Piffed Off and Po.

One week's work = one week's pay. I work for a small business and sometimes money gets tight. The boss and payroll check writer is not communicative when we get into these places. Not getting paid on time is a real bummer. It causes stress, anger, anxiety, and generally makes me feel insecure about my job of fifteen years.
Don't get me wrong, I love where I work. My clients are some of the best people you will ever meet. The color, flavor, and diversity of their wishes are always refreshing. I am happy with them most of the time. It is our internal management that is unpredictable. It is seemingly impossible to plan very far into the future, both within the shop and consequently, in my personal life. Who would keep a job that left you without money for the weekend? I don't live check to check, but all of the pay I receive has been budgeted and any disruption brings my short term plans to a halt. It follows that upon returning to work after my "weekend", I have a hard time motivating to the point of excellence I expect of myself.
So, not being paid leads to a sort of depression. Even if my pay is provided three to five days late, it is demotivating. My time is all I have to sell and I feel like my time is being discounted. Feeling the need to search for a new job is a weird type in job insecurity. I don't want a different job, it's a knee-jerk reaction to this situation. I wish it would stop. The other employees ask me what they should do. We are all in it together and allowing the unknown to control your decisions is madness. And so the cycle continues until pay becomes regular again.
Sadness I define as love for something or someone that is not healthy for us or working out as promised. I consider pay the promise of work. Right now, this promise is being broken.

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.

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.

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.