At my Dad's insistence......

I will be killing two birds with one stone this morning. I was gonna blog about my amazing Tuesday anyway so I mine-as-well "record every detail!!" (to quote my pop)

The company that owns Sears Portrait Studios & Picture Me Studios (the photo places in Walmart), CPI Corp, are doing corporate sweeps throughout the USA, Canada & (I think) Mexico. They are doing surprise visits to studios to make sure "All the Aces are in their Places" their quote not mine. Naturally for the 2 months now that we've known about these sweeps all the studio managers in my district and I'm sure every where have been freaking out! Except me. I was a little nervous sure but in the big scheme of things I knew that my studio would be fine. I was not expecting a win but I knew we would pass. I've said before and I'll say again my team is the Best in the (North)West!

On Tuesday morning (11/10/2009) who should come walking through our door.....Yep Corp! I was in the middle of taking pictures of my studio for my dist. manager with my cell phone when he walked in! I was like "Nice Heather, cell phone on the sales floor". We shook hands and a made a joke, "You Corp?" He said "Hmmm. Am I Corp? I guess I am. You the Manager?" "I am indeed!" I said. He handed me his card, I glanced at it and sat it down. He informed me he was going to look over our photography. I asked if it would be cool if I went about my business or if he needed me to hang out with him. He said he was good so I went to do manager type things. I went to make copies and called Michelle, my DM. "Fucking Corp is in my studio!!" "What?! Who?!" "Ranoldo. Ranato. I can't remember his name. " "RENATO!!!" "Yeah that's it. Is he ok?" "Yeah he's one of the good guys. Don't be nervous, you'll be fine."

I get back to the studio and he was up behind my register where all our drawers are. I assume he went through them but he never said anything. I asked him if he needed me to show him anything specific, paper work, props. No was his answer. I was kind of bummed because all my stuff was nice and in order waiting for inspection!

At this point he starts asking questions that I won't bored you with. We walked around the studio with him taking pictures of EVERYTHING!! Pictures on my wall, the front counter, my sales station, my cameras, he must have taken a hundred pictures! Some of the things we do at the studio aren't "corp approved" things. I have pictures of my girls on the wall, we don't use flip charts we use price sheets, bla bla bla. So he's looking at these things and I'm thinking "Crap! I'm gonna have to take this stuff away." HE LIKED 'UM! Even said "This is a good idea, I'm taking this back to corp!" (Thanks Trae!) He dug the picture of my girls.

Finally were standing up at the front and he asked "What do you think as a company we could do better?" I preceded to tell him just what I thought. "These $7.99 coupons are kicking our asses, the online appt. scheduler sucks, other than that it's cool!" "Oh and since I have you here maybe you can help me. I have a girl would has been, for the last year, screwed out a her raise. And I don't believe I make enough money. I'm not asking for a huge raise I just want what I deserve as a manager." Not in those exact words but you get the point. He's taking notes and listening to every word I'm saying and all in all being a really nice guy, so I say "Well how'd I do?" "I don't have a set criteria, I'm basically looking for good management good crews and well run studios. So Heather I think I'm gonna give you an Award for Excellance! Your studio just won $100! What do you think of that?"

Well let me tell you what I thought! I teared up and hugged him. "Are you serious?!? Oh my God!! Thank you so much!" He took my picture told me to have a nice Christmas and left. Wendy came running out of the camera room and we jumped up and down! We looked like big idiots! I called Michelle "WE JUST WON $100!!!" "YEAH, I KNEW YOU WOULD.....OMG I HAVE TO CALL CHERYL!! (her boss) Then she hung up on me.

I then preceded to call anyone who would answer the phone.

I got home that night and I was telling Terry all about it. He was like "So who was this guy?" I said not sure some field tech I think. No wait his card said Chief Executive Officer." Terry's like "You mean CEO!?!?!" Now before you think I'm stupid just know I didn't examine his card really closely and I just simply had not connected the dots. I hugged the CEO! I talked to him like he was just a random person. I TOLD HIM I DESERVED A RAISE!!!

It was truly awesome! I'm so proud of my studio. And just so you understand what a big deal this is, we are the only studio in our dist, region & market (of like 5 states) to have won yet. And only 11 other studios across the country have won. THE CEO OF CPI THOUGHT WE WERE AWESOME!!!!

Oh and FYI.......I got my raise!