Car Trouble

The driver's side door on my car won't open. Something about the electric locking system...it's locked shut and no amount of fiddling, coaxing, swearing or even key-using will get it open. It's been like that for just over a week. So in order to drive from Point A to Point B in the last week, I've had to climb over the center console to get to the driver's seat. Now...I am a 51-year-old size 16 woman. Climbing over the center console is, well, let's just say my son thinks it's pretty darn funny!

Fortunately, today I have a loaner car so that my car can go to brother-in-law's shop. (Brother-in-law is a mechanic.) In order to change the locking system, the inside door panel has to come off. In order to get the door panel off, the door really has to open. Let's hope brother-in-law has a few more coaxing swear words in his arsenal so HE can get the door open!

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The Impossible Customer

I have a dilemma. I have a long-time customer--we'll call her Anna--an elderly lady who really likes a bargain, if you know what I mean. She bought a pair of ear sweeps last weekend. A day or two later she called me and said that she had lost one and asked about a replacement. I told her I'd be happy to make one and the cost would be 1/2, since I would only be making one earring instead of a pair, so that would be $9.50. The next day she called me back and told me that she felt I should give her the replacement earring, since she has brought me "so many" customers over the years. And since it was the second time she had lost one of her ear sweeps. Oh, great.

First I told her I couldn't be responsible for how a piece of jewelry is taken care of once it leaves my store, and it certainly wasn't my fault that the earring got lost. She responded that she understood that, but that she had been such a good customer, and she had brought so many people to my store, that she felt she deserved this special treatment. I then asked her if I should have the same policy of replacing lost jewelry for every customer who may have brought in a friend over the years, and if not then how was that fair to the others, and if so then how am I supposed to make a profit and stay in business? No response except to repeat what she had said before. Very whiny-like. She brought me "all those people who bought stuff." I think that's pretty audacious. She's apparently got quite an exaggerated sense of her importance. She's not even in the top 20 of all the customers who have brought me additional business by bringing in friends and family. She doesn't even come in all that often. Once or twice a year, and usually only when she's coming to Cocoa Village to go to the Playhouse for a Sunday matinee. She actually buys maybe every third or fourth time she comes in.

And then when Anna buys, she buys stuff on sale. She asks me what stuff is on sale, and when this item or that item will be going on sale. If what she wants isn't on sale she sighs loudly and puts it back. She put off buying a pattern wire bracelet (like the one pictured) years ago because it wasn't on sale and she thought it was too expensive. That was before gold went up to over $1400 per ounce. NOW the price on that same bracelet is $150.00. When Anna was in last weekend, she whined that she "should have bought it back then because look at the price now." Yeah, well...!

I do feel a little sense of loyalty to her because she has been a customer since before I opened my store. That's more than 18 years. She's given me some business, and she's brought me some business. Probably enough to warrant giving her a $9.50 earring so I'll make her happy and keep her business. But if I don't give her the earring and I lose her business, it really won't be much of a loss. Sigh. I'm probably going to give her the earring, but I am DEFINITELY going to make sure she understands this is a one-time thing, and that I will not be responsible for replacing anything more that she loses! And then I won't see her for 6 months or a year, until the next time she comes in and whines about wishing she had bought that bracelet 5 years ago........

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New Year

I love the new year. New Year's Day is actually one of my favorite holidays. I can't help but get inspired by all the possibilities. Yes, I know January 1st is just another day, following all the other days before it. For me it's psychological, I guess. The beginning of a new calendar. The first week of the first month of the year. My Quickbooks program has the same year-to-date comparison numbers for the day, the month-to-date and the year-to-date. The only day of the year that that is the case. It's the "newness" of a New Year!

Now, I don't make resolutions per se, but I do always evaluate where I am and what goals I'd like to work on accomplishing. My intention this year was to write my email newsletter more often, to post on my Facebook business page more often, and to blog more often. You can see how well that's working out so far--it's the 8th and this is my first blog post of the year! Ack!

Although all those "more often"s are specific steps toward my goal, the actual goal itself is to interact more with my customers. I'm a one-woman operation, so when you deal with Contemporary Concepts you deal with me. The world is getting smaller, you know, and I've been at this jewelry thing a long time. I have friends, fans, and customers all over! I want to hear from all of YOU more often, and I intend for you to hear from me, too. Yay for the internet and social networking!

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Happy Anniversary to Me!

I'm celebrating my 18th anniversary in my store this week! I opened my doors here in Cocoa Village the beginning of December 1992. It feels surreal to even say that--eighteen years. And you know what? I still can't wait to get here every day! So here's to at least eighteen more.....!

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A Clean Work Space

I cleaned my desk Friday.

Such a simple statement, but if you had any idea what it looked like BEFORE Friday, you'd know what a big deal it really is! I haven't seen the top of my desk in over 4 years. I know it's been that long because that's when I emptied out my shop and painted the walls, then put everything back all organized and fresh.

It took me 10 hours. I started at about 10 in the morning and didn't finish until 8 that night. And truth be told, I'm still not quite done. The biggest issue was the years' worth of little wire scraps that were jumbled together in a giant mound covering most of the desk. In order to send the scrap wire back to the refiner, I had to separate the gold from the silver. And I didn't quite finish. I separated about 20 ounces of wire, but I've got 6 or 8 ounces still to separate. I have to wait for my poor, hunched-over shoulders and back to recuperate before I can tackle the rest of it.

But I'm SO excited that my desk is clean! What is it about a clean working surface that just inspires you to get down to business? I've been pretty productive. In fact, that's why it took me a couple days to even blog about it...I've been busy making stuff and didn't want to take time out to take a picture and write a post! Mostly I've been making ear cuffs, and you'll find some new ones listed in my Etsy shop. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get back to work...

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My Bad

It's horrifying how long it's been since I blogged! I swear I've meant to post something nearly every day for the last two weeks. I even had things in mind to write about! There are just never enough hours in the day.

I HAVE been working, though! Since this is a quickie-post, I'll just put up a picture of one of the rings I made recently. A new style using two 8mm beads, this one with blue lace agate and moonstone (made for a special order for a customer who found me on eBay).

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World Map

The shop next door to me, Village Home (see their blog link down in my Favorites), has a map of the world where they put a pin for each customer who comes in from out of town. It's a cool idea, and one that I blatantly stole recently!

Not too long ago, I was getting some packages ready to mail out and one of the packages was going to Israel. In all the 26 years I've been making jewelry, I never sent a package to Israel before. That's when it occurred to me that people coming into my store might think it was interesting to see all the places in the world where my jewelry lives. I bought a really big map, mounted it on styrofoam, and put it up on the wall behind my ring case. I only had records going back about a year, but that's still a lot of pins--took me about 4 hours to put them all into the map. And I didn't put a pin in for every single package I mailed out--there are only so many pins you can stuff into a tiny space indicating a big city like New York or Washington DC! In fact, the whole US Eastern seaboard is pretty full! It's hard to see the pins in a picture incorporating the whole map, but there are pins in every state in the United States except Wyoming, plus several in Canada, Australia, and the UK. In addition to Israel, some of the more "interesting" places are: Sweden, Norway, Japan, Portugal, Spain, Iceland, and Malta! Yes, Malta--is that cool or what?!

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Uptown Magic

This is "Uptown Magic", from The Luella Collection. Just finished last week. The center pieces were a pair of vintage clip-on earrings. I've added the swirls of gold wire and the dangling pink Czech fire-polished beads. Suspended on french earwires, these beauties measure over 3" long. One of a kind and sure to get noticed! I'm thinking...holiday parties? On sale in my Ruby Lane shop.

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