Typical Day
Tiffany opens up her shop every day at 9:00AM. Some say that's too early for a jewelry shop to open, but those people clearly don't understand the impulse-buy power of a bracelet covered in diamonds. Tiffany gets it; Tiffany's ready for anything.
Despite her faith in the early shoppers, mornings are usually pretty quiet. This one's no different. After setting up the displays and waiting patiently at the counter for a half-hour (during which nobody shows up), Tiffany opens up some jewelry design software on her computer.
Her store is near the beach in California, so she's been trying to come up with fresh new takes on beach-friendly anklets and pinky rings. Most of her new stuff has leaned heavily on brilliant colors—lots of turquoise and jade—and she's almost finished with a ten item line primarily featuring those colors and a few others.
Some customers wander in while she works, but there's not much to report in the way of big sales. Then Carla, one of Tiffany's two employees, shows up just before 12:00PM. Carla helps mostly with repairs and working behind the counter. Having some extra hands in the store is a huge plus and is especially valuable at this time of year, when Tiffany's focused on coming up with new designs.
"Hey Carla!"
"How's it going, Tiff? Working on any new designs today?" Carla asks.
"You betcha. Come check this out." Tiffany turns the computer screen to shows Carla a beautiful emerald bracelet cuff.
"If Eric proposed to me with that instead of a ring, I wouldn't even be mad," Carla says. "It's gorgeous."
Tiffany smiles. "Thanks. If you're alright up here, I'm going to go to the studio in the back and get working on it."
"Of course. Don't you dare come out until the prototype is finished. I'll buy that one today—can't wait to show it to my friends!" Carla's always really enthusiastic about the designs, which is nice, but it'd also be nice if she wasn't Tiffany's most frequent customer.
Tiffany heads back to the studio in the rear of the store. She adds some finishing touches to the design on her computer, then gathers up her tiny torches and metal pieces to start shaping the bracelet. It's 1:30PM by the time she's gotten the basic shape finished, so she decides to break and head out for lunch.
She recently had some small fliers made up to advertise her latest sale, so Tiffany decides to head to the mall and give them to her contacts at the food court restaurants. Of course, it doesn't hurt that she's been craving Marco's Mighty Tacos, one of the mainstays in mall dining. An hour later, she's five hundred fliers lighter and one burrito heavier, and she's even able to write that meal off as a business expense with the whole flier-distribution angle. Work smart—that's Tiffany's motto.
Tiffany arrives back at the store at 2:30PM. Not much happening, according to Carla, though she did sell a moderately expensive necklace. Also, some strange man called for Tiffany. Carla took down his number and left it on a sticky note back in the studio. Tiffany heads back to see what it was all about. She dials the number and a man with a soft voice but a salesman's directness answers.
"Hi, My name Robert Glitter," he says. "I saw your work at the craft fair last weekend and took your card. I was hoping we could start carrying your work in our shop in San Diego. Do you do much distribution? Could you direct me to a catalog where I can choose some designs?"
Tiffany tells him yes, of course, it'd be great to show some of her stuff in the San Diego store. She directs him to her online catalog and he places his first order—and it's a big one. Once the items are decided, Tiffany negotiates a retailer discount with Robert. Then she hangs up and runs out to tell Carla the news. Looks like this is going to turn into a busy afternoon after all.
Some of Mr. Glitter's order will come from front-of-store inventory, so Tiffany gives Carla that list and goes to the back to get started on some pieces that'll need to be newly made. At about 5:30PM, though, she's tired of tinkering with her hands and heads to the front for a breather.
It turns out she decided to head up there just at the right time, because a couple strolls in with the unmistakable glint of shopping-for-wedding-rings in their eyes.
"Can I help you two?" Tiffany asks.
"Yes, we're looking to have some wedding rings made, and we just saw a flier for your store over in the mall food court."
"Great!" Tiffany says. Mall marketing never fails. There's nothing Tiffany loves more than doing custom orders for weddings, so everyone involved is particularly giddy as they sit down at the computer to do some designing. The couple's ideas are a little disorganized, but they involve lots of diamonds, so it shouldn't be too hard to come up with something beautiful.
Tiffany's full of ideas; Tiffany has an impressive artistic eye; Tiffany's a genius; Tiffany loves positive affirmations as she works. After a half hour of fiddling around on the computer, the three of them come up with designs that everyone loves.
By the time the couple leaves it's already 6:30PM—only a half hour until closing. Tiffany sets Carla to work on tidying up the store and checking inventory. She heads once again to the studio to organize the pieces of her two big projects and write up a plan for tomorrow.
At 7:00PM, Tiffany and Carla head out. The sun sets late these days, so the horizon outside is a brilliant shade of reddish-orange. As Tiffany drives toward it she tries to capture the image of that exact color in her memory—maybe she'll be able to incorporate it into a piece of jewelry in the near future.