Yesterday was my first official day as the Bike Manager at the store where I've served as a bike mechanic for most of the last year. It was a fairly uneventful day in terms of keeping busy. I am still in training mode but will get to sell some tonight and spent most of yesterday following other people in sales to see how they do it and to learn about some of the other specialty shops. Yesterday it was skateboarding, inline skates and exercise (both equipment and machines), today it will be golf.
There were a lot of reactions from coworkers to my change of apparel from a red, shop shirt to the blue shirt and tie that is worn by the sales staff. I came up with a few responses such as "I got dressed in the dark this morning" and "I made the mistake of telling them I owned a tie" just to mention a few. I've had people tell me I'm moving up, to which I respond that I'm not moving up, just to the other side of the counter. I love and respect the guys in the shop too much to act as though I'm more important than they are to the store.
I did get to help one of the new sales guys sell a bike at the end of the day. He doesn't know bikes too well and usually will be in sport & game, baseball, hockey... We tag teamed the sale and sent the customer off with a Gary Fisher Tassajara Disc women's bike that, I think, is a pretty sweet bike for the price. I let Keaton take credit for the sale since I don't even know how to report my commission stuff yet and since I'll also get a percentage of the bike department sales. I have to say it did feel very weird to bring the bike back to the shop to have it checked over. I told Lee, the shop manager, that it felt like I was doing something wrong, but I suppose I'll get used to it.
I also got a couple pieces of very fun news. The first is that I get to go to the Trek bikes mothership in Waterloo, Wisconsin next month for work. I know several of my friends who I just made incredibly jealous with that statement. It looks like it will be a three day trip and I'll be the only one from the store to go. I don't know if I'm driving or flying, but we may see about having the whole family go if I'm driving and if it's permissible by the company. The only downside is that it will only be March and I'm not sure that I'd be able to do much in the way of riding while I'm there.
The other fun news is that in addition to Trek, LeMond and Gary Fisher bikes, we'll be carrying a line of Orbea bikes. Orbea is a Spanish bike that I've been watching for the last several years in the pro ranks with the Euskaltel-Euskadi and Jelly Belly teams and is a gorgeous bike. The company is "making" us carry them. Oh well, if the company says we have to, I suppose we'll just have to suffer through having more beautiful bikes around.
So far, I love my job!
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
God at work (at work)
Today was an odd day at work. After helping lead services at both Mercy and Good Shepherd this morning, I headed into the shop for my last day as a service shop technician. Once I finally go to sleep tonight and wake up in a few hours, I will be headed to work in a tie for my first day as the Bike Manager at Scheels. Needless to say, there were opportunities to think about the things that I'll miss in the shop as well as things I'll gladly be escaping.
One advantage to being on the sales floor instead of the shop, is that I can excuse myself from conversations that go a bit too far in the shop. I probably could have excused myself previously, but where would I go? All of my work was in the shop, so it's not like I could have left for long. Now I'll have a bit more freedom to leave when it gets to be a bit too much.
In the midst of so much of the garbage that polluted the conversation today, there were glimmers of hope. Josiah, one of the sales guys that I'll be working with most closely and also a strong Christ follower, expressed that he was experiencing some of the same conversation and behavior as I was and is looking forward to having me out on the floor with him simply because the level of respect and maturity should go up.
I had also had a conversation with one of the other sales guys who mentioned that he has a birthday coming up and is really almost depressed about it even though he's several years younger than me (a fact I don't think he was aware of). Through his words, I sensed a recognition that he needs something more in his life than he currently has. Josiah has been spending a lot of time talking to him and I think that God is bringing him to the point where he will finally hit the end of himself and will have to determine who he wants to be.
At the end of the day, I got to have a conversation with the two guys that I had worked with all day in the shop. Profanity and sexual topics were streaming pretty steadily throughout the day, but one of them mentioned near the end of the shift that he was going to church that night. He said it seemed a small thing for him to do and that he needed to start "practicing it" more the rest of the time. He said he figured he'd probably go to Hell anyway.
This opened a conversation about faith as duty vs. faith as relationship that I really did not see coming earlier in the day. I did my best to express that the goal of faith is not behavior modification. "Time clock" christianity that is based on simple church attendance and trying to be good enough is not life giving, but just makes us feel guilty and condemns us to live a life of slavery to the standard that we create for ourselves and the laws that we create to help us live up to it. Faith as relationship, on the other hand, brings about change because of the love that we find for God through living life with Him over time. It is a life that ultimately leads us to a freedom that no external control or set of rules can ever hope to give.
I don't know if anything I said made sense or connected with the guys, but I left work today praising God for another unexpected opportunity to share what little I know of Him to someone who needs Him.
One advantage to being on the sales floor instead of the shop, is that I can excuse myself from conversations that go a bit too far in the shop. I probably could have excused myself previously, but where would I go? All of my work was in the shop, so it's not like I could have left for long. Now I'll have a bit more freedom to leave when it gets to be a bit too much.
In the midst of so much of the garbage that polluted the conversation today, there were glimmers of hope. Josiah, one of the sales guys that I'll be working with most closely and also a strong Christ follower, expressed that he was experiencing some of the same conversation and behavior as I was and is looking forward to having me out on the floor with him simply because the level of respect and maturity should go up.
I had also had a conversation with one of the other sales guys who mentioned that he has a birthday coming up and is really almost depressed about it even though he's several years younger than me (a fact I don't think he was aware of). Through his words, I sensed a recognition that he needs something more in his life than he currently has. Josiah has been spending a lot of time talking to him and I think that God is bringing him to the point where he will finally hit the end of himself and will have to determine who he wants to be.
At the end of the day, I got to have a conversation with the two guys that I had worked with all day in the shop. Profanity and sexual topics were streaming pretty steadily throughout the day, but one of them mentioned near the end of the shift that he was going to church that night. He said it seemed a small thing for him to do and that he needed to start "practicing it" more the rest of the time. He said he figured he'd probably go to Hell anyway.
This opened a conversation about faith as duty vs. faith as relationship that I really did not see coming earlier in the day. I did my best to express that the goal of faith is not behavior modification. "Time clock" christianity that is based on simple church attendance and trying to be good enough is not life giving, but just makes us feel guilty and condemns us to live a life of slavery to the standard that we create for ourselves and the laws that we create to help us live up to it. Faith as relationship, on the other hand, brings about change because of the love that we find for God through living life with Him over time. It is a life that ultimately leads us to a freedom that no external control or set of rules can ever hope to give.
I don't know if anything I said made sense or connected with the guys, but I left work today praising God for another unexpected opportunity to share what little I know of Him to someone who needs Him.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Daddy's Girl
Maia put on an impromptu concert the other day, complete with eyewear from the Elton John collection.
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