Meeting Day

I woke up this morning and had a very yummy continential breakfast.  That hotel does it up right man! They have bagels and eggs and sausage and english muffins and gravy and waffels and cereal and oatmeal and fruit and yogurt and well, damn near anything you could want for breakfast!

The meeting was in one of the hotel conference rooms, so that was nice! It about made me want to come down in my pjs! ~L~ Anyway, before the meeting started, Kari pulled me into the hall way to ask what the deal was with Robin. I told her it was just that Robin got a better job.  Her decision to leave (as far as I know) didn’t have anything to do with anyone in the frame shop. I mean she and I got along fine, and I don’t think she had any problems with any one else.

Most of the meeting was about merchandising, new stuff their bringing in, some things we’re replacing, balh blah blah… Most of it didn’t particularly pertain to me anyway, it would have been Robin’s thing, since she’s on the floor and doing the ordering for stuff out there.  I know a little of it, but I’ve really just been focusing on the custom orders and what needs to be done there. 

Kari had a couple of "games" for us to play.  One of them was a "how well do you know your department" quiz about what the top sellers were, who do we order from, what were your sales last month, stuff like that. One of the girls from Vancouver was my partner, she actually filled out a lot of it, but there were some things I knew too, and things I would have been able to answer if she hadn’t been filling them in before I read them! ~L~ At any rate, we came in 3rd.  Not too shabby.  The prize wasn’t anything that great anyway, it was 4 get out of work free cards that the winning manager could give to any of her employees as a way to reward them for being good little framers. Though the manager couldn’t use any of them her self, and that bites! What the hell is the point of winning if you can’t take a day off?

The other "game" we played was a speed quick fit competition.  (How fast can you put a picture into a frame?) Anyway, I got paired with this other guy who was the only one there from his store, again, we came in 3rd. But again, the prize wasn’t anything worth winning! ~L~ It was actually a "switch jobs with Kari for two days" thing. I don’t see how that’s a prize, Kari comes to our store, re-arranges all the displays, tells us better ways to do things, checks what needs to go out when and where it should be, blah blah blah, she works her butt off man! Though I think the gal that won is going to trade with Kari to go to the store in Newport, Oregon that’s by the coast. It’s also one of the smaller stores, so I guess it should be easier? If nothing else, she’ll get to go the beach! I’m glad I didn’t "win" anything!

They also had the Larsen Juhl people (from one of the companies we order our custom frames from) come in to show us some nifty stuff.  Actually, one of the nifty things is something we all ready use, but I guess not all the frame shops do.  It’s a mini version of a
plastic tagging gun, (that thing they use to put the little plastic things through clothes that the sales tag is attatched to, if that makes any sense!)  Anyway, they work really well for doing some shadow box stuff.  They also had this other new invention that could make attatching some things in a shadowbox a little easier.

Then the whole group walked over to the craft warehouse, so I got to look around a little  more, but I still didn’t have time to shop!!  I was going to run over there before I went to Kari’s, she was having a little party at her house, but then I ran into some of the other frame shop people.  I didn’t want to go to the store, have the other people get to Kari’s, me be late, and everyone being all, well, she left the same time we did!   So I just went over to Kari’s. 

The food was pretty decent, Kari had it catered, she had booze though, so it was all good!  I sat by this one girl who needs to transfer to Wenatchee so I can talk to her all the time!  She’s pretty cool.  She said something about being on her second drink and wondering if it was going to make her look bad, I’m like, well, I’m on my 3rd, so no worries, I’ll make an ass out of myself and no one will notice you! ~L~ (Ok, I stopped after 3, I didn’t want to make an ass out of myself, or get pulled over in Vancouver on a work trip for drunk driving!!)

Before I left, Kari asked to talk to me again, she was really sucking up to me, though I believe her more when she says she knows how hard I work and all that stuff.  It’s like Doug and Maxine try to suck up, but they aren’t very good at it, and maybe the thing is I don’t feel like they’re sincere, since they tell me all these things behind closed doors, but when we’re not in their office, it’s like it never happened.  Anyway! Kari was just saying that she felt for me, and that I need to tell her about things that are going on, and I did tell her a few things, so maybe we can get a couple of things fixed. 

I left Kari’s at about 9:30, and was a little bummed, since the craft warehouse closes at 9, so I wasn’t able to do my shopping that night either!  However, while driving back out through Kari’s little residential neighberhood, I spotted this dresser sitting on the side of the road.  So I turned around to take a look at it.  Someone had stuck it out of the curb with a FREE sign on it.  I’m all heck yeah! This is why I have an SUV!  It was a pain to load though! It’s so heavy!!  It’s missing a drawer, and it needs to be refinnished, but still, it’s a nice solid piece of furniture!

Before I went back to the hotel, I went to Safeway and bought another bottle of wine, I didn’t finish the whole thing though!  It was just nice to sip on while I watched tv.  I finished all of my little scrapbooking projects, well, actually, I ran out of tape, so I couldn’t do anything else! 

ce
solid piece of furniture!

The next morning, I finally got to go shopping at
craft warehouse!!  Who ever thought I’d be quite
so
excited about that?!  ~L~ But they have a few
things
that our store doesn’t, one of which is this
really
cool thing that I can’t think of how to
describe…
I’ll have to just take a picture to send to you
later!
I got some scrapbook paper that was on sale,
some
ribbion, a few other nifty embellishment things
for
scrapbooking, and a really awesome paper cutter!
 

On the drive back, I took my time, actually, Kari
told
me to.  Take your time, claim an 8 hour day! ~L~
I
think she may be a little worried about losing
me. I
guess this has me thinking a little about
staying. I
guess just becasue Kari’s nice to me and I feel
like
she at least apprecites me. Anyway, I’m thinking
about
staying again, if some changes are made, and if I
get
paid a little more!  They can try to argue with
me
about that, tell me how good I have it there and
how
much I’m all ready getting paid, but I can always
remind them that they’re underestimating how
annoyed I
am with everything!

Anyway, I took some pictures along the pass. It
took
me about an hour and a half longer to get back
than it
did for me to get there!  Stopping to take a
bunch of
pictures takes up time!! I can’t wait to show
them to
you!  But I think I’ll wait until I can see you
in
person, it would just be more fun that way!!