Goodbye Old Store!

In between coming back from vacation, training and raising money for the walk, I got a promotion. On my last day at my old store I took a few photos to show you the reasons it is a promotion, even though my job title and responsibilities are essentially the same.

My old store has a reputation, not a very good one, for being old, dirty, and just a bad store in general. I spent 2 years there and I feel like I took it as far as it could go with my abilities. I cleaned up the operations and improved our audit score, and when I left I was on track to win a sales award called Leader's Club, which means sales are at least 2.5% over budget and margins are in line with that. I can still win the award if the new manager doesn't mess it up between now and the end of the year. It would be easy to mess it up by scheduling a lot of overtime, ordering lots of expense items, etc.

So goodbye little old store, I will not miss you or your grumpy customers. Let's take a tour. Here's the view from the front door:

Looking to the left:
And walking toward the back counter:Here's the cramped office where 3 people crammed in when my previous assistant was fired:

Here's the bulletin board at my desk where I sometimes zoned out. I'm a sucker for the thermometer graphs for sales. I get really into coloring them in. I also really love having spreadsheets to document sales daily, monthly, and yearly.

Here's one part of the tiny, choppy back room:
Notice the 5-gallon shakers in the back. That means when we tint fives, we have to wheel them to the back, then lift them an additional time.

Goodbye back door, and Goodbye ramp that we had to push pallets up to get them inside! I will not miss the extra work. I will not miss pushing pallets inside when it's raining and slippery, and I will not miss those times when the heavy pallets hit a glitch and then tumble backward and break open, almost hitting me or another employee, busting open paint cans, taking away my profit, and creating a mess for me to clean up!

Goodbye disgusting old fridge and microwave:

Goodbye ancient safe. I didn't know any stores had these- most have locking filing cabinets. It took me forever to learn how to open it!

Goodbye old painted tinter. Everyone says you should be replaced but you worked just fine for me those 2 years. I do not miss your high keyboard though.

It's amazing how you can get used to certain things about a store. The way you work in any given store is completely different. This store taught me a lot about who I am and who I want to be. I learned (the hard way) about controlling stress and panic, especially in front of customers. I learned how to help up to 5 customers at a time, by myself. I learned how to be the only person in the store for an entire day. I learned how to call the police if there is a crazy guy outside or a homeless person sleeping in front of the store. I learned not to give my trust away so easily. I learned a lot about confronting things that are uncomfortable and remaining professional. It's a little hard to leave a place where you are comfortable, but I'm ready for the next challenge.