reduce the numbers. These are 
always a great savings and very popular. 

Have an excellent Small Business Friday, and if you can support a small business in your area, please do. All of us are trying to keep our heads above water against the Amazons of the world (and I order a LOT of things from Amazon too, like most of you do). Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow to wrap up the week. And if you haven't voted for my current story yet, I'd sure appreciate your vote. Here's the link: https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1175673.html Slava Ukraini.