tedwords

For today's story, I am going to intersperse photos from our recent trip to Salem on Sunday, and a lovely garden behind a building known as the Ropes mansion that we wandered into after having dinner in the city. The garden was absolutely charming. Fun film note: the Ropes Mansion was featured in the 1993 Disney film Hocus Pocus where one of the main characters named Allison lives. It has since been nicknamed "Alison's House" by fans of the film. I didn't know this fact until today. 



Given the expected heat wave taking place later in the week, which will involve two days of over 100-degree weather (note: Europe is not impressed), we decided to make today one of our shop days. We are actually taking it a bit easier this week than we usually do, and focusing on the 

The first order of business was to head over to the Norwood location, where Corb has been emptying one section we call the Gallery for about two months now. Brittany gave up one of her stores recently, and the Gallery is a hallway connecting Shiplap to the now-closed location. Although not technically store space but more of a corridor, Brit had asked Corb to spruce it up and he had transformed it into a lighting and art gallery. But that was a few years ago, and with the Furniture Store closing down, Corb and I have been moving the items out and relocating them throughout the other three locations.

Today we were determined to wrap the move up, and with the effort would come a nice reward: located in within the Furniture Store was a heavy stone floating waterfall, valued at well over a thousand dollars. Brit said she would give to us for free, if we could get it off the wall and move it out of the store, to spare her the time and effort. Did I mention she said it was heavy as hell? Be that as it may, we've been sprucing up our backyard pool area and decided it would look just perfect there. 

So, off we went, and once we arrived at the store, as is wont to be the case, once Corb had positioned a ladder by the stone and arranged all of his tools, he moved a hand to his chin and frowned. "Hmmm," he said.

Attuned as I am to his every noise after more than twenty years of experience, I knew this meant he had encountered a roadblock. "What is it?" I asked. 

"We're going to need to get a hex nut driver," he replied. "I need to loosen up the bottom of this, and it's not going to be easy without one." 

So, off to the local hardware store we went. And twenty minutes and fifty dollars later, we were back at Shiplap, driving down to park our car. 

"Hmmm," he said again. 



I knew what the complaint was this time. Parking is always at a premium at Shiplap, and although the spaces are intended to be either for customers or handicapped folks, the sad truth is that most spaces are claimed by the vendors who work there, forcing everyone else to park at a larger parking space at the very end of the building. With the prospect of having to lug a stone slab weighing more than 100 pounds back to the car, Corb was clearly looking to park as close to the front of the store as possible.

Such was not to be the case today, as the front of the store was occupied by a white van that was parked perpendicular to the store, taking up about three spaces. Outside the van was a lady in her forties, who was looking rather flustered and carrying a large cabinet. 

Le sigh. Down the drive we went, ending up at the very end of the lot and then trudging back to enter the store. As we arrived, we encountered the frazzled lady, a bit closer to the entrance and now with two chairs. She looked decidedly grumpy.

"Hi there," said Corb. The lady looked at him, shooting daggers, with a slight snarl on her face. 

Okay, fine. The two of us entered the building and I punched in the key code to Shiplap. 

I looked behind me, at the snarling lady. "Should I hold the door open for her?" I asked. 

"We don't know that she is a vendor here," he replied. "She could be at one of the other shops." 

Fair enough. I closed the door and we headed back to the Furniture store, which was in the process of being reconverted into a series of offices. The workers had returned from lunch and the place was quite a bit noisier than it had been before we left.

Corb stared at the heavy stone waterfall. "Hmm," he said. 

This one I could not decipher. "What's the problem?"



"I'm just worried about how we are going to get the stone off the French cleat," he replied. "It's at least 100 pounds and once it's off the cleat, I am afraid about the two of us moving it safely to the floor." 

"Oh!" He meant me. I am not a great heavy lifter. I am good at many things, but heavy lifting is not one of them. My eyes to look around the room, at the men who were busily working on office space.

One handsome Portuguese dude caught my eye. I stared at him until he responded. "May I help you?" he asked, pleasantly. 

 "Would you be able to help us for a moment?" I asked, trying to sound my sweetest. "We need to get this stone of the wall and I am not the greatest help on account of the fact that I'm...old." 

He laughed and nodded his head. "Sure," he replied. 

Corb and him were able to lift it and move it down in about five seconds. After dutifully thanking him, we started on to our next order of business: moving it to the car. "There's a dolly in the Gallery," Corb said. "It's not huge but we should be able to move it more easily with that."

Now it was my turn. Dutifully, I headed back to the Gallery to retrieve the dolly. As I did, I passed the door that led into Shiplap. Right outside it was the glaring woman, still holding her two chairs. Oh! Clearly, she did have a space at the shop. In fact, I had mentioned to Corb that I liked her taste in furniture as we were entering the gallery. 

She saw me but lowered her eyes the minute I passed. I ignored her and moved to clear the space to gain access to the dolly. I lifted it, went back to Corb, and we started to push the heavy stone toward the Gallery. 

Once we arrived back, I looked at Corb. "You think you should move our car closer now?" I asked. "I don't think we really want to push this all the way to the end of the warehouse." 

"You coming with me?" he asked.

"I'll stay here and guard the waterfall," I replied. 

While he was away and I was waiting, I heard some noise outside the Shiplap door. Muttered conversation. Suddenly, an older lady with a smiling face poked her head into the hallway. "Hey there!" she said. "Is there a dolly in this hallway?" 

"There is!" I replied, trying to match her cheeriness. "Corb's using it to move a heavy stone. But it'll be free once he's moved it to the car." 

She nodded. "No worries," she replied. "Just curious." 



I nodded and she went back into Shiplap. I heard some additional conversation. Then Corb returned and we got to work removing the remaining lighting fixtures in the Gallery. 

Once we were done, we started pushing the stone out with the dolly. It was tough going, as the path to the parking lot was windy and the dolly was in danger of falling into the grass.

The older lady was standing outside Shiplap, and ran over the minute she saw us. "Corb, are there any other dollies around?" she asked. 

"There should be," Corb replied. 

"Too bad you can't use that like a skateboard," she joked. We smiled, weakly.

Five minutes later, the waterfall was safely loaded. We headed back into the Gallery. "Think we should offer the grouchy lady the dolly?" I whispered to Corb. He nodded.

I entered Shiplap. She was at her space and looked at me warily as I entered. "Hey there!" I said, trying to be cheerful. "Did you need to use the dolly? We're all done." 

She looked at me as if I had committed a mortal sin. "That's okay," she said, clearly unhappy with me. "I got through it."

I was not taking the bait. "Okay!" I said, as if it aint no thing, and exited. 

"That lady was not happy with us using the dolly," I said to Corb, as we drove home. 

"She was angry from the moment she saw us," he replied. "I think she was offended we didn't drop everything and help her move her furniture in."

"And maybe that I didn't hold the door open for her?"

"But how were we to know she worked there?" he replied. "She didn't introduce us or anything. I only realized she was a new vendor when I saw her near the Gallery."

This was a good point, and one we talked a lot about on the ride home. It was almost as if this lady was angry with us from the moment she saw us, or at the very least stressed about what she had to bring to the store. But that's rule number one when it comes to retail: make sure you have the resources you need, and if you don't, reach out for help. 

Corb knew he was going to need help with the waterfall today, which is why I went. When we realized it was a heavier job than I could handle, we nicely asked a worker there to help us.

This lady didn't even introduce herself. We had no idea who she was or what she was doing. She expected us to read her mind and was angry with us when we didn't drop everything to help us with her task. And, angry when we didn't just hand her the dolly right away and clearly complained about it to the older lady in the store (who Corb has a really good relationship with). 

In my mind? That suggests to me a retail person who probably won't be selling at the store a year from now. She clearly has the talent, but her attitude is a bit lacking. Half of the game in retail is not what you make, but how you present yourself. It's kind of like PR in a way...it's not just about the product. It's about the presentation.

The truth is, no one should be expected to be able to know what you want, unless you are able to give voice to it. That's just the way the world works. Note: this is not saying don't help people. It just means, you need to speak up nicely and represent what you need. People cannot anticipate your needs without being asked.

What's the worst they can say? As author Nora Roberts once noted, if you don't ask, the answer is always no.