Crackerjack Team

In the new paradigm I no longer try to do everything myself. Times were tough in the D and I had to save myself some money by not having parttime help….you can imagine how much fun I was. Starting out afresh with new people is always hard. I'm terrible at delegating, too busy multi-tasking to explain things AND not especially detail-oriented or organized. The most important thing I needed was someone who can sell, a closer. Someone with the confidence to sell a thing, even though they may not know much about it. I needed Jerry Meresky. He conveniently lives across the street, he's a closer. He used to have a furniture store in Detroit and offered to help me out. He's doesn't really need the money as much as something to do. He's free on the precious weekends and old school for real. Jerry is my 82 year-old sales associate. OK so the phone connection thing is too tiny for his fingers to plug it in and out of the fax machine. Forget it! he's a deal maker and knows how to move a heavy thing. He likes to work the crowd, smooth with the ladies (whooo-ahhhh). At the other end of the spectrum is my Sunday fill-in Jenna Zerbo. She's 22, cute as they come, and in-love with the stuff. OK she can't lift the 100# concrete Madonna. Hey, the men are falling over themselves to do it before she even thinks to ask. She works at Inn Season, our favorite vegetarian restaurant around the corner, and is use to waiting on customers. That two-page, neatly printed receipt with all the zeros she collected on a Sunday made my heart sing. Jenna it turns out, is also a closer. Plus she wants to work in exchange for stuff. You know I'm all about the barter!! My serious saving grace is behind the scenes. David King, who actually rents studio space from me, paints for me, runs interference with Hollywood (he use to work out there, he gets it), opens the store for customers that come off-hours, moves heavy stuff AND helps with the weeds…He listens to my rants, he's cerebral, intelligent AND easy on the eye. Down kitty. Last but certainly not least is Amy Nolfo Wheeler, the upstairs dealer that covers the store on Thursday and Friday. She's the other mom with muscle, thinks nothing of schlepping an oak entry door down the stairs by herself, NEVER misses a good garage sale, makes it all look like a million bucks upstairs AND drives in from Indiana every week. Are you feeling the love? how lucky am I? At the risk of sounding like I'm all that, here's what I think this is guys. You gotta make a nice place for luck to live in your life. I tell my kid this all the time, take an interest in other people, BE OF SERVICE. Sounds like a religious thing alright I can live with that. I learned it from my parents, I practice it everyday. I think if you work hard and try to help other people whenever you can, it will come back to you. When I made that early Saturday am call to David and said, "gee I messed up can you help me RIGHT NOW…I'm grateful that he wants to and will. Same for Jerry, Jenna and Amy. So when you get the call to help, I'm just saying that you ought-a should take it.