Chickenlips Knitting

Love knitting so much that you dream of working in a LYS? If you land a job in one, I hope it is truly everything you want it to be. Let me just say that there's a big, BEEG difference between being paid to sit and knit all day--(if you want to do that, be a test knitter)--and working in a LYS. Because as nice, friendly and charming as yarn shops are, (uh oh here comes the kvetching,) it is still retail, folks. Reee-tayylll. What you earn isn't enough to pay the bills, and sometimes--not all the time, but sometimes--you have to take crap. Sometimes from customers, sometimes from management. The crude expression I first heard at my first job as a teen still rings true: shit does, indeed, roll downhill.

Yeah, the honeymoon's over. Blinders came off today, so to speak, and I now have a much clearer picture of the establishment in which I work and how it is run. The reality is harsh when you finally see it for what it is: as an employee, you represent X amount of dollars. Expenditures: your wages. Those may be partially offset by the earning potential you bring to the establishment. Clearly, and contrary to what I believed when I started this job, what I have to offer is of no value to management. And even though it stung to find that out, I'm glad I know what's what. Very glad, in fact, that I learned the truth sooner rather than later.


Do I want to continue working there? Yes, for the time being. I can knit while at work, as long as the shop isn't busy and I am making something for the shop. I have a co-worker who is intelligent and pleasant, whose company I enjoy. The overwhelming majority of the shop's customers are nice people, and a lot of them bring their dogs, so that's a bonus. But it is just a job, after all. All I owe the proprietress is a full shift of required tasks correctly executed, nothing more. And I shall conduct myself accordingly from this day forward.

Website updated!

Since I'm no web wizardress, I used a sucky template from Yahoo Web Design--however, there is now a lot more to stitchjones.com than a single page. It'll take quite a lot more time and work to build the kind of website I want, but for now at least visitors can see who I am and what I do. My goal is to do something each day to develop and expand this fever dream I call a "business plan". I actually have a sales appointment tomorrow, so I really should get my beauty sleep. Nity nite all, thanks for staying up with me over warm milk. And I'll do my damndest not to grouse any more about where I work, because I'm well aware that the decision to cast myself into a sea of financial insecurity was mine. It's just that no matter how much we think we want something, the unforeseen has a way of knocking us on our round little asses. Such is the case with how my day went.