Lou Bartscher, owner of Carolina Moon, is Linwood Center Boutique’s Store Manager.
9/4/11 – This week has been very exciting for me working with Kyle and Timmy. We have had a lot of donations come to the boutique and we have been very busy moving everything out to the sales floor. We have created sale tables as well as a book table. Friday I was “caught” arranging books and Timmy wanted to know if I was “doing his job.” Timmy also was concerned that several of our children’s book shelves have been filling up and he wanted to suggest to me that we put them on sale. Now they are “buy one, get one free.” He knows that books are very special to me and when I am off next week he said that he will make sure that no one moves the books. “I got your back.” I have heard that more than once. (He also told me that I need a massage ,but I have that covered.)
Kyle is a hard worker, cutting his lunch break short because he can’t wait to get back on the floor. He is very thoughtful and thinks of others all the time. He has taken it on himself to carry the recycling back with him on a daily basis. He keeps me on my toes coming up with projects for him. If I am occupied elsewhere he will find something to do. We finished decorating our fall table, but I have to say Timmy displayed and Kyle made sure everything was clean. When they leave at the end of the day ,I am tired but happy.
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4/27/11 – I left the Outer Banks of North Carolina today at 5 AM to insure my arrival by 11AM to the boutique. Tired and a little anxious of what I had missed in my absence I was thrilled to see Timmy and Kyle waiting for me as I walked in the door. Timmy pretended that he didn’t miss me as he always does until he questions me on everything I did since I left including all my meals past and future. Kyle is excited as usual because of bowling tomorrow and his birthday next week. I was pleased to see that Kyle was still taking matters in his own hands as far as anything that needed to be done to finish a project. We sold a dresser thanks to Craig’s List and the guys were on top of the whole process of helping the customer successfully load the car. Timmy is taking on some new challenges of his own rather successfully I might add. I let Kyle decorate a candlestick display only to have Timmy jokingly say to him, “You aren’t taking my job are you?” I was happy to see all the new donations as well as my crew. Another hug from Kyle as they departed for the day.
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4/12/11 – After being gone for a long weekend, it was so nice to be missed by the guys. We had a productive day getting the store in order.. I made a mistake and left the scissors out and that is not cool around Kyle. When I came back from the restroom, he was standing nearby and I noticed what I did. I told him that I should not have done that and he said I know and I know not to touch them. As the guys were leaving, I recieved two hugs from Timmy. Even though everyone had walked across the bridge to go to the van, Kyle turned around and came up to me. I asked him what he wanted and he said a hug. That was the first ever and needless to say brought tears to my eyes. Retail has never been this satisfying.
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3/29/11 – Today was an amazing day with the guys. Several different times I was on the verge of asking Kyle to do a task only to find out that it was already done. For example we made a display (Timmy did) of wine glasses and bar “stuff’ and I started to pull out other related items from the china cabinet to move there. When I turned around to ask Kyle to take the pieces there, he had already done it and was on the way back. He put catagories in the computer of items to ring up before I could get the words out of my mouth. As I exclaimed my excitement he took great pleasure in seeing what he could do next to surprise me. Timmy is becoming the “decorator” of the different displays we create together. He loves to put items together that need assembling, and tries always to do this on his own. These guys are given instruction from me on tasks that take them across the room to figure out where something needs to go with very little information. It pleases me to no end when I discover that I told Timmy to find a display that an item would look good with, only by saying “put it by something purple or pink” and it is in a perfect location. These guys make me happy every day.