Indianapolis, Indiana

I had a business trip this week, usually I get to go to fun places like NYC, or Baltimore, or Chicago. This time I had to go help open up a series of stores in Indianapolis, Indiana. We are taking over the management of a few stores in the area, and are working on preparing them for back to school Rush which starts in three weeks. I spent a majority of my week leading the employees in the textbook department and running reports and shelf tags. The current employees are not used to the new system and because of the transition.

I always love business trips, I love working with new people, I enjoy my dinners in the hotel restaurant sitting at the bar with my book, and most importantly I love to walk into a new store and kick some ass. This store was a bit different, they have been transitioning for 10 weeks now, and a number of different managers, I was on the team with J from Delaware and S from Ohio State, they got to the store on Monday and I didn't arrive until Tuesday. They were amazing, and did exactly what I do when I get into a store to help out, they made a game plan and attacked. It was great to walk into a well oiled operation, but I quickly noticed that if J, S, or myself did not take control then nothing would get accomplished. So, I took over the floor operations on the text book floor. I soon met M, who was going to be the person taking over the store. M was going to be great for the store, except that she needed to take some control. There is just so much to do. We worked 16 hour days from Tuesday through Friday and got tons of stuff done. J was amazing, she is one of those rare female managers that can be direct and do what needs to be done, and also be a ton of fun. We got along great and spent a good bunch of the time we had off either in the gym or at the hotel bar.

As usual however, this business trip was not all fun and games, when I got there on Tuesday, I called the hotel to make sure things were all set because I knew that I would be checking in late. However, when I got to the hotel, they had no room for me. On Thursday morning I didn't receive a wake up call from the hotel, and overslept my 6am meeting time. Ah yes, and the two hour flight to Boston somehow turned into 4 plus hours on the plane. So it was the usual trip for me.

Indianapolis is an interesting place, it is a supposed city, but there is no traffic, and at about 9:00pm there is nobody on the street. I went for a walk one night in downtown and I didn't run into anybody, the bars and restaurants were all empty it was all very very odd. Anyway, I am trying to combine a week's worth of stuff all into one post and I am not being very successful, so I am going to end this post and hope that my next post is slightly more successful...