An educational field trip

Well, I spent the day out of town yesterday and left the store to Milton3P0. He arrives at the store every morning at 8:00 because that is when his mom can drop him off. She can pick him up at two or four so he has to know what time he's allowed to leave as soon as he arrives. I should mention, he's 39 years old. Anyway, I called yesterday when I was headed out of town to check out a few other bookstores and I called. I called at 8, 8:30 and 8:45 with no answer. I waited until a few minutes after nine and called again. He answered on the first ring with a "Good morning sir, are you the one that's been calling sir?" "Yes Milton, that was me." He replies "My sincere apologies sir, the store hours are only nine to two so I do not feel obligated to answer the phone before nine sir." I told him it was okay and if he was going to be in the building using my high speed internet connection and on the clock it was okay to work a little bit. He said he would be most ecstatic to comply with my request.

So, the day was good. I learned a lot about running a bookstore and met a few people that gave some very helpful tips and pointers. I also learned that I'm going to have more than enough space for everything and that I've got a ton of work to do to get the place ready. This building looks like it was sent through a time warp right out of 1974. I've got a raw plywood ceiling, the simulated wood panel walls, and the first ever building to have carpet tile. The carpet tile is somewhere around 15 years old. Just to get everyone a clear picture of what the now faded carpet tile looks like, the building is such that the spiders moved out of the cobwebs because there was too much dust. I would venture to say the building hasn't been cleaned in 15 years so this will be a busy weekend. The good news is I have a plan, and one that looks like it will unfold nicely. I informed Milton of the plan this morning and told him what we'd be doing today and he said "That's great sir. To be perfectly honest with you sir because I'm a straight shooter sir, I had my doubts about you when you arrived but now I think you'll do just fine here sir." I wasn't sure how to take that, but I guess it was a compliment.