I spend a lot of my time during the week at my cozy little shop which is inside of a 1,000 square foot room located at a strip mall called The Robinson Center. On the left of my shop is a famous City of Robinson eating establishment called The Rocket Café, which may serve the best burgers, fries, onion rings, etc. in the entire state of Texas. People come from miles around just to eat there. And on the right side of my shop is a mom and pop donut shop called Bakery Donuts. And early every morning the place is packed with customers who want a little taste of heaven as they start their work day. So yes, I struggle to keep my weight down and fighting temptation as I am always smelling cooking burgers on my left and donuts on the right while I try to work. To satisfy my urges, I now eat what is famously called Pipestud’s Donut Burger, and as you can see in this photo, it is spectacular!
When I am not eating donut burgers I do enjoy working in my shop and just for fun, thought I’d share a few photos of where I spend most of my time preparing for each Saturday’s new listings. I also included a photo of my shop dog. Her name is Mia and she is a 14-year old mix of this and that, and is a rescue that my wife and I took in when she was just two years old. She also likes donut burgers!
I keep a nice little refrigerator and microwave in my shop – you know, for Mia in case she ever gets hungry, and you may find a Gatorade or two in the fridge for me – to wash down those donut burgers with, but otherwise it’s pretty bare. And of course, I do have a signed photo of my all-time favorite athlete, Muhammed Ali. Otherwise, the walls in the shop are fairly bare. Since my business is Internet only, I don’t need to fill the walls up with photos, plaques, awards, etc. Nobody would come in to see them.
This is my work desk where I sit and do most of my work each day. During the week I am at this desk uploading the photos of all the tobaccos that I will be listing for sale, answering emails (a bunch of them each day), and hunting down item descriptions for the many tobaccos that I receive so that my potential buyers have a good idea of what each tobacco consists of in order to make an informed decision as to whether they want to pull the trigger! And of course, where I fulfill the orders.
When it is time to pack for shipping, I hunt down each buyer’s tins by going to my aphetically arranged stock shelves and remove the purchased tins and take them over to my shipping table to pack the orders. I know that I can’t beat Amazon, but I try to have as many orders packed for shipping as possible, and have as many shipping labels purchased as possible on Saturday evenings, so that I can drop them off at my local USPS’s shipping bin on Sunday mornings around 6:00 AM so that the post office will have them shipped on Mondays. This is certainly the most time consuming part of my job, and requires total concentration so that I don’t goof up – which, unfortunately, I do on occasion. )-:
The parking lot in the strip mall where my shop is located, is always full. Not only does the Rocket Cafe’ and Bakery Donuts get a lot of customers, there’s also a flower shop and a laundromat in the mall that get a lot of attention, too. It was getting to where I couldn’t find a place to park, and I usually try to get as close as possible to my shop because I always have a lot of packages to take in and out. So, one Sunday evening when it was late and the parking lot was empty, I put up a parking sign right by my shop’s front door. So, now I can park with no trouble. Am I sneaky or what?
Steve
