Life is Good (right now)

I will be working my last shift at the retail store tomorrow.  Easter was my breaking point.  I got to Mom's to pick her up for Easter brunch buffet with the whole family (M was in full mania).  Knowing the stress of trying to work 2 jobs to be able to maintain my Quilt Patis business coupled with family responsibilities/crisises, I was in tears.  I told her "I just can't do it all any longer."

After brunch M decided to make the move to go to the hospital for his "tune up" and I decided I needed to assess my life too.

• Retail job:  promises no advancement and highly stressful (IMHO due to constant understaffing and severe lack of communication).
• Temp job:  staff and management wonderful, respectful, communicates well… I feel valued.  Promises opportunity of turning permanent. 
• Quilt Patis:  my passion and has promise as long as I can otherwise support myself in the lean seasons.
• Family:  I love them even though I don’t like the stresses involved… but we are never promised life would be easy… I won’t divorce them.

When it comes right down to it the decision was easy.  I wrote my resignation that evening.  From that moment on I felt relax.   I actually wrote two resignations.  One gave an ending date and the other substituted the date with the word "immediately".  I had plans to switch out letters if there was any trouble with the manager accepting my resignation. There was a little resistance but not to the point I needed to do the switch.

In the two weeks since, I received an e-mail telling me that one of the trade magazines will be doing an article about me and my Butterfly Pincushion Pin Kits.  They also are giving me a Saturday to demo my technique at the Creative Festival in Cincinnati the 3rd weekend in June.  Then today I got 11 of the signed original (finished) butterflies in a local art gallery on consignment.  She priced them at $34.00 each. If you are in Columbus and would like to purchase one and see all of the other wonderful things she is showcasing this is the gallery... Galleria Evangelia, 4269 N. High St., Columbus, Ohio,  614-354-6557, www.galleria-evangelia.com .

So, with the help of prayer and faith the journey continues.

Close Enough?

In making my Quilt Patis for the last 15 years (oh my, it’s been that long?) I have always maintained a quality product.   I am very specific about accuracy.  I tell my die cutter “if the die is accurate, I will pay you for it” and he has been great about complying.  He understands the concept of Good Job = $$$. I have kept him because he does a good job. 

On the other hand, I have had to change the distributors who supply my raw plastic sheets.  I would find one that I try to explain the product, its usage and the importance of the accuracy. I am now working with the 5^th distributor over the years.  It has been my past experience that the women sales reps understand and as long as they handle my account I get the accuracy I want and need.  The men who have stepped in on when there is a staffing change have not. 

On my most recent order, my sales rep (female) was on vacation. The gentleman who took care of me was quite genial and assured me I would get exactly what I have been ordering (specs in the file) for the last couple years.  He got it to me in record time (2 weeks instead of the usual 6-7 weeks).  Yeah!

I have to further cut the 8’ x 4’ sheets down a near notebook paper size before I can take it to my die cutter.  While I was cutting the first third of this plastic I’m thinking, “is the cold really changing how easy this should be to cut with the rotary cutter?”  I noticed that a couple of the sheets were thicker and I set those to the side.  I went out and got a digital micrometer and started measuring.  Ha! It wasn’t my imagination.  Not one sheet was the .030” in my specifications even though it was the right type of plastic.  Oddly enough the sheets I could visually tell was too thick were marked in Sharpie pen .030 but were actually .069” when measured.

I started 3 weeks ago with an e-mail of my complaint to both sales reps.  Well, HE is the one who is in charge of correcting the mistake… As of our conversation this morning there is still no resolve.  He does not seem to understand that close enough is not good enough.

I started out trying to equate it with “If you go in for a knee replacement on your right knee and come out of it with the left knee replaced its close enough?”  He would laugh but still there has been no action.  Not sure what I will say the next time he asks if I can’t uses what I have got till he can get more to me.  Perhaps I will equate the close enough to the difference between a vasectomy and neutering… Right organ and great birth control but is it what he thinks is “close enough”?