Sunday, June 12, 2011

Challenges, Challenges

Thursday was a day of challenges.  And not only is that part of being a business owner, it is just part of life.

Here in the DC area, Wednesday and Thursday were extraordinarily hot days.  When I left the store on Wednesday, the thermometer in the store read 84 degrees.  I normally try to keep it at 75 during the day and I thought that the AC was just having a hard time with the hot weather.  But when I got to the store on Thursday morning, it was still reading 84 degrees, despite having had the door closed and the slightly lower temperatures overnight.  It was then I knew I had a problem.

The temperature outside the store climbed to 102 degrees on Thursday.  It hit 86 in the store.  I called my landlord to let him know that I thought that something was wrong with the AC.  As you can imagine, with a day that hot, the HVAC company had LOTS of people to deal with and didn't make it to see me that day.

My IT friends will appreciate this - the heat caused my router to go on the fritz so I was without internet service for about an hour and half until I managed to get it cooled off and restarted.  (Oh yeah...I was loving it...ha!)  And remember, no internet service means no credit card processing.  I did have one sale during that period in which I ran the card information once I got everything back up and running again.  I will admit to being VERY anxious during this time period.  You'd better believe I called the point of sale folks and the credit card processor to talk about contingencies!

Although I didn't have a lot of visitors on Thursday, those who did brave the heat (both outside and inside the store) were determined shoppers.  I had my best day of the week, despite all of the challenges. But, I must admit, I was happy to get in my car that evening and cool off.  I was glad I had worn a strappy maxi dress that day or I would have really been miserable!

The good news - the HVAC guy did get to me on Friday at around lunchtime and found that it was an easy fix.  Cool air was flowing once again!

2 comments:

  1. Oh I think I would have MELTED! Being without AC is the worst, especially last week in that heat wave. Glad it was a quick fix on Friday.

    Juice

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  2. Juice, I normally don't mind hot weather but this was extreme! I was overjoyed to see the repairman on Friday!

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