A Banner Day

After a very bad Tuesday and a fairly disappointing Wednesday, Thursday was a banner day!

Somehow, all my life, everything always seems to happen on the same day.  Despite careful planning and the desire to have every peg fall cleanly into its hole at the time I want it to do so, it rarely seems to work that way.  I am not a fan of chaos but have learned to live with it and accept it (still working on loving it - not sure I'll ever get there!)

A quick backtrack to Wednesday - I needed to pick up a few things at Staples and also run by my insurance agent's office to pick up the Certificate of Insurance for the City.  I decided to give Comcast until 9 am to call to reschedule the appointment.  When I hadn't heard from them, I called and was told that there was a small glitch with my order but they would get it rescheduled and let me know.

I went to the store and dropped off a few things and went to City Hall to get the Right of Way permit to close the sidewalk for the sign hanging on Tuesday.  While I was there, a representative from Comcast's escalation office called to see what was going on.  I briefly explained my predicament.  Back at the store, I got a call at around 12:30 from the escalation office with a point of contact.  He told me he would get this worked out and I should call if I felt I hadn't heard from him soon enough.

I started working on printing out the price tags for the clothes (I put each group of tags in an individual envelope labeled with the designer brand and the clothing description - that should make it easier as we start to unpack the clothes and tag them).  All of a sudden, I realized it was 2:30 and I hadn't heard from anyone.  I called and left the Comcast contact a message and went back to my tag printing.

When 3:30 rolled around, I was pretty annoyed.  I was tired, I hadn't heard from anyone, and I wanted to go home!  I called and left a less than nice message on the contact's voice mail.  (I know - I hate now that I did it but I was just beyond frustrated).  I got a call back shortly after 4 from the contact, saying that they were working on rescheduling but that my order had to be put back in because it had been canceled.  Ooops - last straw.  I was NOT happy and I expressed that to the contact.  I hung up with him and immediately called my sales rep to let her know what was going on.  She said that they were working on it and would get it straightened out.

I did get two calls from the installation team at around 5 with the promise they would be out on Thursday morning between 8:30 - 9:00 am.  Yes, I was skeptical!

So now we were at the intersection of many tasks all at once.  When I got to the store at around 7:30, the painter was there to fix the areas of drywall that had been fixed earlier in the week and to fix the paint of the baseboard.  The flooring guys arrived soon after to install the shoe molding and extend the flooring under the wheelchair lift.  The trash guys then came to get rid of the trash items from the mechanical room.

I had some more tags to finish and then I waited for Comcast.  The technician arrived at 9:15.  Fortunately, the cabling was all in the right place and he didn't have to do a lot of work to get it set up in the office.  Within about an hour and fifteen minutes, I had phone lines and internet service!

Now, I had set up an appointment a few weeks ago with some reps from a clothing line that I am carrying - Red Engine Jeans.  They came at 10 (while Comcast was still there).  I found myself bouncing back and forth between them and Comcast (I apologized to the reps - this was not supposed to happen this way!)  Plus, I'm keeping my eyes and ears out for the truck to arrive with the fixtures!

Once everyone left, I called the trucking company.  He confirmed that the truck should be arriving any minute - that I was the first delivery for the day.  Sure enough, within 10 minutes, the truck pulled up and we got him situated in the parking outside the store.  As he brought the boxes in, I started opening them as you must report all damage prior to signing off on the bill of lading and the truck leaving.  Fortunately, I did not find any damage!

So now I'm surrounded by 40+ boxes and I have no idea what is in any of them!  After taking a deep breath, I pulled out the packing list and starting checking off the items and staging them in different areas of the store - mannequin items in one area, 2- and 3- way racks in another, the wall systems in another, and the miscellaneous items (steamer, garment bag dispenser, hangers) in another.  Just as I had started this process, friends Janice and Karen called to see if I was ready for them and to let me know they'd be there in about 15 minutes!  Help was on the way!

It was so wonderful to have Janice and Karen helping me - I could not have made nearly the progress by myself.  They are so efficient and work well together.  They put together the mannequins, the 3-way racks, my office desk, the garment bag dispenser, and the hanger racks.  We identified a few minor issues along the way (a couple of screws missing, the holes on the 2 way racks not lining up properly, an incorrect mannequin) and I called the display company with that information so that we could get those items straightened out.

I started staging the wall systems in preparation for my Father-In-Law's help today!  I think things will start to look much less chaotic when we get those in place.  I'm eager to make progress in that area.  I did not do a good job of taking pictures yesterday with all that was going on but here are a few.

Empty boxes!

Mannequins staged in the windows

Accessories rack

My desk - woo hoo!