Homework - Strengths

All right, homework time.

One of the slides at the class I attended asked us to make an honest appraisal of our skills. There were four categories: strengths, weaknesses, talents, and skills/experience. So, here I am, starting with my strengths. If there's anything you'd like to add, please do.

• I'm level-headed. It takes a lot to faze me. I can deal with glitches and setbacks with a minimum of fuss.
  
  
• I'm realistic. Sure, you could call this whole opening a bookstore thing a big dream, but I don't have any illusions about what goes into it. It's not all the magical, inspirational hip stuff you see in the books and movies and TV shows where someone "owns a bookshop." Those characters close down and go haring off to chase after plot points whenever they feel like it. They drink trendy coffee with their friends and are wildly successful. Real booksellers don't live in posh apartments and aren't making tons of money. They work - sometimes ten, twelve hours a day. Or more. I know I can kiss vacations goodbye for a while, and that there will be bad customers along with the good. I remember the things that drove me crazy at Booksmith, and I know they'll still be there, waiting, when I open a store of my own. I'm okay with that.
  
  
• I'm a good listener. Sometimes it's less about selling someone a book and more about helping them in other ways, or getting to the root of a complaint and figuring out how to fix it.
  
  
• I'm articulate. For dealing with publishers and community relations, sometimes it's all in the presentation.
  
  
• I'm able to change with the times. I know this sounds like an odd one, but there are booksellers out there who don't have fax machines, let alone e-mail addresses or websites. Some of those who have had to close up shop have fought valiantly to keep up with the changing world of publishing and book-buying trends, but there are others who have failed because they refuse to change. What worked twenty or thirty years ago isn't necessarily going to work now. I might rail against "w00t" being added to the dictionary, but I can adapt to changes in bookselling.
  

There are a couple of other things I'm thinking of, but I would put them more under talents or skills/experience. Next up is weaknesses, but I want to mull over that one for a while.

Playing Catch-up

There are a few things I intend to post about over the next few days (I know, I've been terribly neglectful). I have been mulling over the aforementioned homework assignment in my head; it's just a matter of typing it out in some coherent form. I am taking tomorrow off and plan to get writing done on several projects I've been dithering over. That will be one of them.

In an attempt to go green at work, the reps were given Sony Readers. I am of mixed feelings about this, and it will take a full blog post to explore and explain. The short version is, great for work, not-great for anything else. But, I'll go more in-depth in the next few days.

I have some book-reviewing to do, and plenty of reading.

A brief bit of good news, so this post isn't just a list of good intentions:

Last Friday, my boss called me into her office with bonus information. I was pretty sure I wasn't getting one, or if I was, it would come in the form of a cookie and a pat on the head, with a "maybe this year will be better." 2007 wasn't a great year for my territory, and while I know there are things I could have done better (which I aim to fix this year), there are several things that were simply out of my hands. Booksellers were being more cautious last year, trying to order in smaller quantities and cut back on returns. Customers weren't buying as much (even though bookstore and retail sales did rise slightly, from reports I've seen.) There were a lot of good books out there from the competition, and the writers' strike hurt at least one of the titles we were counting on.

So, add that all together, and I figured that any bonus I got would be one that came from pity.

It turns out, this wasn't so. Our bonus plan was restructured last year, and I didn't realize just how different it was from the years before. Now, believe me, I am by no means going to be raking in the dough when this check comes in. There are not going to be any fancy dinners at, say, the Ruth's Chris Steak House around the corner, nor will I be buying myself a small tropical island.

But, I will be able to pay off my car loan a few months early. The last payment would have been due this coming November (and I drive a pretty cheap car), so it's not a huge sum, but it's not something I've been able to scratch up until now, either.

I've always been looking at that last car payment as the thing that would let me start saving for other things - the biggest of those other things being the bookstore. Since day one, the plan has been to take the money that had previously gone towards my car every month and apply some of it to other bills and some of it to savings. Now I get to do that nine months early. It's a really, really good feeling. That, along with taking the classes, makes me more able to see this bookstore dream becoming a reality.

Also, the business cards I ordered have arrived. I need to take a picture of one and upload it. They came out very nice. I feel all professional and stuff.