Orland Park

So this Thursday and Friday I made my way to the suburbs with a small troupe from our Lincoln Park store to help out with the opening of the Orland Park store at the Orland Square mall in Orland Park, yes... the suburbs. I have been one to say that it takes a might good reason for me to trek out to the suburbs, after all I do not own a car and the city has way more interesting things to do anyway...in short "I don't do the suburbs".

DAY 1
So after a 40 minute ride full of PB gossip and drama, many wondrous moments of "where the heck are we", and one dead dear on the roadside, with Claire and Robbie in Claire's car we arrive at the mall and make our way to the new store. It is beautiful! New wood, clean floors... well, clean everything and completely empty. It was like being in an art museum, with no art. We have a group meeting (the first of many to come) and find out that we will only be working till one pm because the truck in fact was a day late. Boo on you UPS! So we spent the next 5 hrs doing a lot of nothing, but labeling shelves and having pep meetings. Oh joy oh bliss. The day was topped off at end with a great lunch meal with my Lincoln Park crew in the food court... yes a real live mall food court. Robbie Claire and I return to the great city in the car full of more gossip and drama, but this time about all the crazies we met that day.

DAY 2
Another early morning meeting at Starbucks for Robbie, Claire and I. The ride was great this time as we did not need to concentrate on our route as Claire had mastered it well the day before. So, we spent our time reminiscing on the insanity of the day before. We arrive again at the store, have a round up meeting and get to work. I was given the job of scanning the truck with another guy (who was new, and a little annoying..to say the least) We scanned a 50 ft truck with around 576 pieces total, of which most were rods, rugs, and heavy coffee tables. The truck took about only 2 hours or so to finish scanning an unloading. I won the unofficial contest of who scanned the most pieces by a mere 10 pieces! (I pretended to not want to scan more or have any interest in it, but basked in my glorious win over mr. crazy whom I had to work with. Time for lunch and a shopping trip to Williams Sonoma, where I bought a beautiful awesome waffle iron.
The second truck had 2500 pieces in a 50 ft semi also. I had to scan this time also and the same guy on the other side. We had a team of 3 persons moving boxes for us at first and by the end about 6 people each. I secretly gloated inside when the GM took scanning duty away from the other guy and passed it on to someone who new the product better. I loved it. This time I won the unofficial race again. I scanned 1476 pieces and the others scanned just over 1000. yes oh yes. What a joy.
Claire, Robbie, and I couldn't wait to get out of there at 5pm. We got caught in rush hour traffic but used our extra time wisely to talk about people we could not stand form the day. Are we mean? well.. probably a little, but come on... if you had to work with some of the crazies, you would be too!