Like a Chicken With Its Head Cut Off

I have been running around the store like a chicken with my head cut off for the past two days. Black Friday (otherwise know as retail hell) is right around the corner. In exactly one week the heart of the Holiday season has arrived and we don't stop until New Years.

Our goal has been to make sure that we are completely set for the Holiday season by this Friday. We have been ordering books and climbing the walls to fill overstock and ducking under tables to fill up the understock. If we put another book on the first floor it may cause a violent chain reaction that will end in K Square being covered in rubble and wrumpled pages.

It has been so hectic over these last few days that I know I completed numerous tasks I am just not sure how I actually got them done. I spent a majority of the days running up and down the 10 escalators in the building over our seven floors. So far in the past two days I have:

1) Helped run a major event with a "celebrity author"
2) Worked on typesetting our Gift signs and met to discuss the overall graphic design of these signs
3) Worked on our Holiday Ad campaign with the newspaper and designer for the company
4) Put together a $300.00 gift basket for our Holiday raffle (Thanks for the help K)
5) At least 50 other random things

Now, for those of you who know me you are probably going "Wow, I didn't know that you knew that much about advertising and graphic design." or "Hey, that must be fun working with 'celebrities'." Well, you are right I really don't know per se how to do a lot of the things I am asked to do and that contributes to the "Headless Chicken Syndrome" I suffer from. I have to figure all of these things out as I go and it involves a lot of questioning and making mistakes and working with some people who have done these things. I have to say it is all very fun but it is all very stressful. All of these things have deadlines and guess what- I STILL HAVE TO DO ALL OF THE OTHER THINGS!

This is the joy of retail management, it is an all inclusive task and you learn a little about everything and along the ride you meet some great people who can help you out.

Now it is time for me to go because I have just as many things to do at home that I really don't know how to do:

1) Laundry
2) Cook dinner
3) Pay bills
4) Pick up after the cats
5) Email
6) Sleep- this one is always the hardest!