CONFESSIONS OF A STARBUCKS PASTOR

In my first career out of college, I was in retail. I progressed from Management Trainee to Buyer in several steps within a couple of years. It was a lot of fun to display and distribute merchandise in departments and branch stores. But the most fun was actually selecting  the merchandise in New York and working the budget in order to purchase items for our stores. Once on the sales floor, we tracked the rate of sale and watched trends. This was all before computers so it was done with the phone, a legal pad and a calculator. If an item was selling fast, we would call the vendor and get a reorder in order to continue the sales trajectory. Department store executives could even spot a trend, call New York and get something specifically designed for their store. The energy was all about reacting to trends and market response. Sharp retailers even predicted their future markdowns. Every night I brought home my spreadsheets and studied what was happening to each item. Retail isn't ...

My husband is my case manager, and am I ever a case to manage. He sends me emails about renewing my medications. (Because we have to order them online and something always goes wrong and I end up yelling at the keyboard and pouting about how "they" are all "so stupid". If I don't take my simple meds, things go awry and let's not even talk about the $900 ambulance ride last Christmas. All because I ran out.) He left work early the other day to pick up a new laptop when the repair shop called to let him know the old one was dead. He could have just let it stay dead. But no, he wanted me to have some  new technology to yell at. We had like Windows 2 on the dead laptop. The new one has Windows 14 and a touch screen sensitive to sneezes. But I love it, once I learn the new keyboard and don't twitch I am sure it will work great! He waits patiently for me to come to realizations. Like the refrigerator contents. I like to keep at least 4 packages of Parmes...