The STUFF Sisters

I Survived My First Christmas at STUFF

This season has been challenging. We entered the holiday season with the least experienced staff in many, many years.The new people we introduced into our ranks have proven themselves to be resilient, thoughtful, and hard-working.

This season has been challenging. We entered the holiday season with the least experienced staff in many, many years. After 17 years in business, we had become accustomed to having a handful of senior staff members in our ranks to help rock the season with us side-by-side. But this year the stars simply did not align. We found ourselves training an almost entirely new crew in the few months leading up to our biggest and most demanding season.

Yes, we had a couple of seasoned veterans, but these are team members that work very limited hours. So really the team was being built almost from scratch. At the start, we often resembled the movie Bad News Bears. Everyone had a heart of gold, but we were in serious need of finding our groove. And our leadership – us – well, we weren’t drunk like Walter Matthau was in the movie, but we were spread thin and overcommitted on too many projects.

It was a rough start.

There was frustration. There were tears from some. There were times we doubted we would make it through the season. But, at last, we have.

We are deeply thankful that the stars did finally align. These last two weeks have been joyful for us behind the counter, and we hope it has been joyful for you in the store. Our store is really about people – not product – and the new people we introduced into our ranks have proven themselves to be resilient, thoughtful, and hard-working.

The next time you visit our store, please congratulate our newest team members. We should have bought them cheesy T-shirts that read “I Survived My First Christmas at STUFF”. But they are too angelic for that….

Plastic Redux

This time of year, I drink a huge amount of water through a straw. Water is what wards off the evil spirits, in my view.

This time of year, I drink a huge amount of water through a straw. I seem to consume more that way. This collection on my dressing room table this morning reminded me that life is long, fun and wonderful, but not particularly tidy. We work monstrous hours at work that are thrilling and full of joy. Water is what wards off the evil spirits, in my view.

And today it was evident that life has been full of water in re-usable cups, with a side of Lysol from the big can!

p.s. One of these cups may very well be from this past summer. Read more here.

Wasted Time

I try not to dwell on things that I can not change anymore. I still need lots of practice. Since I am not cured of this curse, I would like to vent my frustration with spammers.

I believe that any person that has any hand in creating the noise we call spam and wastes the time of their fellow humans should be inconvenienced in equally frustrating ways.

Here a few suggestions:

Red lights won’t change.
Their toothbrush is missing every morning.
Their food at restaurants doesn’t arrive in a timely manner.
Every time they bite into a taco it drips grease on their pants.
They can never find a parking space.
The 6′ 4″ Dude is always seated directly in front of them.
They constantly run out of milk for their cereal.
If they are a chick…their tights never stay up.
If they are a dude…their zipper won’t stay zipped.
Every time they are focused at work, someone places a completely unnecessary stack of papers on top of their work space and it can not be removed without each piece of paper being handle individually.

Feel free to add to my list. You will find more joy in facing your email inbox.

Precision & Grace

It seems like every profession has a contingent of people who rally against it. Lawyers have a bad rap. Car dealers. The list goes on and on. I have even had people tell me to my face – while standing in my business – that retailers are the worst.

It seems like every profession has a contingent of people who rally against it. Lawyers have a bad rap. Car dealers. The list goes on and on.

I have even had people tell me to my face – while standing in my business – that retailers are the worst. They are “greedy bastards” just in it for the money. “No ethics.” “Stickin’ it to the little guy.”

That’s not what I do. That’s not what my sister does. And that is not what the amazing and dedicated artists we represent do. Their desire to be in their studios perfecting hand craft makes it so that all of us can enjoy affordable art in our homes and on our bodies.

That dedication and happiness was seen in our store this past Saturday, the first of four such Saturdays in “ARTober”. Rachelle Pulkilla wowed us for hours with her work – sparks flying at times! – and her spirit. She is a metalsmith and jeweler and each piece is unique.

Somewhere in the middle of her time with us, I heard little voices I recognized, and there stood our friend Kari Heybrock and her three children. They were thrilling to watch as they took in what Rachelle was doing and making. Her oldest, a seven-year-old, was asking very detailed questions. They help their mother in her studio occasionally, and this next Saturday we will be watching Kari make her magic with molten glass, two torches, precision and grace. She’s brought her studio to STUFF before, and we are ecstatic to have her back.

What blows me away is that, at every one of these events, artists we represent come out and support the other artists while they are “in studio” with us. To say the customers love it would be an understatement.

These are the weekends I live for. The ones where it all comes together … where we all come together. This is why I do what I do for a living. There is nothing greedy about it.

p.s. You can find out more about Kari, Rachelle and ARTober right here.

Unemployable

I have reached an age where I know for a fact that technology is outpacing me. As my husband and sister read this, they are cackling because I am the least tech-savvy and tech-interested person in their families.

I have mentioned to friends and strangers that one of the deep-seated reasons I support the Women’s Employment Network is because I am convinced that I am going to have to utilize their amazing services if this dream business I share with my sister ever fails. The main reasons: I really don’t know how to make a PowerPoint display, and I can get easily tripped up on implementing calculations in Excel. Clearly, I will need to be trained for today’s workforce.

Unemployable in today’s society. That’s me.

Thank the goddess I am an entrepreneur.

September starts our busiest four months of the year at STUFF. Right now, I am buried up to my eyeballs in paper, cardboard, pricing labels and spreadsheets. Casey, my partner in crime, is buried in artist product, display ideas, and training of current employees and possible new hires. It is a killer month that we love…and live through.

Last month in New York, on our morning walk to work, I saw two men sorting – by color! – empty glass bottles. The street on which they had set up shop was closed due to the construction of a new subway stop. They had found a tree for shade and were color-sorting glass and stacking it. The sound of their endeavors caught me first and found me fumbling for my camera. Not only were they helping to save the planet, they were working quickly and efficiently in a makeshift work environment. What the end result of their work was, I do not know and did not ask.

My mind raced to these images yesterday when I had set up a work station for myself on three cardboard boxes right outside my office door and was holding the papers from blowing in the fan with a tack into the cardboard. An hour later, I thought of those men as my sister climbed the stairs with her hand drill, cell phone, stuffed file folder, and cup of iced coffee. She, too, was setting up shop and getting to work where she needed to be, which was not at her desk.

She amazed me because she had brought her phone to work. Mine? Well, mine was way over there next to the keyboard of my computer, being charged. Someone had forgotten to charge it over night. Understandable. She must have been really busy.

p.s. These men had me mesmerized. Look at how tidy their work space is. The boxes are lined up perfectly and practically squared to the curb. Right there on 35th Street just west of 9th Avenue.

Sisters Are The Best

We did not have the easiest of days yesterday, my sister and me. Mondays seldom feel like Mondays, but today was one. HR issues, packed meeting schedule, serious reminders that retail is a bear of a business, too many incoming phone calls. It was not the funnest day on record.

But it was a day where the sun shined and we were healthy. We didn’t smile much, and Monday will roll into Tuesday a little bit, but we are good. Fine. OK.

After the day was over and the store was closed, we went to a kick-off event for a charity we both adore. She left work in her car, and I left work in mine. She ran her child to an engagement, and I went a picked mine up. We met up again at the event and never stopped smiling and laughing.

We were smiling and laughing because she pulled a stunt only she could. She fingered the sale rack and came up with this wicking doozy.

And we all rolled with laughter. And we’ll roll right through the week, and I know that, when I do not feel like smiling, I will look at this picture and know all is well with the world.

Work is work and play is play. We blend it all the time, but that doesn’t mean every day is easy.

Family Business

Co-owning a family business is a remarkable adventure. My life intertwined with my family on a daily basis. It works for me. It is one of most enjoyable aspects of my career.

This week my daughter is out of school two days for parent/teacher conferences. We talked about her options for these two days, because Mom taking off two days was not an option. She picked work one day and Nana’s house for the second day.

I loved having her with me. She begged to do “real work” with our team. And, our team was very kind to include her in their tasks.

It is difficult to describe how I feel when I watch her working at the store. The word pride seems limited. Joy, love, happiness, lucky, blessed…and so very much more.

No Set Schedule

I couldn’t find my happiness this past Sunday. I tried.

I wasn’t slated to work that day, but I had gone in early for a problem and then, later, learned that a customer had reduced a staff member to tears with bullying. The day ended with phone line trouble, a saddened and frustrated staff member walking me through it over her cell phone, and another trip from home to work.

Sundays aren’t a day that’s dictated. I don’t have a set schedule on that day of my week. It’s always a little bit loosey goosey. Usually.

But there must have been a subconscious plan in my head for that day that just wouldn’t come true, and by the end of the day I was blue. Sad. Pissed.

But today – another snow day – I found my delight in not wearing my watch, making breakfast for a teen, playing and losing four games of Scrabble, watching two movies, and taking one nap.

I had no set schedule in mind when I went to sleep last night and none when I woke up. It seemed to help.

Pure happiness.

My carefree niece in the snow last week. — My niece reminded me last week of all that is important about snow days. Carefree smiles.

Child Labor

They start by just sleeping in their car carriers. Under the desk. Behind the counter. In the office. They come to work and they do little.

Then, they play. They play with their own toys, they play with the office supplies, and maybe, just maybe, they play shop with us. They nap, they nosh.

Then, around five years old, they want something “real” to do. Labeling, stickering, sorting. Doesn’t matter, just as long as it’s what we’re doing. It’s for short periods of time so that the playing can continue.

At seven, they want a timesheet. It not about the money – there are child labor laws! – it’s about being like the other employees and doing “real work”. Not like the stuff they did at five. This time the labeling needs to be on product, the stickering needs to be on real file folders, and the sorting becomes filing into the file cabinets. Real numbers, Labor Law Compliance Center labor posters, the full alphabet, and goals.

This week my niece filled out a timesheet that brought tears to me eyes. They grow up too fast. But it was the little parts of this one that got me. Her nickname, my nickname, the day of the week, and the fact that she got it approved by her mother. Their childhood goes by so fast, and I can’t speak for my sister but having the children at work with you alleviates huge piles of mother guilt when you feel pulled in multiple directions. It’s not all bad and more than a little bit of fun. You laugh more, you walk up the street for ice cream and popcorn, and you remember – and feel deeply – what a family business really is.

The law be damned. They just want to be like their mothers.

Heaping Pile of Generosity

In the noisy jumble of a handcraft market stands a man we can count on to take our order, make us smile, and send us on our way. One day a few weeks ago, that same man made me cry.

In the noisy jumble of a handcraft market stands a man we can count on to take our order, make us smile, and send us on our way. One day a few weeks ago, that same man made me cry. His name is Mathias.

2005 Wings of Hope — Casey, Sloane & Susan, Wings of Hope 2005

A larger-than-usual pile of boxes was delivered that day, and that alone could have made me weep. In the pile was a smaller box. Smaller than the others. It was the second box I ripped into so that I could feel a sense of completion by getting it dealt with. However, it was the magic in the box that brought productivity to a standstill. It held a pile of lovely hand crafted pewter art pieces, a note in an envelope, and an invoice outlining that the art was a gift. Many gifts to be shared with our customers. The note was opened first, and the waterworks began.

Casey, Susan & Sloane, Wings of Hope 2006

One year – not so far back – we got to talking to Mathias about our Wings of Hope event when we saw him in New York. He is a great listener, and, when we were done telling him about the change we make with our holiday open house, he told us he wanted to give us special pocket tokens to give to our customers during the event. Mathias doesn’t talk much; hearing what people say is his strength.

2008 Wings of Hope — Casey & Sloane, Wings of Hope 2008

Mathias wrote the note that made me cry. He had a hand in the invoice adjustment, and he probably packed the box himself. But what blew me away – what has never happened before in the 16 years of our business – is the $100 check he included from his company. No company we represent has ever sent a donation to our yearly fundraiser. Ever. When I got Casey on the phone to tell her about the heaping pile of generosity we had received, she had to pull her car over because driving and crying is bad.

Together – here at STUFF, in a studio in Rhode Island, and in a research lab at the KU Cancer Center – change is in our hands. That goodness is what made me cry.

2010 Wings of Hope — Sloane with Einstein & Casey with Emma, Wings of Hope 2010

Join us on November 10th and 11th when our holiday open house, Wings of Hope, will magically fly again.