Progress

Two weeks has come and gone and they're not done yet. Much, much closer to being done, but not done. Probably another 3~4 days and the corporate people will leave. Then we can change things to how WE like them!

Progress:

• The floor is done.
• The painting is done, though they ran out of paint partway through so had to get more and it doesn't quite match.
• All of the shelves are in place.
• The counters/registers are in place, with much more storage space than we expected.
• Many of the products have permanent locations.
• All of the dirty tasks are complete so we can begin to clean.

Left to do:

• Some of the products are still in carts, baskets, boxes, thrown in a pile on the floor......and there's not much room left to put the aforementioned products.
• The office area is quite disordered. Luckily our files were undisturbed. But office supplies? It would be faster to drive to the store and buy new ones than to find what you need when you need it.
• MONTHS ago when the store was originally measured, Mr. King-of-Resume-Doctoring measured incorrectly. This led to the blueprints being off (they also weren't to scale and had a pillar and a door in the wrong place), which means we're a little crunched for space and may have to take out some of the planned shelves to be 100% ADA-compliant. That means more homeless items that WE, the store staff, will have to find homes for, long after all of the corporate merchandising experts have moved on to the next remodel.
• Learn where everything is.

That last one, I fear, may take MONTHS. I had my pattern down with the old store.....if a person needed an entire set-up, I could lead them from one item to another in the most efficient way (especially the older customers who have trouble walking). Now we go to one item in the front, them go to the back, then all the way to the other side, then back to the front corner, then into the middle.....I apologize for all the walking and most people don't mind. Sometimes I explain that I'm not quite sure where we put that item, so would you like to wait here while I find it, or follow me along on a tour of the store? I get some of both types of customers.

So we're close, but not quite there. My schedule's back to normal. And I can BREATHE! We're going to be cleaning up for WEEKS, though. The air conditioning filters were so dirty (and we do change them regularly) that they became completely clogged and started whistling songs. They work much better now that they have clean filters! : )