More = less.

We're nice and busy between summer showers. Today, two bikes than were built before 11:00 were sold before noon. The Warrior and I are both plotting some time off, and Phantom has been taking care of family. An accounting of presence and interest has turned up little. The focus has shifted from maintenance to damage control. The fewer number of hands will try their hands at harder tasks and the dust will thicken. We just need to tighten the standards and checks and add time to all estimates. My hands hurt.

My dear Wednesday,

If has been over seven years now that we generally close on Wednesdays. Only the front door is closed most of the day. It has been a day of cleaning, stocking, special projects, mountain biking, and a respite from the never ending calls of customer duty. I'm not sure how we ran the store 7 days a week for so long. It was a long time ago. I'm off to see her now.

The Victims

We get some characters. One guy FG, smelled like urine on the stove and was checking out a bag, saying, "I know what some of these pockets are for, but this is must be where you put your crack pipe". I agreed with him. There is a group who MO is to spend your time asking baited questions until you either lose time with no sale or ignore them or kick them out. One guy pulled the infinite questions while on his cell phone and due to his odor was overheard saying, "I can't believe this guy is spraying me with lysol", to the person he was on the phone with as I am kicking him out.
Our typical customer varies from the "INNERTUBE!" guy, that's his greeting, to those pulling out bikes from the past to find out how close to the price of a replacement bicycle a full repair cost will get. Others are browsing for a gift, the second most popular purchase is a lock. Rental customers have many categories. Follow this - Go to a different city, walk in to a bike shop, ask to rent a bike, and then ask them if there are any nice places to ride around here. Kind of like renting a car and asking if there are any nice places to drive or going to a pharmacy, buy some condoms and asking the cashier if they know of anyone who might like to have sex. My favorite customers are trained that we won't wantonly take advantage of them and generally trust us to spend their money wisely. I don't mind skepticism, but negativity and cynicism get old really quickly.
So who are the victims. Well some victims come in and want as much as they can get for nothing. Others want a realy nice, light, fast bike that costs less than $300. Wow, me too. The best victims are the ones with a bike that's on life support who want some minor repair affected and it can't be performed without some liability issue. Catch-22. No work, no money, or lots of work, still bad bike, still no money. The lesser experienced are sometimes taken in by what seems like an easy job. If we could screen out those with less than $10 on them when thay came in... You don't have to buy anything, just have the $10.
More than 85% of our customers are fun, freindly people who know how business works and easily do commerce. But it sometimes seems that 85% of our time is spent on the 15% pain in the butt, no money having, stinky bums and otherwise uncivilized children and adult children.
A few of them can be fun and I even like some of them. I always hope that one day, they'll wake up and begin contributing something to the community, like commerce or polite behavior.

Back to the front

It's easy to lose track of what's important when you're tired. We have a special kind of bicycle shop. We want the clientèle to believe in us and trust our advice. We go to great lengths to choose products we feel are high quality and great value. Well, most of the products at least. We extensively assemble each bicycle from the least expensive to the full custom, top of the line, dream machines. We often do a little lagniappe on the bikes we take in for repair. You know, something extra at no charge. You wouldn't get it if you asked for it, but extra love for good customers and those we would like to impress as well as a few just plain charitable acts for someone down on their luck are the norm. It's not something written into our corporate charter, but a natural offering in the spirit of generosity.
It has become more difficult to be generous lately as time constraints often has us tearing through repairs and moving along sales. As the staff diminishes, I think we will retract some of our instantaneous promises and look to provide a stable line of jobs that we can do our best on. Each bike presents a unique set of problems that keep you from truly knowing how long the repair will take. Especially if you aren't going to do the work.
It would be nice to divide the day into segments where from x:xx to y:yy we do this and so forth. Cleaning, repairs, organization, and more cleaning. It never works out the way I plan it no matter how hard I try. So, my goal will be starting from the front, where the money walks in, returning to the attitudes which make the shop a great place to shop and get your bike worked on.

Aeschylus and Charybdis

The fade on the flesh by time makes hard the collection of truth. This is what I remember. A rainy day with occasional bursts of customers. LCDTV was learning the joys of the QBP catalog. Warrior kept his hands in motion and most of us helped the rental clients and sold a couple of bikes. One customer wanted a particular bike for his girlfriend's birthday and had waited until it was mostly too late to do his shopping. This bike didn't really exist but it could with moderate customization. I built the wheel and install the luggage rack and otherwise modified the frame to suit the upgrade from a single-speed to a four-speed. A rather lengthy stretch of time without customers had proceeded this sale and I took time to assemble the trailer I had ordered six weeks ago. Never mind that I come to work and begin each day at least an hour before opening and spend extra time on days off and spend personal monies on work related items regularly. The boss came down and expressed displeasure with the lack of shop related activities. Excuse all the advice and remember the absence.
The end of the day came with a parade of bikes after tarps were removed and folded nicely. One problem, after looking for the red dog for a minute or so and feeling slightly panicked, I discovered he was trapped up front with all the bikes block his exit and mine. A simple solution: open the front door and let him out that way. No such luck. The key became jammed in the ancient lock and the normal amount of jiggling didn't produce any result. Frustration sets in as I am hot in more than one way and the jiggling bursts the upper door frame. The boss says, "I'll get him", referring to the red dog. I don't really hear that or much else. The dog is my Achilles and I don't react well to seeing him hoisted in an uncomfortable manner through the mass of pointed metal by someone I really respect. The door frame will have to wait as there is no energy or motivation left in me to fix it tonight. Without a word, save a broken bottle, I left choosing to not say the not nice things on my tongue.
We all have things we hold dear, I hurt no thing with breath physically. Feelings fade and hast aside, the door frame exposed its weakness at the wrong time. I don't really know what the boss was feeling as I left to spare myself the embarrassment my unfriendly words would have brought. Injury (perceived) was added to insult (unintended). The door frame will get repaired in the morning. It needed to be realigned anyway. Being stuck watching a friend forcefully extract your beloved companion provides undefinable emotion. I don't know how that sequence of events lined up and I wish it to not happen again. There is a lesson.

Future Noir

It's seems like everyone is dizzy with the price of petrol. Gas passes the lips regularly in our daily discussions. Reality of cheap fuel has left us for the moment and panic rushes into our patriotically vacant souls. The price of anything that must be moved long distances or involves petroleum in its manufacture is going up. Period. Once offsets in wages catch up, another price hike will have already hit, leaving those without wage increases with even less. Fuel and the time to burn it increase in cost and those who make a buck speculating take that buck, we're in for an inflation ride for a good while. Even if politics turns your head, you're affected. The robber barons are back with a vengeance. 2009 has already seen the biggest price spike in memory and we're not even there yet. The global economy has us tethered to our creditors in a death grip and we so tangled, even if we eked back to our previous manufacturing glory, it wouldn't find a market.
So what now, a service oriented economy, with pharmaceuticals and education as our major exports? We'll teach you how to sell and use drugs, the right ones. Big thoughts for a lowly mechanic who's main goal is to be a homeowner before his untimely death by lack of health insurance and malpractice. What else is there but buying a space to slowly die in so when you can no longer work, at least you don't have to worry about rent while you're sitting in the dark. Maybe someone to share the misery, I mean, memories with. The future may be black, but so what. We need answers that solve the simple problems like radio spectrum allocation and honey bee colony collapse. Without solid science, we're blissfully ignorant. Pass the bliss when you're done with it.

Keeping up appearances.

Everyone has a different way they prefer to be approached. The boss, with his nearly infinite patience, thinks that information overload and overwhelming logic along with being just plain loud will overcome any question of expertise and therefore is a great sales approach. Make them feel that most choices should be limited and choosing otherwise will void general reason. Well if that's what you really want... Saying that you don't negate personal taste and actually not doing it are quite separate. I don't like to be pigeonholed or generalized. I don't mind being recognized, but when I shop, bugging me too much will send me out the door very quickly. The staff has a habit of not coming out from behind the counter to meet the customers. This leads to congestion at our bottleneck, the entry and exit from the mechanic's area and back stock to the retail space and showroom area. Often there are bikes leaning on other bikes and boxes lining the perimeter. Things that have fallen as they were brushed on by people trying to get in and out and behind this and that in an almost futile attempt at self service. Truth is that for all the merchandise littering the showroom, most of it it unreachable without some effort. Move this, wedge yourself, get a ladder or step stool, hold apart while extracting that thing find a place to put the three things in way of the thing I just want to look at for a minute. So much effort goes into cramming the shop full of barbels and trinkets, then an equal or greater effort goes into retrieving them.
We rent bikes and during a short portion of the year (less than 2%), we rent over 150 bikes per day. Without space or thought of the future we stack these vehicles vertically, hang them by any part which accepts a hook and otherwise compress them into otherwise viable space. This leads us to line the alleyway along the shop with bikes during business hours, rain or shine, and march them in and out of the shop at opening and closing. The idea is to demoralize the staff and make them ready to be subservient at opening and reluctant to do anything significant in the last hour of the day. With a half an hour of drudgery awaiting you at both ends of the day, aren't you excited to begin a career as a bicycle dodger and customer whipping boy?
It's not as bad as it seems, but it always occurs right when summer is beginning to do its worst. 99˚ and 99% humidity with frequent rain that steams the concrete and demoralizes the work ethic. But it really is a great place to work and I love my job no matter how much talent is pedaled into the dirt by unnecessary tasks and endless rearrangements.

The airport at rush hour.

It's 4:53 p.m., do you know where the boss is? The flight information says his plane is delayed one hour, seventeen minutes. We spend a bit assembling Zoltan's wife's bike and fielding sales reps phone calls. A friend had referred one of his dad's friends to me. Apparently he came down to the shop on Wednesday when we're closed and had a hard time parking as he said that several times on the phone. He called to eliminate the need to come back and nothing I could have said would have been right. I was polite, but about five minutes into the call, I wanted my five minutes back. He could not state a price range he wanted to stay in nor avail me of his size or any preferences other than that he wanted a hybrid commuter fast bike. I really dislike when people call with preconceived notions and self-fulfilling prophecies. I liken it to asking someone if they're stupid and if they say no, saying, "well if you are stupid then you wouldn't know you are stupid". Save me stripping down my existence and motivation for you and get on with it. I guess some people can only tell you what they don't want. My only point is we have bikes for sale but nobody's going to ram them down your throat. People buy our bikes for many reasons: price, quality, color, fit, service, reputation, and guarantee. This guy didn't want to buy a bike, he wanted to find a reason not to come back to the Marigny and at some point in the conversation, he found it. Congrads A.H.!
So off to the airport. 30 minutes of Metairie and park on the third floor. The flight does not appear on the list of arrivals. In the amount of time it takes to look up the airline on the phone internet, the boss shows up. A nice ride back with a slight tease about wanting a raise, hey I want to buy a house, and we've back. Zoltan found (liberated) some wheels for the new bike and we almost polished it off. Maybe tomorrow, aside from chip y salsa, the cleaning will happen. I'm sure nothing will possibly distract from that end.

There is no whip.

I am self motivating. I have a deep curiosity about the nature of things. Sometimes my hands hurt. These points are a general guide to my work ethic. I often say no first, and then do it anyway. I don't like feeling as if I'm being taken advantage of, but I like seeing the surprise of someone when they find something they wanted done - done. I don't know exactly what motivates others to perform, probably money or a sense of satisfaction. We all need money to pay for life. I want to do stuff I like to do, interesting stuff. Money is a bonus and it's taken me a long time to realize my worth in this department. I like finding ways to convince others that they want to do something or challenge themselves and their comfort level.
It is a challenge to me to both earn my keep as an employee and provide support for the staff. The Wizard shot an arrow at me today and I get the feeling he doesn't approve of some of my style of mechanics. He seeks an absolute solution and sees little room for shades of gray. I have very high standards of mechanics and aesthetics when I work an a bicycle. I don't like inelegant solutions, but I'm willing to arrive at a conclusion that my not be the best, but the better. Some work requires lowering standards to come to a cost effective completion. The gold dipped turd still stinks so save some money and don't shine shit. I've read repair tags that stated how many hours he spent on a bike and thought, "Was that necessary?".
We can all work smarter. As a simple start, we must strive to communicate with the clients and each other to make the most truthful, efficient path to the end goal. We can minimize mistakes and waste by not getting in over our heads and using the tremendous talent of the combined group to our advantage. There is no reason to be a soothsayer because being forthright and obvious will bring a better end. If someone doesn't like our honest suggestion, it is better we not serve them. It always comes back to bite us on the ass. On the other side, there is a natural progression we can follow to help the client arrive at a conclusion as we do. Being condescending doesn't work as well and being authoritative. Present the facts and don't be afraid to say, "I don't know".
I am not disappointed with the staff, quite the contrary. I am only disappointed that we are too busy to spend much time learning new things. It's not hard to learn to fix a bike, but it is hard to learn to fix all bicycles. The great thing about our demographic is the wide diversity of vehicles they provide to learn about. Our charge is actually service these bikes expertly. "To ask together" is at the heart of the word competition. By learning constancy, we have no competition.

Missing man formation

So as is it to pass that the gypsy, the bird and Zoltan will be absent for some time. The bird is out in a week, gypsy left last month, and Zoltan starts a new job in the fall. This week the boss is out as is the Phantom. The Phantom is the best man for the jobs he takes. Bringing order and good retail sense to an otherwise cluttered hobby den. He has done more to increase profitability and does it with some permanence. He discounts his role to some extent, but we know when he's been somewhere.
With all the missing souls, how do we run a bike shop? I can't see us not burning out a bit before we recover some staff members or hire (and get up to speed) some fresh meat. We always thought it would get easier with more employees and maybe that can be true, though so far that is not the case. This doesn't mean it was easier before, just more controlled and paced for reality. We have no idea how much or how little we can schedule in a day without disappointing someone at the beginning or end of a sale. This shows our inability to effectively communicate our current workload with each other. Instead of knowing ahead of time who has time for what, we drop our pants in front of the customer while we hash out reality and allow undue influence by the money bringers. Thus by inference, we care both too little and too much. And for now, there are less of us to do either.

The Clan of the Cave Shop.

A short piece on an employee who has become as permanent as he would like. Warrior is consistent and constant, a well paced worker with a penchant for the lady folk. He has a bit of a persecution complex but that's a minor detail. It's refreshing to have someone with an left twisted sense of humor occupy that space next to you and a small perch on your ear. I can't guess the next question from their lips, but I'll bet it's an eyebrow raiser. I can't find his politics or allegiances, but no matter, he's ready for most anything and if I picked a co-pilot for a game of bike shop, it would be him.
I like everyone I work with because they all bring something usual and unusual to the show. The Wizard snaps wild eyed humor between bouts of optimistic frustration. The boss or Emperor has unequaled patience and business sense and a demeanor which makes you happy to accept any challenge. Zoltan is chock full of information and zeal as well as being a keen observer and steady worker. The bird moves quickly and in his haste manages to surpass his education level regularly. He's quite educated and gains practical knowledge quickly. LCDTV constantly surprises me with the amount of customer abuse he can take before biting back. We will work on his mechanic's skills in the next few months. Hardy is a tough cookie, as in difficult to find the right approach. I think I can communicate what I'm looking for and encrypt it as to not upset his apple cart. I truly respect his accomplishments and appreciate his contribution to the group. He is going to be mixing in some regular work with the assemblies he is currently doing. It's nice to have a separate area to call your own, but that's a temporary luxury in this shop. Lastly is the Phantom, a menace to clutter and disorganization. From inventory to certain janitorial functions, nothing is below him, though he'd rather do what he was hired to do, not that I really forgot was that was, but it's not important now.
I don't know how we end up with such great people, but then again I don't really ask that question, I answer it. The past two and a half years have been rough. I need to find a balance point and create some division of labor. I hope everyone will gravitate to what suits their abilities and interests as well as taking on some responsibilities they might otherwise ignore. For a few months, our staff will be tight with some of the guys riding on the wings of desire. The fall looks to be a time of growth. Those without humor need not apply. Where the hell is the damn gypsy?

Nice pets.

I like to say that the hair traps the dirt and dust so it's easy to sweep up. We, or I have a dog who works at the shop. Works for the occasional lunch scrap that is. The red dog doesn't have much responsibility and mostly naps in various places. Now and again, he capably shuns and unwanted visitor before they get into the shop. Mostly underprivileged children who have no money and often no bike. "Get dat dog??!", is uttered by the frighten heathen as they try to hide outside the door. It never ceases to amaze how poorly trained and educated these little humans are in all areas of public conduct, math, reading, science, money, business, and culture. They are set free by their female guardians into the streets and I see why. The little question machines go from business to business sucking up air conditioning and hunting, gathering, and obtaining anything they can weasel or pilfer. Not all of them are bad, but all of them are poor. The red dog can usually sort out the miscreants among them and keep them at bay until a staff member entertains them or moves them along.
Maybe some of the upper crust white bread rich folks would like a disadvantaged kid for a pet. For some privilege and a shot at a better life, the pet child would learn how to be an upstanding citizen and what it feels like to have something, be responsible, and what consequences are. That will never happen because rich folks want to enjoy their life without really considering the reality of poor folks. Herein lies the classic dichotomy of America and the bike shop as well.
We have the widest range of customers of any business I can think of. The homeless, working poor, service industry, clerical, professional, sales, medical, politicians, lawyers, police, firemen, factory workers, and globe trotters all regularly frequent our establishment. (No meter maids as far as I know. ) We get 'em all. The bicycle is simply the most efficient way to propel a human under his own power available. The motorcar is not for all, but the bicycle is for most. The red dog is a great judge of character and characters is what we've got.

Space, the final square inch.

It's a small space or at least it used to be small. Now it's cavernous. The number of bicycles far exceeds the usable space, so every morning the staff moves 50+ bikes out into our shared alleyway. I call it marching up and down the square. Most of the business philosophy is based loosely on Monty Python skits anyway. The daily kick-out is a chore we wouldn't miss if by some mistaken chance we gained a warehouse space. Zeus would be proud that almost useless tasks were still being handed out in the 21st Century.
The boss has been on an under appreciated search for more space as in a warehouse and/or a second location. I, for one, have the least amount of skepticism about the mission. I want more room, but for the life of me, I can't understand the complexity of the boss's thinking process on the subjects. I wish it we as simple as find an affordable space, secure it, and begin using it ASAP. Teaching without words and work without effort are understood by very few.

Crushing the Intertron

The staff is in love with the internet. Pandora. Youtube. Gmail. Vimeo. (ad nauseum) Great, but not great. Pandora pigeonholes the music to usually non-retail jams, i.e. death metal, ganga-rap, and other guitar gymnastic noise. Youtube is worse as it occupies the eyes and silences the hands. The hands of work. I'm all about finding moments to screw-off now and again, but customers suffer and our reputation will not be far behind. It is as easy to lose a customer as it is hard to win one.
So the limits have been set for now to only allow certain MAC addresses to access the internet. I could have just stated it plainly, oh that's right I have, but I took it unto my self to make the change today. The bird (no names) kept wondering why the laptop suddenly failed to recognize the network and it took nearly 35 min to restart the box to no avail. I angled that they might consider the pile of work waiting for action. Sneaky bastard management style won't last, but it's all I have when the boss is away and I need to not be there. I wish I could get my area cleaner so I could better enforce cleanliness in other areas of the shop. Well, a clean cyberspace is a good start.

No space for elitists

We have a small shop. 75' x 23' at the biggest point with 16' ceilings where it is not divided by the upstairs loft. We stuff as much product into our space as a store three times its size. Our mechanics in the main space have about 10 sq ft. in which to turn out profitable labor. Usually there are three wrenches on the floor, an assemble guy upstairs, and on weekdays, our head mechanic has his shop behind the main space. His room is 13' x 13' with a half loft. It's a really neat space with most everything you could want but more room. I really look up to him as he has taught me more than he could possibly think he knows.
Our main complaint you can see is space. It is at a premium. Without additional room, the only solution is consolidation and clearing out junk. Well junk isn't junk, it's stuff we are storing for one reason or another. The main violators are the boss (whose stuff will mostly be ignored) and customers who think we can hold on to their bits and pieces indefinitely. They fall into one category, elitists. A week, a month, no... months and even some years. Some know it is here and feign picking it up regularly and some have no idea it is still here. The time is coming and the stuff will hit the can.

The power of purpose

I love my boss. Otherwise my job would cease to be meaningful. He has a special place of business with some of the greatest people in the world as employees, friends, and clients. I work at a bicycle store. We service a great many cyclists in the New Orleans area. Stories abound of jobs where the pay is good but the toll on the soul leads to unhappiness. Not that I'm always happy, yet it is more often then not, our days are joyous and filled with humor.
I started working here about fifteen years ago. My employment history was mostly service oriented. I worked as a gardener, in a credit and catalog dept., as a busboy and bartender, and did some odd jobs for cash here and there. I am fiercely loyal and had been shopping at this store for 5 or 6 years before I approached them about work. The shop has had its struggles and schisms along the way and I think we've made it through the worst. Being nearly bankrupt in the mid 90's , we battled for over three years just to get back to even. Our best year ever was interrupted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and still we returned to banner sales.
The philosophy is simple: treat people with genuine interest and serve them as guests in your home. We've all been to a business where we were ignored, pestered, or treated like crap. We don't want that to be how we are viewed and quite the opposite, we want our clients to feel our honesty and devotion to our craft. We make some of the finest bicycles in the world and are willing to fix just about anything. I goes to say that some folks will try to take advantage of the easy-going nature of the shop and we'll put up with it for a while. I won't pretend I've never asked someone to leave, met young children at door to explain why they're unwelcome without their parents, or spraying Lysol® on extremely unhygienic bums and gutter punks. What I will say is we're quite tolerant of the wide range of beliefs and practices of our customers and consider everyone's individual preferences when they pay us a visit.