To the outside world, Meg Landry appeared slightly disorganized - the key word being 'appeared'. In reality, Meg was quite organized, just a little on the messy side. But her mess had a system to it. Admittedly it was a system only Meg herself understood but that was all about to change.
When Meg worked at Carrington's she'd kept her work area clean and very neatly organized. That was due in part because she was forced to share her work area, which consisted of a counter-height check-out desk. Department managers like herself were graciously (insert sarcasm) permitted to keep their papers and notebooks and the like inside the tiny shelf under the register or inside any drawers that had room to spare but this particular set-up 'did not an executive office make'.
Meg's plans for Chapters were quite different. She'd had the check-out desk specially commissioned for the store. It was large and spacious with several drawers and shelves beneath the space where the register, which was basically a computer with a flat screen monitor, keyboard and attached cash drawer and credit card set-up, sat. Although her things were already scattered inside the lovely drawers in a muddled, mixed-up, jumbled sort of way, she was about to buckle down and make sense of it all. Now that all of the books were cataloged and placed upon the bookshelves, she had plenty of time to redeem herself and get organized before the new crew arrived.
And Meg's new employees were due to arrive in less than an hour. She'd hired four individuals and after securing their employment, she planned an orientation session where she would get them acquainted with the store and do a little training. Only having met them at the interviews she'd conducted, she was looking forward to getting them all together at the same time. This would also provide her with an opportunity to see how they'd interact with one another.
She'd created binders for each of her new charges. Inside she included various papers they would need, including time cards, instructions for the cash register, store policies, a graph that depicted the location of the different book genres, and several other papers important to their jobs.
Meg piled the binders on top of the cash-wrap desk and prepared to insert them into the new Chapters tote bags she'd had embroidered with their initials, especially for each one of them. Inside the tote bags were their new employee shirts, also embroidered with their first names, an insulated hot/cold thermos with the Chapters logo printed on it (ordered expressly for the grand opening) and the employee binder she'd created for them.
Meg lined up the heavy canvas totes like gift bags next to the register with time to spare. She glanced at her watch and realized she had fifteen more minutes until they were due to arrive. As she stepped into the back room to grab a cold bottle of water from the mid-sized fridge she'd purchased for everyone's use, she heard the front door open.
It was none other than Albie Barton, one of Meg's oldest friends.
"Hey, Albs," she said. "I didn't know you were dropping by today."
Albie was short for Albert. Albie didn't particularly like the shortened version of his name but he liked 'Albert', his great-grandfather's name, even less.
"That's because I didn't know myself until about five minutes ago. I have an appointment less than two blocks from here and I had a couple minutes to spare. Here," he said, handing her a large plastic cup brimming with iced coffee and whipped cream, "I brought you a Starbucks."
Meg smiled. Albie called any drink from any coffee shop a "Starbucks." It just so happened that this particular time, her iced drink had, indeed, come from Starbucks. Meg immediately discarded her bottle of water in favor of her favorite coffee concoction. "Thanks. That was awfully sweet of you."
"That's me - so sweet," Albie said, as he pretended to straighten his already perfected knotted neck tie.
"You look very handsome and professional," Meg said, taking a long sip of her drink.
"I'd better," he said. "I'm meeting a new doctor today."
Albie was a very successful, very wealthy pharmaceutical sales rep. He made a good deal of money from his job promoting his company's prescription drugs to doctors but he made a great deal of money in the stock market. Bull market or bear market - for Albie it didn't matter. He had a gift for knowing what stocks were going to soar and he almost always managed to unload those that were about to plummet, usually just within the nick of time.
Meg had made a fair amount of money, herself, using Albie's tips. He'd shown her how to set up an online trading account so she wouldn't have to bother with a broker. Most of the time though, Albie was the one watching out for her shares, telling her when to sell and when to buy. Without his mentoring, Meg would never have accumulated enough money to bring to the table when she met with the bank requesting her business loan. A used book store venture was high risk and the bank's underwriters wanted to ensure that she was taking her share of the risk, too.
"Get a load of this place," Albie said, turning around. "It looks so different from when we first started moving in the shelving."
"I know," Meg said. "Having books on those shelves makes a big difference, too."
"I gotta give you credit, Megan-m'lady, you have certainly worked your magic this time. I am officially impressed."
Meg smiled, pleased with Albie's good-natured compliment. "Thank you."
Just as Albie was turning to leave, Lisa, Meg's youngest employee of nineteen years old, walked through the door.
"Hi, Lisa," Meg greeted her. "How are you?"
"I'm good," Lisa said with a friendly smile.
"You're actually the first to arrive," Meg said. "Why don't you stash your purse in the back and we'll wait for the others to get here."
"Okay," Lisa said, looking at Albie and smiling.
"I'm sorry," Meg said, remembering her manners. "Lisa, this is my friend Albie. And he was just leaving."
Albie rolled his eyes. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Lisa," he said, reaching out to shake her hand. "And Meg is right...I'm off to flirt with the nurses."
"Are you a doctor?" Lisa asked, clearly admiring him.
"Oh no," Albie said with a smirk. "I'm much more important than a doctor. I am a medicine man."
Lisa looked at him, unsure of what he meant but understood he was making some kind of joke. "What?" she asked, confused.
"Enjoy your day, ladies!" he called from the door. "See ya around, Lisa." And Albie was gone.
"Pay no attention to him," Meg said with a smile. "He's a goof."
Lisa giggled on her way to the back room. Charming and funny, Albie had that kind of affect on people.
Within five minutes, all four of Meg's employees had officially reported for duty. Lisa Anderson was a college student with plenty of flexible evening hours to work. Leslie Knight was the mother of two small boys and Chapters was the first job she'd had in more than two years. She'd been focusing on being a mom to her children but now that they were slightly more independent and easier to handle, she had her evenings free while her husband took over after his day job. It was a good solution for the couple. They could certainly use the spare cash and Leslie could use a little time to herself.
Clare Robinson-Black was a bit of a kindred spirit in Meg's eyes. Clare had put in her share of unappreciated hours as a hair stylist in a fancy salon that made more money than it's stylists did. Fed up with the long hours and cut-throat, competitive atmosphere, Clare decided to return to college and finish up her marketing degree. She was enrolled in undergraduate classes in the evenings in an attempt to earn her bachelors degree and in the meantime, she'd offered to put the knowledge she'd acquired in her classes to good use for the marketing and promotion of Chapters. It was a win-win situation.
Evelyn Banks, or Ev as she liked to be called, was Meg's fourth and final employee. Ev was a retired middle school teacher. Looking at Ev, it was hard to believe she was, in fact, old enough to be living on a pension. In fact, Meg wasn't even sure she qualified for her pension yet. She may have put in enough years but she was a youthful-looking sixty-years old and Meg wasn't certain she could even collect at that age. In most situations, a person needed to have their years in as well as meet certain age criteria. Perhaps that was why Evelyn was so adamant about working as many hours a week as possible. Having worked retail herself, Meg could appreciate the need for hours so she'd agreed to sign on Ev with full-time status.
Meg gave everyone a few moments to get settled and acquainted. She lead them to a beautiful conference table in the corner of the store with heavy, plush chairs framing it. The very sight of it excited Meg each time she laid eyes on it.
"Pretty table," Leslie said, running her fingers across the top as she chose a seat.
"Thanks," Meg said, proud of her furniture selection. In fact, she'd also purchased several leather wing-backed chairs that dotted the store with tall table lamps placed next to each one, to encourage a comfortable reading atmosphere. When she saw the conference table for the first time, she immediately envisioned holding team meetings at it and allowing it to be reserved by book club groups.
Everything - every last detail - had so much thought behind it. Everything had it's purpose.
"We actually have a very small private meeting room in the rear of the store," she explained. "I believe the space was used by the previous tenants as possibly a manager or boss's office but it was just enough space for me to furnish it with an identical set of table and chairs. I thought having a private meeting space, as some of the local libraries do, would be a good selling feature for the store. At least I hope it will be," she said, sounding a bit uncertain.
Meg had plenty of ideas and plans but it was yet to be said which ones would work and which would need to be scrapped altogether.
"I think that's a great idea," Ev chimed in. "The more we can offer the customers, the better. It all adds to the function and draw of the store."
Meg smiled, pleased to hear an unbiased opinion. Or maybe since Ev worked there now, she was biased. Either way, it was nice to hear positive feedback. Meg had spent a lot of time running her ideas past her friends and family but she knew they wanted her to succeed and that their reactions may be not quite as reliable as an outsider's.
For the next thirty minutes, Meg poured over all of the information stored in the employee binders. She wanted to be thorough but not to the point of boring them to sleep. She realized that most of the information could be read in their spare time so she began to wrap up that part of the orientation to focus on more exciting stuff like the grand opening that was taking place over the weekend.
"Before we get into the events of the opening, are there any other general or procedural questions you can think of right now?"
Everyone shook their head 'no'.
Meg nodded. "I'm sure as we get more involved in things, you'll come up with questions." Meg folded her own binder closed. "Is there anything you can think of that we need in order to get started?" she asked, referring to supplies or information.
"Yes," Evelyn said. "How about a man? It looks like we're an all-female operation around here."
Everyone, including Meg, laughed.
"You have a point," Meg conceded.
Meg was happy with the rapport she felt between her and the others. Before getting started on the next order of business, she lead them to the back room so they could choose a beverage from the fridge. She'd stocked it with several types of Snapple, pop and water.
She looked at her watch, noting that they had about three more hours to go. She secretly hoped that was enough time to get all the details and plans ironed out for the grand opening. It was imperative that the weekend be successful so she could use it as an opportunity to get as many people through the doors as possible. That was the only way to quash any preconceived notions and show the town how amazing, functional and enjoyable her used book store was going to be.
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